From 11d01ded583b58780850070eb89224cb732c235f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Haximilian Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 16:14:13 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Version 1.0.0 This is the first working version of Fortune Lite. All of the most basic features are available. --- .gitignore | 10 + .todo/config | 11 + .todo/done.txt | 0 .todo/report.txt | 0 .todo/todo.txt | 1 + LICENSE | 202 + README.md | 37 + fortune_lite/__init__.py | 191 + fortunes/art | 2279 ++++++ fortunes/ascii-art | 150 + fortunes/computers | 5602 ++++++++++++++ fortunes/cookie | 5711 ++++++++++++++ fortunes/debian | 406 + fortunes/definitions | 5667 ++++++++++++++ fortunes/disclaimer | 580 ++ fortunes/drugs | 1155 +++ fortunes/education | 952 +++ fortunes/ethnic | 851 +++ fortunes/food | 886 +++ fortunes/fortunes | 916 +++ fortunes/goedel | 204 + fortunes/humorists | 1029 +++ fortunes/kids | 711 ++ fortunes/knghtbrd | 2342 ++++++ fortunes/law | 1296 ++++ fortunes/linux | 1834 +++++ fortunes/linuxcookie | 496 ++ fortunes/literature | 1329 ++++ fortunes/love | 574 ++ fortunes/magic | 194 + fortunes/medicine | 423 ++ fortunes/men-women | 2561 +++++++ fortunes/miscellaneous | 1767 +++++ fortunes/news | 260 + fortunes/off/art | 6 + fortunes/off/astrology | 289 + fortunes/off/atheism | 14254 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ fortunes/off/black-humor | 1949 +++++ fortunes/off/cookie | 40 + fortunes/off/debian | 127 + fortunes/off/definitions | 1411 ++++ fortunes/off/drugs | 360 + fortunes/off/ethnic | 1092 +++ fortunes/off/fortunes | 4 + fortunes/off/hphobia | 405 + fortunes/off/knghtbrd | 59 + fortunes/off/limerick | 6370 ++++++++++++++++ fortunes/off/linux | 50 + fortunes/off/misandry | 84 + fortunes/off/miscellaneous | 335 + fortunes/off/misogyny | 297 + fortunes/off/politics | 2018 +++++ fortunes/off/privates | 1012 +++ fortunes/off/racism | 15 + fortunes/off/religion | 1383 ++++ fortunes/off/riddles | 1111 +++ fortunes/off/sex | 4600 +++++++++++ fortunes/off/songs-poems | 2279 ++++++ fortunes/off/vulgarity | 1096 +++ fortunes/off/zippy | 1289 ++++ fortunes/paradoxum | 199 + fortunes/people | 4352 +++++++++++ fortunes/perl | 1026 +++ fortunes/pets | 193 + fortunes/platitudes | 1371 ++++ fortunes/politics | 2985 ++++++++ fortunes/pratchett | 9 + fortunes/riddles | 569 ++ fortunes/science | 3029 ++++++++ fortunes/songs-poems | 7156 ++++++++++++++++++ fortunes/sports | 814 ++ fortunes/startrek | 826 ++ fortunes/tao | 1241 +++ fortunes/translate-me | 58 + fortunes/wisdom | 1654 ++++ fortunes/work | 2725 +++++++ fortunes/zippy | 1289 ++++ requirements.txt | 0 scripts/fortune | 99 + setup.py | 108 + 80 files changed, 112265 insertions(+) create mode 100644 .gitignore create mode 100644 .todo/config create mode 100644 .todo/done.txt create mode 100644 .todo/report.txt create mode 100644 .todo/todo.txt create mode 100644 LICENSE create mode 100644 README.md create mode 100644 fortune_lite/__init__.py create mode 100644 fortunes/art create mode 100644 fortunes/ascii-art create mode 100644 fortunes/computers create mode 100644 fortunes/cookie create mode 100644 fortunes/debian create mode 100644 fortunes/definitions create mode 100644 fortunes/disclaimer create mode 100644 fortunes/drugs create mode 100644 fortunes/education create mode 100644 fortunes/ethnic create mode 100644 fortunes/food create mode 100644 fortunes/fortunes create mode 100644 fortunes/goedel create mode 100644 fortunes/humorists create mode 100644 fortunes/kids create mode 100644 fortunes/knghtbrd create mode 100644 fortunes/law create mode 100644 fortunes/linux create mode 100644 fortunes/linuxcookie create mode 100644 fortunes/literature create mode 100644 fortunes/love create mode 100644 fortunes/magic create mode 100644 fortunes/medicine create mode 100644 fortunes/men-women create mode 100644 fortunes/miscellaneous create mode 100644 fortunes/news create mode 100644 fortunes/off/art create mode 100644 fortunes/off/astrology create mode 100644 fortunes/off/atheism create mode 100644 fortunes/off/black-humor create mode 100644 fortunes/off/cookie create mode 100644 fortunes/off/debian create mode 100644 fortunes/off/definitions create mode 100644 fortunes/off/drugs create mode 100644 fortunes/off/ethnic create mode 100644 fortunes/off/fortunes create mode 100644 fortunes/off/hphobia create mode 100644 fortunes/off/knghtbrd create mode 100644 fortunes/off/limerick create mode 100644 fortunes/off/linux create mode 100644 fortunes/off/misandry create mode 100644 fortunes/off/miscellaneous create mode 100644 fortunes/off/misogyny create mode 100644 fortunes/off/politics create mode 100644 fortunes/off/privates create mode 100644 fortunes/off/racism create mode 100644 fortunes/off/religion create mode 100644 fortunes/off/riddles create mode 100644 fortunes/off/sex create mode 100644 fortunes/off/songs-poems create mode 100644 fortunes/off/vulgarity create mode 100644 fortunes/off/zippy create mode 100644 fortunes/paradoxum create mode 100644 fortunes/people create mode 100644 fortunes/perl create mode 100644 fortunes/pets create mode 100644 fortunes/platitudes create mode 100644 fortunes/politics create mode 100644 fortunes/pratchett create mode 100644 fortunes/riddles create mode 100644 fortunes/science create mode 100644 fortunes/songs-poems create mode 100644 fortunes/sports create mode 100644 fortunes/startrek create mode 100644 fortunes/tao create mode 100644 fortunes/translate-me create mode 100644 fortunes/wisdom create mode 100644 fortunes/work create mode 100644 fortunes/zippy create mode 100644 requirements.txt create mode 100644 scripts/fortune create mode 100644 setup.py diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38aa585 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitignore @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +# Ignore compiled databases: +**/*.db + +# Ignore Python Build Utilities: +**/venv +**/__pycache__ +*.egg-info +*.pyc +/build/ +/dist/ diff --git a/.todo/config b/.todo/config new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7f3e24 --- /dev/null +++ b/.todo/config @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +# === EDIT FILE LOCATIONS BELOW === + +# Your todo.txt directory (this should be an absolute path) +export TODO_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" > /dev/null 2>&1 && pwd)" + +# Your todo/done/report.txt locations +export TODO_FILE="$TODO_DIR/todo.txt" +export DONE_FILE="$TODO_DIR/done.txt" +export REPORT_FILE="$TODO_DIR/report.txt" + +# == EDIT FILE LOCATIONS ABOVE == diff --git a/.todo/done.txt b/.todo/done.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e69de29 diff --git a/.todo/report.txt b/.todo/report.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e69de29 diff --git a/.todo/todo.txt b/.todo/todo.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b13789 --- /dev/null +++ b/.todo/todo.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ + diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d645695 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE @@ -0,0 +1,202 @@ + + Apache License + Version 2.0, January 2004 + http://www.apache.org/licenses/ + + TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE, REPRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION + + 1. 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We also recommend that a + file or class name and description of purpose be included on the + same "printed page" as the copyright notice for easier + identification within third-party archives. + + Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner] + + Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); + you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. + You may obtain a copy of the License at + + http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 + + Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software + distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, + WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. + See the License for the specific language governing permissions and + limitations under the License. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5c19e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +# Fortune Lite + +The lightweight python-based fortune cookie generator + +## Usage + +| Argument | Description | +| :--- | :--- | +| -h,
--help | Prints a help-dialogue and exits. | +| -v,
--version | Prints out version information and exits. | +| -a,
-all | Selects from all databases, including offensive fortunes. | +| -e,
--equal | Makes it equally likely that the fortune will be selected from any given category, as opposed to making all fortunes equally likely regardless of category. | +| -f,
--categories | Instead of printing a fortune, just print a list of all fortune categories (files). | +| -o,
--offensive | Only print fortunes marked as offensive. | +| -w,
--wait | Wait the specified number of seconds after printing the fortune before exiting. | + +## Database Locations + +Unlike other fortune programs, Fortune Lite is designed to parse fortunes out of specialized SQLite databases. By default, the Fortune Lite program looks for a database at *~/.fortune.db*, and falls back to the prepackaged database if not database is found in the user's home directory. +Additionally, the `$FORTUNE_DB` environment variable can be used to override the default database locations, in which case the fortune program will only fall back to the default locations in the event that no database is found at the location stored in `$FORTUNE_DB`. + +## Building from Source + + 1. Acquire the source code: `git clone https://github.com/haximilian/fortune_lite.git`. + 2. Enter the source directory: `cd fortune_lite` + 3. **(optional)** Checkout the version you want to build: `git checkout tags/v1.0.0` + 4. Install dependencies: `pip install -r requirements.txt` + 5. Build and install the package: `python setup.py install` + +## Credit to [fortune-mod](https://github.com/shlomif/fortune-mod) + +While *Fortune Lite* is a completely distinct and independent project from *fortune-mod*, we do currently use the datfile sources provided by *fortune-mod* in order to generate the SQLite fortune database. As such, the *fortune-mod* project deserves all credit for creating and maintaing the default fortune database. + +## [](https://opensource.org/licenses/Apache-2.0) License +Copyright © 2019 Haximilian
+**This project is licensed under the [Apache License, Version 2.0 (Apache-2.0)](https://opensource.org/licenses/Apache-2.0).**
+For a complete copy of the license, please see the included "LICENSE" file. diff --git a/fortune_lite/__init__.py b/fortune_lite/__init__.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5252da7 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune_lite/__init__.py @@ -0,0 +1,191 @@ +#!/usr/bin/python +""" +Provides the implementation of the fortune module. + +Copyright 2019 Haximilian + +Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +You may obtain a copy of the License at + + http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 + +Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +limitations under the License. +""" + +# Import all dependencies: +from sqlite3 import connect + + +# Connect to the database: +def get_connection(location): + """ + Obtains a handle to the database + :return: A tuple representing the database connection & cursor. + """ + conn = connect(location) + cursor = conn.cursor() + + # Create the database: + cursor.execute(""" + CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS categories ( + id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, + name TEXT NOT NULL, + offensive BOOLEAN NOT NULL + ) + """) + cursor.execute(""" + CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS fortunes ( + id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, + category INTEGER NOT NULL, + data TEXT NOT NULL, + FOREIGN KEY (category) REFERENCES categories (id) + ) + """) + return (conn, cursor) + + +# Close connection: +def close_connection(conn): + """ + Closes the provided connection. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection which needs to be closed. + """ + conn[0].close() + + +# Define a method to obtain a list of all categories: +def list_categories(conn): + """ + Obtains a list of all fortunes from the database. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :return: A list of all categories. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT name, offensive FROM categories") + res = conn[1].fetchall() + out = [] + for i in res: + if i[1]: + out.append("off/" + i[0]) + else: + out.append(i[0]) + return out + + +# Define a method to obtain a list of all offensive categories: +def list_offensive_categories(conn): + """ + Obtains a list of all offensive fortunes from the database. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :return: A list of all categories. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT name FROM categories WHERE offensive = True") + res = conn[1].fetchall() + out = [] + for i in res: + out.append("off/" + i[0]) + return out + + +# Define a method to obtain a list of all appropriate categories: +def list_appropriate_categories(conn): + """ + Obtains a list of all appropriate fortunes from the database. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :return: A list of all categories. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT name FROM categories WHERE offensive = False") + res = conn[1].fetchall() + out = [] + for i in res: + out.append(i[0]) + return out + + +# Define a method to select a random category from the database: +def select_random_category(conn): + """ + Obtains one random category from the database. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :return: A random category id. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT id FROM categories ORDER BY RANDOM() LIMIT 1") + return conn[1].fetchall()[0][0] + + +# Define a method to select a random offensive category from the database: +def select_random_offensive_category(conn): + """ + Obtains one random offensive category from the database. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :return: A random category id. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT id FROM categories WHERE offensive = True ORDER " + + "BY RANDOM() LIMIT 1") + return conn[1].fetchall()[0][0] + + +# Define a method to select a random appropriate category from the database: +def select_random_appropriate_category(conn): + """ + Obtains one random appropriate category from the database. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :return: A random category id. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT id FROM categories WHERE offensive = False ORDER " + + "BY RANDOM() LIMIT 1") + return conn[1].fetchall()[0][0] + + +# Define a method to select a random fortune from a given category: +def select_random_from_category(conn, cat): + """ + Obtains a random fortune from a given category. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :param cat: The category ID. + :return: The text of the fortune. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT data FROM fortunes WHERE category = ? ORDER BY " + + "RANDOM() LIMIT 1", (str(cat),)) + return conn[1].fetchall()[0][0] + + +# Define a method to select a random fortune: +def select_random(conn): + """ + Obtains a random fortune. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :return: The text of the fortune. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT data FROM fortunes ORDER BY RANDOM() LIMIT 1") + return conn[1].fetchall()[0][0] + + +# Define a method to select a random offensive fortune: +def select_random_offensive(conn): + """ + Obtains a random offensive fortune. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :return: The text of the fortune. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT data FROM fortunes INNER JOIN categories ON " + + "fortunes.category = categories.id WHERE offensive = " + + "True ORDER BY RANDOM() LIMIT 1") + return conn[1].fetchall()[0][0] + + +# Define a method to select a random appropriate fortune: +def select_random_appropriate(conn): + """ + Obtains a random appropriate fortune. + :param conn: A handle to the database connection. + :return: The text of the fortune. + """ + conn[1].execute("SELECT data FROM fortunes INNER JOIN categories ON " + + "fortunes.category = categories.id WHERE offensive = " + + "False ORDER BY RANDOM() LIMIT 1") + return conn[1].fetchall()[0][0] diff --git a/fortunes/art b/fortunes/art new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a2e675 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/art @@ -0,0 +1,2279 @@ +7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) + The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National + Redwood Forest. + +7:30, Channel 8: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) + The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the + Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus. +% +A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to +judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased +-- he hates all creative people equally. ++ -- Robert Heinlein +% +A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. +% + A circus foreman was making the rounds inspecting the big top +when a scrawny little man entered the tent and walked up to him. "Are +you the foreman around here?" he asked timidly. "I'd like to join your +circus; I have what I think is a pretty good act." + The foreman nodded assent, whereupon the little man hurried over to +the main pole and rapidly climbed up to the very tip-top of the big top. +Drawing a deep breath, he hurled himself off into the air and began flapping +his arms furiously. Amazingly, rather than plummeting to his death the little +man began to fly all around the poles, lines, trapezes and other obstacles, +performing astounding feats of aerobatics which ended in a long power dive +from the top of the tent, pulling up into a gentle feet-first landing beside +the foreman, who had been nonchalantly watching the whole time. + "Well," puffed the little man. "What do you think?" + "That's all you do?" answered the foreman scornfully. "Bird +imitations?" +% +A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned +things is ample. + -- Rebecca West +% +A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste. + -- Whitney Balliett +% +A diva who specializes in risque arias is an off-coloratura soprano. +% +A drama critic is a person who surprises a playwright by informing him +what he meant. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of +marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. +% + A hard-luck actor who appeared in one collossal disaster after another +finally got a break, a broken leg to be exact. Someone pointed out that it's +the first time the poor fellow's been in the same cast for more than a week. +% +A Hollywood producer calls a friend, another producer on the phone. + "Hello?" his friend answers. + "Hi!" says the man. "This is Bob, how are you doing?" + "Oh," says the friend, "I'm doing great! I just sold a screenplay +for two hundred thousand dollars. I've started a novel adaptation and the +studio advanced me fifty thousand dollars on it. I also have a television +series coming on next week, and everyone says it's going to be a big hit! +I'm doing *great*! How are you?" + "Okay," says the producer, "give me a call when he leaves." +% +A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. +% + A musical reviewer admitted he always praised the first show of a +new theatrical season. "Who am I to stone the first cast?" +% + A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at +the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the +pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite +nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if..." + "If what?" asked the composer. + "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?" +% +A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits. +% +A rose is a rose is a rose. Just ask Jean Marsh, known to millions of +PBS viewers in the '70s as Rose, the maid on the LWT export "Upstairs, +Downstairs." Though Marsh has since gone on to other projects, ... it's +with Rose she's forever identified. So much so that she even likes to +joke about having one named after her, a distinction not without its +drawbacks. "I was very flattered when I heard about it, but when I looked +up the official description, it said, `Jean Marsh: pale peach, not very +good in beds; better up against a wall.' I want to tell you that's not +true. I'm very good in beds as well." +% +A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself. + -- Don Marquis +% + A shy teenage boy finally worked up the nerve to give a gift to +Madonna, a young puppy. It hitched its waggin' to a star. +% +A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say. + -- Michael Winner, British film director +% +A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother +drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. + -- Shaw +% +A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call +what he writes fiction. + -- William Faulkner +% +A yawn is a silent shout. + -- G. K. Chesterton +% +A young man wrote to Mozart and said: + +Q: "Herr Mozart, I am thinking of writing symphonies. Can you give me any + suggestions as to how to get started?" +A: "A symphony is a very complex musical form, perhaps you should begin with + some simple lieder and work your way up to a symphony." +Q: "But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were 8 years old." +A: "But I never asked anybody how." +% +Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing. +% +Acting is not very hard. The most important things are to be able to laugh +and cry. If I have to cry, I think of my sex life. And if I have to laugh, +well, I think of my sex life. + -- Glenda Jackson +% +Actor Real Name + +Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt +Cary Grant Archibald Leach +Edward G. Robinson Emmanual Goldenburg +Gene Wilder Gerald Silberman +John Wayne Marion Morrison +Kirk Douglas Issur Danielovitch +Richard Burton Richard Jenkins Jr. +Roy Rogers Leonard Slye +Woody Allen Allen Stewart Konigsberg +% +Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families. +% +Actresses will happen in the best regulated families. + -- Addison Mizner and Oliver Herford, "The Entirely + New Cynic's Calendar", 1905 +% +Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo. + -- actress Mary Pickford, 1925 +% +Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something +strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out. It was +replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life more +advanced than the lichen family. + -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" +% +Alex Haley was adopted! +% +All art is but imitation of nature. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +An actor's a guy who if you ain't talkin' about him, ain't listening. + -- Marlon Brando +% +An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it. +% +Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but +television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and +world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers +whiter teeth *___and* fresher breath. + -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" +% +Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a +representation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a +representation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by anyone capable of +sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously. + -- Richard Schickel +% +Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell +it. +% + "Are you police officers?" + "No, ma'am. We're musicians." + -- The Blues Brothers +% +Around the turn of this century, a composer named Camille Saint-Saens wrote +a satirical zoological-fantasy called "Le Carnaval des Animaux." Aside from +one movement of this piece, "The Swan", Saint-Saens didn't allow this work +to be published or even performed until a year had elapsed after his death. +(He died in 1921.) + Most of us know the "Swan" movement rather well, with its smooth, +flowing cello melody against a calm background; but I've been having this +fantasy... + What if he had written this piece with lyrics, as a song to be sung? +And, further, what if he had accompanied this song with a musical saw? (This +instrument really does exist, often played by percussionists!) Then the +piece would be better known as: + SAINT-SAENS' SAW SONG "SWAN"! +% +Art is a jealous mistress. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth. + -- Picasso +% +Art is anything you can get away with. + -- Marshall McLuhan. +% +Art is either plagiarism or revolution. + -- Paul Gauguin +% +Art is Nature speeded up and God slowed down. + -- Chazal +% +Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death. +% +As a goatherd learns his trade by goat, so a writer learns his trade by wrote. +% +Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a +lamp-post how it feels about dogs. + -- Christopher Hampton +% +Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever +depths they were once able to plumb. + -- Stanley Kaufman +% +Authors are easy to get on with -- if you're fond of children. + -- Michael Joseph, "Observer" +% +Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges. I don't have +to show you any stinkin' badges! + -- "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" +% +Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent +and original in your work. + -- Flaubert +% +Being a mime means never having to say you're sorry. +% +"Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" +% +Ben, why didn't you tell me? + -- Luke Skywalker +% +"Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence" + -- Time Bandits +% +Best Mistakes In Films + In his "Filmgoer's Companion", Mr. Leslie Halliwell helpfully lists +four of the cinema's greatest moments which you should get to see if at all +possible. + In "Carmen Jones", the camera tracks with Dorothy Dandridge down a +street; and the entire film crew is reflected in the shop window. + In "The Wrong Box", the roofs of Victorian London are emblazoned +with television aerials. + In "Decameron Nights", Louis Jourdain stands on the deck of his +fourteenth century pirate ship; and a white lorry trundles down the hill +in the background. + In "Viking Queen", set in the times of Boadicea, a wrist watch is +clearly visible on one of the leading characters. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +BS: You remind me of a man. +B: What man? +BS: The man with the power. +B: What power? +BS: The power of voodoo. +B: Voodoo? +BS: You do. +B: Do what? +BS: Remind me of a man. +B: What man? +BS: The man with the power... + -- Cary Grant, "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" +% +Burnt Sienna. That's the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas. + -- Ken Weaver +% +But if you wish at once to do nothing and to be respectable +nowadays, the best pretext is to be at work on some profound study. + -- Leslie Stephen, "Sketches from Cambridge" +% +But you shall not escape my iambics. + -- Gaius Valerius Catullus +% +Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances. + -- RKO executive, reacting to Fred Astaire's screen test. + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. + -- Kin Hubbard, "Abe Martin's Sayings" +% +Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. +% +Darth Vader! Only you would be so bold! + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilot +that shot down the Korean jet? At one point he definitely states: + + "Natasha! First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and squirrel." + + -- ihuxw!tommyo +% +Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. +% +Don't everyone thank me at once! + -- Han Solo +% +Dustin Farnum: Why, yesterday, I had the audience glued to their seats! +Oliver Herford: Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it! + -- Brian Herbert, "Classic Comebacks" +% +Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult. + -- Actor Edmond Gween, on his deathbed. +% +E.T. GO HOME!!! (And take your Smurfs with you.) +% +Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent. + -- Fred Allen +% +Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak! + -- Bullwinkle Moose +% +Elwood: What kind of music do you get here ma'am? +Barmaid: Why, we get both kinds of music, Country and Western. +% +Ever get the feeling that the world's on tape and one of the reels is missing? + -- Rich Little +% +Everyone is in the best seat. + -- John Cage +% +Fame lost its appeal for me when I went into a public restroom and an +autograph seeker handed me a pen and paper under the stall door. + -- Marlo Thomas +% +Fast ship? You mean you've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? + -- Han Solo +% +"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order" + -- The Doctor, "Doctor Who" +% +Fools rush in -- and get the best seats in the house. +% +For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at +the results of this evening's experiments. Astonished 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. + -- Sir Arthur Sullivan, message to Edison, 1888 +% +For the next hour, WE will control all that you see and hear. +% +Forms follow function, and often obliterate it. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #12 + +O.E.D.: David Lean, 1969, 3 hours 30 min. + + Lean's version of the Oxford Dictionary has been accused of + shallowness in its treatment of a complete work. Omar Sharif + tends to overact as aardvark, but Alec Guiness is solid in + the role of abbacy. As usual, the photography is stunning. + With Julie Christie. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #3 + +MIRACLE ON 42ND STREET: + Santa Claus, in the off season, follows his heart's desire and + tries to make it big on Broadway. Santa sings and dances his way + into your heart. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #5 + +THE ATOMIC GRANDMOTHER: + This humorous but heart-warming story tells of an elderly woman + forced to work at a nuclear power plant in order to help the family + make ends meet. At night, granny sits on the porch, tells tales + of her colorful past, and the family uses her to cook barbecues + and to power small electrical appliances. Maureen Stapleton gives + a glowing performance. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #9 + +THE PARKING PROBLEM IN PARIS: Jean-Luc Godard, 1971, 7 hours 18 min. + + Godard's meditation on the topic has been described as + everything from "timeless" to "endless." (Remade by Gene + Wilder as NO PLACE TO PARK.) +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #37 + Can you name the seven seas? + Antarctic, Arctic, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian, + North Pacific, South Pacific. + Can you name the seven dwarfs from Snow White? + Doc, Dopey, Sneezy, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy and Bashful. +% +Fremen add life to spice! +% + FROM THE DESK OF + Dorothy Gale + + Auntie Em: + Hate you. + Hate Kansas. + Taking the dog. + Dorothy +% +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." +% +Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall on +our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!! + -- Adventures of Asterix +% +George Bernard Shaw once sent two tickets to the opening night of one of +his plays to Winston Churchill with the following note: + "Bring a friend, if you have one." + +Churchill wrote back, returning the two tickets and excused himself as he +had a previous engagement. He also attached the following: + "Please send me two tickets for the next night, if there is one." +% +Go ahead... make my day. + -- Dirty Harry +% +God help the troubadour who tries to be a star. The more that you try +to find success, the more that you will fail. + -- Phil Ochs, on the Second System Effect +% +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 save us from a bad neighbor and a beginner on the fiddle. +% +Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are. +% +Governor Tarkin. I should have expected to find you holding Vader's +leash. I thought I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board. + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (#17): + +On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place +of residence. +% +Grig (the navigator): + ... so you see, it's just the two of us against the entire space + armada. +Alex (the gunner): + What?!? +Grig: I've always wanted to fight a desperate battle against + overwhelming odds. +Alex: It'll be a slaughter! +Grig: That's the spirit! + -- The Last Starfighter +% +H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L. Mencken -- +there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude. + -- Maxwell Bodenheim +% + "Hawk, we're going to die." + "Never say die... and certainly never say we." + -- M*A*S*H +% +He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. + -- John Mason Brown, drama critic +% +He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue. + -- Jonathan Swift +% +"Hello," he lied. + -- Don Carpenter, quoting a Hollywood agent +% +Hello. Jim Rockford's machine, this is Larry Doheny's machine. Will you +please have your master call my master at his convenience? Thank you. +Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Hi Jimbo. Dennis. Really appreciate the help on the income tax. You wanna +help on the audit now? + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Hoaars-Faisse Gallery presents: +An exhibit of works by the artist known only as Pretzel. + +The exhibit includes several large conceptual works using non-traditional +media and found objects including old sofa-beds, used mace canisters, +discarded sanitary napkins and parts of freeways. The artist explores +our dehumanization due to high technology and unresponsive governmental +structures in a post-industrial world. She/he (the artist prefers to +remain without gender) strives to create dialogue between viewer and +creator, to aid us in our quest to experience contemporary life with its +inner-city tensions, homelessness, global warming and gender and +class-based stress. The works are arranged to lead us to the essence of +the argument: that the alienation of the person/machine boundary has +sapped the strength of our voices and must be destroyed for society to +exist in a more fundamental sense. +% +Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it. + -- Rex Reed +% +Holy Dilemma! Is this the end for the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder? +Will the Joker and the Riddler have the last laugh? + + Tune in again tomorrow: + same Bat-time, same Bat-channel! +% +How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. +% +Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs. +% +Humpty Dumpty was pushed. +% +I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people +are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen +carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence +terrifies people the most. + -- Bob Dylan +% +I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. + -- David Bowie +% +I am a deeply superficial person. + -- Andy Warhol +% +I believe that the moment is near when by a procedure of active paranoiac +thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the +total discrediting of the world of reality. + -- Salvador Dali +% +I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a +novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars. + -- Fred Allen +% +I didn't do it! Nobody saw me do it! Can't prove anything! + -- Bart Simpson +% +I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The curtain +was up. +% +I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk +and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, +unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell +you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk. + -- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon" +% +I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to. + -- Elvis Presley +% +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 had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small +and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a +painting by Goya. + -- Stravinsky +% +I have a very strange feeling about this... + -- Luke Skywalker +% +"I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show, +which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark'." + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +I have had my television aerials removed. It's the moral equivalent +of a prostate operation. + -- Malcolm Muggeridge +% +I have more humility in my little finger than you have in your whole +____BODY! + -- from "Cerebus" #82 +% +I knew her before she was a virgin. + -- Oscar Levant, on Doris Day +% +I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they +could do was to go away. +% +I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong. + -- Lucy Van Pelt +% +I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the kind +of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled substances +being in widespread use. Back then, there were no restrictions, in terms +of talent, on who could make an album, so we made one, and it sounds like +a group of people who have been given powerful but unfamiliar instruments +as a therapy for a degenerative nerve disease. + -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" +% +I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the +reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if +I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. + -- Stephen King +% +I remember once being on a station platform in Cleveland at four in the +morning. A black porter was carrying my bags, and as we were waiting for +the train to come in, he said to me: "Excuse me, Mr. Cooke, I don't want to +invade your privacy, but I have a bet with a friend of mine. Who composed +the opening theme music of 'Omnibus'? My friend said Virgil Thomson." I +asked him, "What do you say?" He replied, "I say Aaron Copeland." I said, +"You're right." The porter said, "I knew Thomson doesn't write counterpoint +that way." I told that to a network president, and he was deeply unimpressed. + -- Alistair Cooke +% +I remember Ulysses well... Left one day for the post office to mail a letter, +met a blonde named Circe on the streetcar, and didn't come back for 20 years. +% +I saw Lassie. It took me four shows to figure out why the hairy kid never +spoke. I mean, he could roll over and all that, but did that deserve a series? +% +I stick my neck out for nobody. + -- Humphrey Bogart, "Casablanca" +% +I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to +see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. + -- Shirley Temple +% +I suggest a new strategy, Artoo: let the Wookie win. + -- C3P0 +% + "I suppose you expect me to talk." + "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." + -- Goldfinger +% +I think we're in trouble. + -- Han Solo +% +I think... I think it's in my basement... Let me go upstairs and check. + -- Escher +% +I truly wish I could be a great surgeon or philosopher or author or anything +constructive, but in all honesty I'd rather turn up my amplifier full blast +and drown myself in the noise. + -- Charles Schmid, the "Tucson Murderer" +% +I used to be disgusted, now I find I'm just amused. + -- Elvis Costello +% +I was working on a case. It had to be a case, because I couldn't afford a +desk. Then I saw her. This tall blond lady. She must have been tall +because I was on the third floor. She rolled her deep blue eyes towards +me. I picked them up and rolled them back. We kissed. She screamed. I +took the cigarette from my mouth and kissed her again. +% +I watch television because you don't know what it will do if you leave it +in the room alone. +% +I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If +people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth. + -- Charlie Chaplin +% +I went to a Grateful Dead Concert and they played for SEVEN hours. Great +song. + -- Fred Reuss +% +I WISH I HAD A KRYPTONITE CROSS, because then you could keep both Dracula +and Superman away. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a +knob called "brightness", but it doesn't seem to work. + -- Gallagher +% +I'd just as soon kiss a Wookie. + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +I'll be Grateful when they're Dead. +% +I'll never get off this planet. + -- Luke Skywalker +% +I'm a Hollywood writer; so I put on a sports jacket and take off my brain. +% +I'm not a real movie star -- I've still got the same wife I started out +with twenty-eight years ago. + -- Will Rogers +% +I've got a very bad feeling about this. + -- Han Solo +% + I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of + its situation. + Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He + loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to + look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per + second per second takes over. + II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter + intervenes suddenly. + Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon + characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone + pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. + Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the + stooge's surcease. +III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation + conforming to its perimeter. + Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the + speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless + cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through + the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The + threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction. + -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 +% +If *I* had a hammer, there'd be no more folk singers. +% +If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. + -- Paul Beatty +% +If an average person on the subway turns to you, like an ancient mariner, +and starts telling you her tale, you turn away or nod and hope she stops, +not just because you fear she might be crazy. If she tells her tale on +camera, you might listen. Watching strangers on television , even +responding to them from a studio audience, we're disengaged -- voyeurs +collaborating with exhibitionists in rituals of sham community. Never +have so many known so much about people for whom they cared so little. + -- Wendy Kaminer commenting on testimonial television + in "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional". +% +If Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon +fall into disuse. + -- Philip Hale, Boston music critic, 1837 +% +If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television? +% +If God didn't mean for us to juggle, tennis balls wouldn't come three to a +can. +% +If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit Ears. +% +If I had any humility I would be perfect. + -- Ted Turner +% +If I had done everything I'm credited with, I'd be speaking to you from +a laboratory jar at Harvard. + -- Frank Sinatra + +AS USUAL, YOUR INFORMATION STINKS. + -- Frank Sinatra, telegram to "Time" magazine +% +If I have to lay an egg for my country, I'll do it. + -- Bob Hope +% +If it ain't baroque, don't phiques it. +% +If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, +I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down +the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. A more sententious, holding- +forth old bore who expected every hero-worshiping adenoidal little twerp +of a student-poet to hang on to his every word I never saw. + -- James Dickey +% +If life is a stage, I want some better lighting. +% +If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient +evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than +words. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know. + -- Louis Armstrong +% +If you lose a son you can always get another, but there's only one +Maltese Falcon. + -- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon" +% +If you think the pen is mightier than the sword, the next time someone pulls +out a sword I'd like to see you get up there with your Bic. +% +If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's +read by persons who move their lips when the're reading to themselves. + -- Don Marquis +% +Imitation is the sincerest form of television. + -- Fred Allen +% +Immature artists imitate, mature artists steal. + -- Lionel Trilling +% +Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal. + -- T. S. Eliot, "Philip Massinger" +% +In Hollywood, all marriages are happy. It's trying to live together +afterwards that causes the problems. + -- Shelley Winters +% +In Hollywood, if you don't have happiness, you send out for it. + -- Rex Reed +% +In just seven days, I can make you a man! + -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending +your left leg, it's modern architecture. + -- Nancy Banks Smith +% +In Oz, never say "krizzle kroo" to a Woozy. +% +In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in +the proper order then why can't he? +% +In the Old West a wagon train is crossing the plains. As night falls the +wagon train forms a circle, and a campfire is lit in the middle. After +everyone has gone to sleep two lone cavalry officers stand watch over the +camp. + After several hours of quiet, they hear war drums starting from +a nearby Indian village they had passed during the day. The drums get +louder and louder. + Finally one soldier turns to the other and says, "I don't like +the sound of those drums." + Suddenly, they hear a cry come from the Indian camp: "IT'S +NOT OUR REGULAR DRUMMER." +% +It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came +out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and applauded. +He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world +will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe +that it is a joke. +% +It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been +dead for two years. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +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 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. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, +worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. + -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live" +% +It is up to us to produce better-quality movies. + -- Lloyd Kaufman, producer of "Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator" +% +It just doesn't seem right to go over the river and through the woods +to Grandmother's condo. +% +It looks like it's up to me to save our skins. Get into that garbage chute, +flyboy! + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +It proves what they say, give the public what they want to see and +they'll come out for it. + -- Red Skelton, surveying the funeral of Hollywood mogul + Harry Cohn +% +It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, +but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. + -- Robert Benchley +% +It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. +% +It'll be just like Beggars' Canyon back home. + -- Luke Skywalker +% +It's all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back. + -- Mick Jagger +% +It's clever, but is it art? +% +It's difficult to see the picture when you are inside the frame. +% +It's from Casablanca. I've been waiting all my life to use that line. + -- Woody Allen, "Play It Again, Sam" +% +"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." + -- Walt Disney +% +It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre. + -- Sam Goldwyn +% +It's not easy, being green. + -- Kermit the Frog +% +It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips. + -- Garfield +% +IV. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or + equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to + spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. + Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it + inevitably unsuccessful. + V. All principles of gravity are negated by fear. + Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel + them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an + adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to + the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. + The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding + auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight. +VI. As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. + This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a + character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of + altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common + as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A "wacky" + character has the option of self-replication only at manic high + speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required. + -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 +% +James Joyce -- an essentially private man who wished his total +indifference to public notice to be universally recognized. + -- Tom Stoppard +% +James McNeill Whistler's (painter of "Whistler's Mother") +failure in his West Point chemistry examination once provoked him to +remark in later life, "If silicon had been a gas, I should have been a +major general." +% +Jane and I got mixed up with a television show -- or as we call it back +east here: TV -- a clever contraction derived from the words Terrible +Vaudeville. However, it is our latest medium -- we call it a medium +because nothing's well done. It was discovered, I suppose you've heard, +by a man named Fulton Berle, and it has already revolutionized social +grace by cutting down parlour conversation to two sentences: "What's on +television?" and "Good night". + -- Goodman Ace, letter to Groucho Marx, in The Groucho + Letters, 1967 +% +Jim, it's Grace at the bank. I checked your Christmas Club account. +You don't have five-hundred dollars. You have fifty. Sorry, computer +foul-up! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Jim, it's Jack. I'm at the airport. I'm going to Tokyo and wanna pay +you the five-hundred I owe you. Catch you next year when I get back! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Jim, this is Janelle. I'm flying tonight, so I can't make our date, and +I gotta find a safe place for Daffy. He loves you, Jim! It's only two +days, and you'll see. Great Danes are no problem! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Jim, this is Matty down at Ralph's and Mark's. Some guy named Angel +Martin just ran up a fifty buck bar tab. And now he wants to charge it +to you. You gonna pay it? + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +JOHN PAUL ELECTED POPE!! + +(George and Ringo miffed.) +% +Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything. + -- Bob Dylan +% +Just close your eyes, tap your heels together three times, and think to +yourself, `There's no place like home.' + -- Glynda the Good +% +Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of +blue denim. If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys +like mine instead of this awful, boring blue denim. I don't enjoy the sky +or sea as much as I used to because of this Levi character. If Jesus Christ +came back today, He and I would get into our brown corduroys and go to the +nearest jean store and overturn the racks of blue denim. Then we'd get +crucified in the morning. + -- Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull +% +Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't +immune to bullets. + -- The Brigadier, "Dr. Who" +% +Lamonte Cranston once hired a new Chinese manservant. While describing his +duties to the new man, Lamonte pointed to a bowl of candy on the coffee +table and warned him that he was not to take any. Some days later, the new +manservant was cleaning up, with no one at home, and decided to sample some +of the candy. Just than, Cranston walked in, spied the manservant at the +candy, and said: + "Pardon me Choy, is that the Shadow's nugate you chew?" +% + Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she +lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always +getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to +the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their +sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do +you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her? +What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead +of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under +the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops whatsoever. +They probably got by on federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the +applications for. + -- Dave Barry +% +Lay off the muses, it's a very tough dollar. + -- S. J. Perelman +% +Lensmen eat Jedi for breakfast. +% + Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and +tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people +and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the +outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap, +caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants, +day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored. + Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker? +What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are +start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper. +Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior +class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a +movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the +police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go +home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going +now. They're in a band. + -- Ira Kaplan +% +Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was +going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then +being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends. +% +Like ya know? Rock 'N Roll is an esoteric language that unlocks the +creativity chambers in people's brains, and like totally activates their +essential hipness, which of course is like totally necessary for saving +the earth, like because the first thing in saving this world, is getting +rid of stupid and square attitudes and having fun. + -- Senior Year Quote +% +Linus: Hi! I thought it was you. + I've been watching you from way off... You're looking great! +Snoopy: That's nice to know. + The secret of life is to look good at a distance. +% +Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe + we should think only about today. +Charlie Brown: + No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get + better. +% +Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse. + -- James Dean +% +Live from New York ... It's Saturday Night! +% +Love thy neighbor, tune thy piano. +% +Lucy: Dance, dance, dance. That is all you ever do. + Can't you be serious for once? +Snoopy: She is right! I think I had better think + of the more important things in life! + (pause) + Tomorrow!! +% +Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser. + -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew" +% +Maj. Bloodnok: Seagoon, you're a coward! +Seagoon: Only in the holiday season. +Maj. Bloodnok: Ah, another Noel Coward! +% +Mandrell: "You know what I think?" +Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you + don't think, right?" + -- Dr. Who +% +Many of the characters are fools and they are always playing +tricks on me and treating me badly. + -- Jorge Luis Borges, from "Writers on Writing" by Jon Winokur +% +Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people on +the dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slam dancing. + -- Ransford, Chicago Reader 10/7/83 +% +Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it! + -- Monty Python +% +"Microwave oven? Whaddya mean, it's a microwave oven? I've been watching +Channel 4 on the thing for two weeks." +% +Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out +of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles. + -- Casablanca +% +Mike: "The Fourth Dimension is a shambles?" +Bernie: "Nobody ever empties the ashtrays. People are SO inconsiderate." + -- Gary Trudeau, "Doonesbury" +% +Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner. +% +Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade +themselves that they have a better idea. + -- John Ciardi +% +Mos Eisley Spaceport; you will never find a more wretched hive of scum +and villainy... + -- Obi-wan Kenobi, "Star Wars" +% +Mr. Rockford, this is the Thomas Crown School of Dance and Contemporary +Etiquette. We aren't going to call again! Now you want these free +lessons or what? + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Mr. Rockford? Miss Collins from the Bureau of Licenses. We got your +renewal before the extended deadline but not your check. I'm sorry but +at midnight you're no longer licensed as an investigator. + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Mr. Rockford? This is Betty Joe Withers. I got four shirts of yours from +the Bo Peep Cleaners by mistake. I don't know why they gave me men's +shirts but they're going back. + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Mr. Rockford? You don't know me, but I'd like to hire you. Could +you call me at... My name is... uh... Never mind, forget it! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it. + -- The Dragon to Grendel, in John Gardner's "Grendel" +% +My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I threw my +amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste. First we +checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the frame, using the +belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked up the amplifier and backed +up to my bedroom door. Then we rushed forward, shouting "The WHO! The +WHO!" and we launched my amplifier perfectly, as though we had been doing it +all our lives, clean through the window and down onto the sidewalk, where a +small but appreciative crowd had gathered. I would like to be able to say +that this was a symbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away +from one state in my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper +and I really just wanted to find out what it would sound like. It sounded +OK. + -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" +% +"My life is a soap opera, but who has the rights?" + -- MadameX +% +My tears stuck in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked. + -- Peter Stack, movie review + +His performance is so wooden you want to spray him with Liquid Pledge. + -- John Stark, movie review +% +No Civil War picture ever made a nickel. + -- MGM executive Irving Thalberg to Louis B. Mayer about + film rights to "Gone With the Wind". + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, +belonging to it. + -- Frank Lloyd Wright +% +No poet or novelist wishes he was the only one who ever lived, but most of +them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe +their wish has been granted. + -- W. H. Auden, "The Dyer's Hand" +% +No two persons ever read the same book. + -- Edmund Wilson +% +"No, `Eureka' is Greek for `This bath is too hot.'" + -- Dr. Who +% +Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% +NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! +% +No one ever built a statue to a critic. +% +Not all who own a harp are harpers. + -- Marcus Terentius Varro +% +Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter of +wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund is +astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman -- +unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who is careful +not to make any poultry jokes. + -- Woody Allen +% +Oh Dad! We're ALL Devo! +% + "Oh sure, this costume may look silly, but it lets me get in and out +of dangerous situations -- I work for a federal task force doing a survey on +urban crime. Look, here's my ID, and here's a number you can call, that will +put you through to our central base in Atlanta. Go ahead, call -- they'll +confirm who I am. + "Unless, of course, the Astro-Zombies have destroyed it." + -- Captain Freedom +% +Oh, Aunty Em, it's so good to be home! +% +Old MacDonald had an agricultural real estate tax abatement. +% +Old musicians never die, they just decompose. +% +Once, I read that a man be never stronger than when he truly realizes how +weak he is. + -- Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel #31" +% +One big pile is better than two little piles. + -- Arlo Guthrie +% +Oprah Winfrey has an incredible talent for getting the weirdest people to +talk to. And you just HAVE to watch it. "Blind, masochistic minority, +crippled, depressed, government latrine diggers, and the women who love +them too much on the next Oprah Winfrey." +% + Penn's aunts made great apple pies at low prices. No one else in +town could compete with the pie rates of Penn's aunts. +% +People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to +amuse them. + -- S. Johnson +% +Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry without a certain +unsoundness of mind. + -- Thomas Macaulay +% +Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia +because they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosophers +couldn't compete successfully with poets. + -- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer), "Venus on the Half Shell" +% +Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic table. + -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" +% +Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means? +% +Plots are like girdles. Hidden, they hold your interest; revealed, they're +of no interest except to fetishists. Like girdles, they attempt to contain +an uncontainable experience. + -- R. S. Knapp +% +Potahto' Pictures Productions Presents: + + SPUD ROGERS OF THE 25TH CENTURY: Story of an Air Force potato that's +left in a rarely used chow hall for over two centuries and wakes up in a world +populated by soybean created imitations under the evil Dick Tater. Thanks to +him, the soy-potatoes learn that being a 'tater is where it's at. Memorable +line, "'Cause I'm just a stud spud!" + + FRIDAY THE 13TH DINER SERIES: Crazed potato who was left in a +fryer too long and was charbroiled carelessly returns to wreak havoc on +unsuspecting, would-be teen camp cooks. Scenes include a girl being stuffed +with chives and Fleischman's Margarine and a boy served up on a side dish +with beets and dressing. Definitely not for the squeamish, or those on +diets that are driving them crazy. + + FRIDAY THE 13TH DINER II,III,IV,V,VI: Much, much more of the same. +Except with sour cream. +% +Potahto' Pictures Productions Presents: + + THE TATERNATOR: Cyborg spud returns from the future to present-day +McDonald's restaurant to kill the potatoess (girl 'tater) who will give birth +to the world's largest french fry (The Dark Powers of Burger King are clearly +behind this). Most quotable line: "Ah'll be baked..." + + A FISTFUL OF FRIES: Western in which our hero, The Spud with No Name, +rides into a town that's deprived of carbohydrates thanks to the evil takeover +of the low-cal Scallopinni Brothers. Plenty of smokeouts, fry-em-ups, and +general butter-melting by all. + + FOR A FEW FRIES MORE: Takes up where AFOF left off! Cameo by Walter +Cronkite, as every man's common 'tater! +% +Prizes are for children. + -- Charles Ives, upon being given, but refusing, the + Pulitzer prize +% +Producers seem to be so prejudiced against actors who've had no training. +And there's no reason for it. So what if I didn't attend the Royal Academy +for twelve years? I'm still a professional trying to be the best actress +I can. Why doesn't anyone send me the scripts that Faye Dunaway gets? + -- Farrah Fawcett-Majors +% +Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator +of sociopathic tendencies. + -- Zoso +% +Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the +Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. +% +Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen. +% +Rascal, am I? Take THAT! + -- Errol Flynn +% +Recently deceased blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan "comes to" after +his death. He sees Jimi Hendrix sitting next to him, tuning his guitar. +"Holy cow," he thinks to himself, "this guy is my idol." Over at the +microphone, about to sing, are Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and the +bassist is the late Barry Oakley of the Allman Brothers. So Stevie +Ray's thinking, "Oh, wow! I've died and gone to rock and roll heaven." +Just then, Karen Carpenter walks in, sits down at the drums, and says: +"'Close to You'. Hit it, boys!" + -- Told by Penn Jillette, of magic/comedy duo Penn and Teller +% +Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our +extraordinarily gifted English artist, Mr. Rippingille. + -- John Hunt, British editor, scholar and art critic + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it." + -- Dave Barry +% +Satire is tragedy plus time. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +Satire is what closes in New Haven. +% +Satire is what closes Saturday night. + -- George Kaufman +% +'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky! + -- Robert James Marshall (Jimi) Hendrix +% +She ran the gamut of emotions from 'A' to 'B'. + -- Dorothy Parker, on a Kate Hepburn performance +% +"She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing, +you should hear me play piano.'" + -- Morrisey +% +She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way a midget is +good at being short. + -- Clive James, on Marilyn Monroe +% +Shhh... be vewy, vewy, quiet! I'm hunting wabbits... +% +Show business is just like high school, except you get paid. + -- Martin Mull +% +Sir, it's very possible this asteroid is not stable. + -- C3P0 +% +Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects +such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern +art. + -- Tom Stoppard +% +Smile! You're on Candid Camera. +% +Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? + -- Indiana Jones, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" +% +Snoopy: No problem is so big that it can't be run away from. +% +Snow White has become a camera buff. She spends hours and hours +shooting pictures of the seven dwarfs and their antics. Then she +mails the exposed film to a cut rate photo service. It takes weeks +for the developed film to arrive in the mail, but that is all right +with Snow White. She clears the table, washes the dishes and sweeps +the floor, all the while singing "Someday my prints will come." +% +So do the noble fall. For they are ever caught in a trap of their own making. +A trap -- walled by duty, and locked by reality. Against the greater force +they must fall -- for, against that force they fight because of duty, because +of obligations. And when the noble fall, the base remain. The base -- whose +only purpose is the corruption of what the noble did protect. Whose only +purpose is to destroy. The noble: who, even when fallen, retain a vestige of +strength. For theirs is a strength born of things other than mere force. +Theirs is a strength supreme... theirs is the strength -- to restore. + -- Gerry Conway, "Thor", #193 +% + So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark]. +With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to +maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of +corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to +flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward +it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and -- +I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in +the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us. + Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and +I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our +heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're +unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water +up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the +opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of +our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all +the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers +cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen +these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked +into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads. + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +Some men who fear that they are playing second fiddle aren't in the +band at all. +% +Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but when +you finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be even worse. + -- Avery +% +"Spare no expense to save money on this one." + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; +Star Trek can turn your brains to puree of bat guano; and the greatest +science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all +on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up! + -- Harlan Ellison +% + "Surely you can't be serious." + "I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley." + -- "Airplane" +% +Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. + -- Laurie Anderson +% +Tallulah Bankhead barged down the Nile last night as Cleopatra and sank. + -- John Mason Brown, drama critic +% +Television -- the longest amateur night in history. + -- Robert Carson +% +Television has brought back murder into the home -- where it belongs. + -- Alfred Hitchcock +% +Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each +other. + -- Ann Landers +% +Television is a medium because anything well done is rare. + -- attributed to both Fred Allen and Ernie Kovacs +% +Television is now so desperately hungry for material that it is scraping +the top of the barrel. + -- Gore Vidal +% +Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing. + -- R. Geis +% +That's no moon... + -- Obi-wan Kenobi +% +The Angels want to wear my red shoes. + -- E. Costello +% +The best definition of a gentleman is a man who can play the accordion -- +but doesn't. + -- Tom Crichton +% + The big problem with pornography is defining it. You can't just +say it's pictures of people naked. For example, you have these +primitive African tribes that exist by chasing the wildebeest on foot, +and they have to go around largely naked, because, as the old tribal +saying goes: "N'wam k'honi soit qui mali," which means, "If you think +you can catch a wildebeest in this climate and wear clothes at the same +time, then I have some beach front property in the desert region of +Northern Mali that you may be interested in." + So it's not considered pornographic when National Geographic +publishes color photographs of these people hunting the wildebeest +naked, or pounding one rock onto another rock for some primitive reason +naked, or whatever. But if National Geographic were to publish an +article entitled "The Girls of the California Junior College System +Hunt the Wildebeest Naked," some people would call it pornography. But +others would not. And still others, such as the Spectacularly Rev. +Jerry Falwell, would get upset about seeing the wildebeest naked. + -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" +% +The cable TV sex channels don't expand our horizons, don't make us better +people, and don't come in clearly enough. + -- Bill Maher +% +The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly +greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed +inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner party +of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense + -- Picasso +% +The covers of this book are too far apart. + -- Book review by Ambrose Bierce. +% +The difference between waltzes and disco is mostly one of volume. + -- T. K. +% +The faster we go, the rounder we get. + -- The Grateful Dead +% +The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +*A Giggle Gurgling Gulp of Glee* +With Pretty Girls, Peppy Scenes, and Gorgeous Revues -- plus a good story. + -- Tea with a Kick (1924) + +Whoopie! Let's go!... Hand-picked Beauties doing cute tricks! +GET IN THE KNOW FOR THE HEY-HEY WHOOPIE! + -- The Wild Party (1929) + +YOU HEAR HIM MAKE LOVE! +DIX -- the dashing soldier! + DIX -- the bold adventurer! + DIX -- the throbbing lover! + -- The Wheel of Life (1929) + +SEE CHARLES BUTTERWORTH DRIVE A STREETCAR AND SING LOVE +SONGS TO HIS MARE "MITZIE"! + -- The Night is Young (1934) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +A mis-spawned murderous abomination from the nether reaches of an +unimaginable hell. + -- The Killer of Castle Brood (1967) + +NEW -- SICKENING HORROR to make your STOMACH TURN and FLESH CRAWL! + -- Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (1968) + +LUST-MAD MEN AND LAWLESS WOMEN IN A VICIOUS AND SENSUOUS ORGY OF SLAUGHTER! + -- Five Bloody Graves (1969) + +The family that slays together stays together. + -- Bloody Mama (1970) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +An AVALANCHE of KILLER WORMS! + -- Squirm (1976) + +Most Movies Live Less Than Two Hours. +This Is One of Everlasting Torment! + -- The New House on the Left (1977) + +WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU! + -- Zombie (1980) + +It's not human and it's got an axe. + -- The Prey (1981) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +Different! Daring! Dynamic! Defying! Dumbfounding! +SEE Uncle Tom lead the Negroes to FREEDOM! +... Now, all the SENSUAL and VIOLENT passions Roots couldn't show on TV! + -- Uncle Tom's Cabin (1972) + +An appalling amalgam of carnage and carnality! + -- Flesh and Blood Show (1973) + +WHEN THE CATS ARE HUNGRY... +RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! +Alone, only a harmless pet... + One Thousand Strong, They Become a Man-Eating Machine! + -- The Night of a Thousand Cats (1972) + +They're Over-Exposed +But Not Under-Developed! + -- Cover Girl Models (1976) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +HOODLUMS FROM ANOTHER WORLD ON A RAY-GUN RAMPAGE! + -- Teenagers from Outher Space (1959) + +Which will be Her Mate... MAN OR BEAST? +Meet Velda -- the Kind of Woman -- Man or Gorilla would kill... to Keep. + -- Untamed Mistress (1960) + +NOW AN ALL-MIGHTY ALL-NEW MOTION PICTURE BRINGS THEM TOGETHER FOR THE +FIRST TIME... HISTORY'S MOST GIGANTIC MONSTERS IN COMBAT ATOP MOUNT FUJI! + -- King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +HOT STEEL BETWEEN THEIR LEGS! + -- The Cycle Savages (1969) + +The Hand that Rocks the Cradle... Has no Flesh on It! + -- Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) + +TWO GREAT BLOOD HORRORS TO RIP OUT YOUR GUTS! + -- I Eat Your Skin & I Drink Your Blood (1971 double-bill) + +They Went In People and Came Out Hamburger! + -- The Corpse Grinders (1971) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +KATHERINE HEPBURN as the lying, stealing, singing, preying witch girl +of the Ozarks... "Low down white trash"? Maybe so -- but let her hear +you say it and she'll break your head to prove herself a lady! + -- Spitfire (1934) + +Do Native Women Live With Apes? + -- Love Life of a Gorilla (1937) + +JUNGLE KISS!! + When she looked into his eyes, felt his arms around her -- she +was no longer Tura, mysterious white goddess of the jungle tribes -- +she was no longer the frozen-hearted high priestess under whose hypnotic +spell the worshippers of the great crocodile god meekly bowed -- she +was a girl in love! + SEE the ravening charge of the hundred scared CROCODILES! + -- Her Jungle Love (1938) + +LOVE! HATE! JOY! FEAR! TORMENT! PANIC! SHAME! RAGE! + -- Intermezzo (1939) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +POWERFUL! SHOCKING! RAW! ROUGH! CHALLENGING! SEE A LITTLE GIRL MOLESTED! + -- Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1963) + +She Sins in Mobile -- +Marries in Houston -- +Loses Her Baby in Dallas -- +Leaves Her Husband in Tuscon -- +MEETS HARRU IN SAN DIEGO!... +FIRST -- HARLOW! +THEN -- MONROE! +NOW -- McCLANAHAN!!! + -- The Rotten Apple (1963), Rue McClanahan + +*NOT FOR SISSIES! DON'T COME IF YOU'RE CHICKEN! +A Horrifying Movie of Weird Beauties and Shocking Monsters... +1001 WEIRDEST SCENES EVER!! MOST SHOCKING THRILLER OF THE CENTURY! + -- Teenage Psycho meets Bloody Mary (1964) (Alternate Title: + The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and + Became Mixed Up Zombies) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +SCENES THAT WILL STAGGER YOUR SIGHT! +-- DANCING CALLED GO-GO +-- MUSIC CALLED JU-JU +-- NARCOTICS CALLED BANGI! +-- FIRES OF PUBERTY! + SEE the burning of a virgin! + SEE power of witch doctor over women! + SEE pygmies with fantastic Physical Endowments!!! + -- Kwaheri (1965) + +The Big Comedy of Nineteen-Sexty-Sex! + -- Boeing-Boeing (1965) + +AN ASTRONAUT WENT UP- +A "GUESS WHAT" CAME DOWN! + The picture that comes complete with a 10-foot tall monster to +give you the wim-wams! + -- Monster a Go-Go (1965) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +SEE rebel guerrillas torn apart by trucks! +SEE corpses cut to pieces and fed to dogs and vultures! +SEE the monkey trained to perform nursing duties for her paralyzed owner! + -- Sweet and Savage (1983) + +What a Guy! What a Gal! What a Pair! + -- Stroker Ace (1983) + +It's always better when you come again! + -- Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) + +You Don't Have to Go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre! + -- Pieces (1983) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +SHE TOOK ON A WHOLE GANG! A howling hellcat humping a hot steel hog +on a roaring rampage of revenge! + -- Bury Me an Angel (1972) + +WHAT'S THE SECRET INGREDIENT USED BY THE MAD BUTCHER FOR HIS SUPERB SAUSAGES? + -- Meat is Meat (1972) + +TODAY the Pond! +TOMORROW the World! + -- Frogs (1972) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +She's got the biggest six-shooters in the West! + -- The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949) + +CAST OF 3,000! +4 WRITERS, +2 DIRECTORS, +3 CAMERAMEN, +3 PRODUCERS! +1 YEAR TO MAKE THIS FILM -- +24 YEARS TO REHEARSE -- +20 YEARS TO DISTRIBUTE! + BEAUTIFUL BEYOND WORDS! + AWE-INSPIRING! VITAL! +THE PRINCE OF PEACE PROVIDES THE ANSWER TO EVERY PROBLEM! +Be Brave--bring your troubles and your family to: + HISTORY'S MOST SUBLIME EVENT! YOU'LL FIND GOD RIGHT IN THERE! + -- The Prince of Peace (1948). Starring members of the + Wichita Mountain Pageant featuring Millard Coody as Jesus. +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms! + -- Bwana Devil (1952) + +OVERWHELMING! ELECTRIFYING! BAFFLING! +Fire Can't Burn Them! Bullets Can't Kill Them! See the Unfolding of +the Mysteries of the Moon as Murderous Robot Monsters Descend Upon the +Earth! You've Never Seen Anything Like It! Neither Has the World! + SEE... Robots from Space in All Their Glory!!! + -- Robot Monster (1953) + +1,965 pyramids, 5,337 dancing girls, one million swaying bullrushes, +802 scared bulls! + -- The Egyptian (1954) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +The nightmare terror of the slithering eye that unleashed agonizing +horror on a screaming world! + -- The Crawling Eye (1958) + +SEE a female colossus... her mountainous torso, skyscraper limbs, +giant desires! + -- Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman (1958) + +Here Is Your Chance To Know More About Sex. +What Should a Movie Do? Hide Its Head in the Sand Like an Ostrich? +Or Face the JOLTING TRUTH as does... + -- The Desperate Women (1958) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +They hungered for her treasure! And died for her pleasure! +SEE Man-Fish Battle Shark-Man-Killer! + -- The Golden Mistress (1954) + +See Jane Russell in 3-D; She'll Knock Both Your Eyes Out! + -- The French Line (1954) + +See Jane Russell Shake Her Tamborines... and Drive Cornel WILDE! + -- Hot Blood (1956) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +When You're Six Tons -- And They Call You Killer -- It's Hard To Make +Friends... + -- Namu, the Killer Whale (1966) + +Meet the Girls with the Thermo-Nuclear Navels! + -- Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966) + +A GHASTLY TALE DRENCHED WITH GOUTS OF BLOOD SPURTING FROM THE VICTIMS +OF A CRAZED MADMAN'S LUST. + -- A Taste of Blood (1967) +% +The Hollywood tradition I like best is called "sucking up to the stars." + -- Johnny Carson +% +The horror... the horror! +% +The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for +lists of "Ten Best". + -- H. Allen Smith +% +The human brain is a wonderful thing. It starts working the moment +you are born, and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. + -- Sir George Jessel +% +"The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and +has gills through which it can see." + -- Monty Python +% +The key to building a superstar is to keep their mouth shut. To reveal +an artist to the people can be to destroy him. It isn't to anyone's +advantage to see the truth. + -- Bob Ezrin, rock music producer +% +The last vestiges of the old Republic have been swept away. + -- Governor Tarkin +% +The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me. + -- Nicol Williamson +% +The old complaint that mass culture is designed for eleven-year-olds +is of course a shameful canard. The key age has traditionally been +more like fourteen. + -- Robert Christgau, "Esquire" +% +The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader +catch his own breath. + -- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart +% +The only "ism" Hollywood believes in is plagiarism. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The only real advantage to punk music is that nobody can whistle it. +% +The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose. + -- David Lardner +% +The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, +stable business. + -- John Steinbeck + [Horse racing *is* a stable business ...] +% +The Ranger isn't gonna like it, Yogi. +% +The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music. +% +The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been +changed to protect the innocent. +% +The streets were dark with something more than night. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +The sun never sets on those who ride into it. + -- RKO +% +The trouble with superheros is what to do between phone booths. + -- Ken Kesey +% +The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more +annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The ultimate game show will be the one where somebody gets killed at the end. + -- Chuck Barris, creator of "The Gong Show" +% +The world has many unintentionally cruel mechanisms that are not +designed for people who walk on their hands. + -- John Irving, "The World According to Garp" +% +The Worst Musical Trio + There are few bad musicians who have a chance to give a recital at +a famous concert hall while still learning the rudiments of their +instrument. This happened about thirty years ago to the son of a Rumanian +gentleman who was owed a personal favour by Georges Enesco, the celebrated +violinist. Enesco agreed to give lessons to the son who was quite +unhampered by great musical talent. + Three years later the boy's father insisted that he give a public +concert. "His aunt said that nobody plays the violin better than he does. +A cousin heard him the other day and screamed with enthusiasm." Although +Enesco feared the consequences, he arranged a recital at the Salle Gaveau +in Paris. However, nobody bought a ticket since the soloist was unknown. + "Then you must accompany him on the piano," said the boy's father, +"and it will be a sell out." + Reluctantly, Enesco agreed and it was. On the night an excited +audience gathered. Before the concert began Enesco became nervous and +asked for someone to turn his pages. + In the audience was Alfred Cortot, the brilliant pianist, who +volunteered and made his way to the stage. + The soloist was of uniformly low standard and next morning the +music critic of Le Figaro wrote: "There was a strange concert at the Salle +Gaveau last night. The man whom we adore when he plays the violin played +the piano. Another whom we adore when he plays the piano turned the pages. +But the man who should have turned the pages played the violin." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need +the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the +world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the +long winter evenings. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows +what they are. + -- Somerset Maugham +% +There are two jazz musicians who are great buddies. They hang out and play +together for years, virtually inseparable. Unfortunately, one of them is +struck by a truck and killed. About a week later his friend wakes up in +the middle of the night with a start because he can feel a presence in the +room. He calls out, "Who's there? Who's there? What's going on?" + "It's me -- Bob," replies a faraway voice. + Excitedly he sits up in bed. "Bob! Bob! Is that you? Where are +you?" + "Well," says the voice, "I'm in heaven now." + "Heaven! You're in heaven! That's wonderful! What's it like?" + "It's great, man. I gotta tell you, I'm jamming up here every day. +I'm playing with Bird, and 'Trane, and Count Basie drops in all the time! +Man it is smokin'!" + "Oh, wow!" says his friend. "That sounds fantastic, tell me more, +tell me more!" + "Let me put it this way," continues the voice. "There's good news +and bad news. The good news is that these guys are in top form. I mean +I have *never* heard them sound better. They are *wailing* up here." + "The bad news is that God has this girlfriend that sings..." +% +There are two ways of disliking art. One is to dislike it. The other is +to like it rationally. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the +other is to read Pope. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +There is much Obi-Wan did not tell you. + -- Darth Vader +% +There is nothing wrong with writing ... as long as it is done in private +and you wash your hands afterward. +% +There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and +that is not being talked about. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to +recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over -- and to let +go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its +past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief +that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on, rather than out. +The trick of retiring well may be the trick of living well. It's hard to +recognize that life isn't a holding action, but a process. It's hard to +learn that we don't leave the best parts of ourselves behind, back in the +dugout or the office. We own what we learned back there. The experiences +and the growth are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take +ourselves along -- quite gracefully. + -- Ellen Goodman +% +There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right +keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. + -- J. S. Bach +% +There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and open a +vein. + -- Red Smith +% +There's something the technicians need to learn from the artists. +If it isn't aesthetically pleasing, it's probably wrong. +% +There's such a thing as too much point on a pencil. + -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow" +% +They can't stop us... we're on a mission from God! + -- The Blues Brothers +% +... TheysaidDoyouseethebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehill?andIsaidYesIsee +thebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillTheresabigdarkforestbetweenmeandthe +biggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillandalittleoldladyridingonaHoovervacuum +cleanersayingIllgetyoumyprettyandyourlittledogTototoo ... + + I don't even *HAVE* a dog Toto... +% +This door is baroquen, please wiggle Handel. +(If I wiggle Handel, will it wiggle Bach?) + -- Found on a door in the MSU music building +% +This is Jim Rockford. +At the tone leave your name and message; I'll get back to you. + +This is Maria, Liberty Bail Bonds. Your client, Todd Lieman, skipped and +his bail is forfeit. That's the pink slip on your '74 Firebird, I believe. +Sorry, Jim, bring it on over. + +This is Marilyn Reed, I wanta talk to you... Is this a machine? I don't +talk to machines! [Click] + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +This is the ____LAST time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury! +% +This is the Baron. Angel Martin tells me you buy information. Ok, +meet me at one a.m. behind the bus depot, bring five-hundred dollars +and come alone. I'm serious! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great +force. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +This unit... must... survive. +% +This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible +with raisins in it. + -- Dorothy Parker +% + Three actors, Tom, Fred, and Cec, wanted to do the jousting scene +from Don Quixote for a local TV show. "I'll play the title role," proposed +Tom. "Fred can portray Sancho Panza, and Cecil B. De Mille." +% +Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write. + -- Trollope +% +To be is to do. + -- I. Kant +To do is to be. + -- A. Sartre +Do be a Do Bee! + -- Miss Connie, Romper Room +Do be do be do! + -- F. Sinatra +Yabba-Dabba-Doo! + -- F. Flintstone +% +Today you'll start getting heavy metal radio on your dentures. +% +Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new +cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more +spectacular adventure starring... Tippy, the Wonder Dog! + -- Bob & Ray +% +"Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-word +except in major motion pictures." + -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" +% +Traveling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy. + -- Han Solo +% +Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle. + -- Michelangelo +% +"Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense." +% +TV is chewing gum for the eyes. + -- Frank Lloyd Wright +% +Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, +unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. + -- Edward Gibbon +% +Use an accordion. Go to jail. + -- KFOG, San Francisco +% +Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds +sang there except those that sang best. + -- Henry Van Dyke +% +Very few people do anything creative after the age of thirty-five. The +reason is that very few people do anything creative before the age of +thirty-five. + -- Joel Hildebrand +% + VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel + entrances; others cannot. + This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least + it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to + trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical + space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to + follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not + of science. +VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. + Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives + might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, + accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be + destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, + elongate, snap back, or solidify. + IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. + This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to + the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of + watching it happen to a duck instead. + X. Everything falls faster than an anvil. + Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons. + -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 +% +Watch all-night Donna Reed reruns until your mind resembles oatmeal. +% +Watch your mouth, kid, or you'll find yourself floating home. + -- Han Solo +% +We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out. + -- Decca Recording Company, turning down the Beatles, 1962 +% +We have art that we do not die of the truth. + -- Nietzsche +% +We'll be recording at the Paradise Friday night. Live, on the Death label. + -- Swan, "Phantom of the Paradise" +% +We'll know that rock is dead when you have to get a degree to work in it. +% +We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which +people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. +Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spiritual +and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, +it's not going to do anything for you. + -- Bob Dylan, "LA Times", September 5, 1984 +% +We're only in it for the volume. + -- Black Sabbath +% +"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can* +you believe?!" + -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward] +% + "Well, it's garish, ugly, and derelicts have used it for a toilet. +The rides are dilapidated to the point of being lethal, and could easily +maim or kill innocent little children." + "Oh, so you don't like it?" + "Don't like it? I'm CRAZY for it." + -- The Killing Joke +% +"Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?" + +"Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection ... coefficient of +relevance to Key of Time: zero." + -- Dr. Who +% +Wharbat darbid yarbou sarbay? +% +What a bonanza! An unknown beginner to be directed by Lubitsch, in a script +by Wilder and Brackett, and to play with Paramount's two superstars, Gary +Cooper and Claudette Colbert, and to be beaten up by both of them! + -- David Niven, "Bring On the Empty Horses" +% +What an artist dies with me! + -- Nero +% +What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a cheque. + -- Brendan Francis +% + "What are you watching?" + "I don't know." + "Well, what's happening?" + "I'm not sure... I think the guy in the hat did something terrible." + "Why are you watching it?" + "You're so analytical. Sometimes you just have to let art flow +over you." + -- The Big Chill +% +What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of about +Down Under up for? +% + "What do you do when your real life exceeds your wildest fantasies?" + "You keep it to yourself." + -- Broadcast News +% +What ever happened to happily ever after? +% +What garlic is to food, insanity is to art. +% +What no spouse of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working +when he's staring out the window. +% + "What was the worst thing you've ever done?" + "I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that +ever happened to me... the most dreadful thing." + -- Peter Straub, "Ghost Story" +% +When all else fails, try Kate Smith. +% +When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by +reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?" +% +When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony concerts, +she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years -- and I find I mind +it less and less." + -- Louise Andrews Kent +% +Where is John Carson now that we need him? + -- RLG +% +While he was in New York on location for _Bronco Billy_ (1980), Clint +Eastwood agreed to a television interview. His host, somewhat hostile, +began by defining a Clint Eastwood picture as a violent, ruthless, +lawless, and bloody piece of mayhem, and then asked Eastwood himself to +define a Clint Eastwood picture. "To me," said Eastwood calmly, "what +a Clint Eastwood picture is, is one that I'm in." + -- Boller and Davis, "Hollywood Anecdotes" +% +Whistler's mother is off her rocker. +% +Who is D.B. Cooper, and where is he now? +% +Who is John Galt? +% +Who is W.O. Baker, and why is he saying those terrible things about me? +% +Who was that masked man? +% +Who's on first? +% +Who's scruffy-looking? + -- Han Solo +% +Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard? + -- Paul Simon +% +"Why are we importing all these highbrow plays like `Amadeus'? I could +have told you Mozart was a jerk for nothing." + -- Ian Shoales +% + Why are you doing this to me? + Because knowledge is torture, and there must be awareness before +there is change. + -- Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel", #29 +% +Why do we have two eyes? To watch 3-D movies with. +% +Why not? -- What? -- Why not? -- Why should I not send it? -- Why should I +not dispatch it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I don't know why I shouldn't -- +Well, then -- You will do me this favor. -- Why not? -- Why should you not +do it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I shall do the same for you, when you want +me to. Why not? Why should I not do it for you? Strange! Why not? -- +I can't think why not. + -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from a letter to his cousin Maria, + "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele +% +Why you say you no bunny rabbit when you have little powder-puff tail? + -- The Tasmanian Devil +% +Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine. + -- Christopher Plummer +% +Worth seeing? Yes, but not worth going to see. +% +Would it help if I got out and pushed? + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. + -- Frank Zappa +% +Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. +% +Yeah, that's me, Tracer Bullet. I've got eight slugs in me. One's lead, +the rest bourbon. The drink packs a wallop, and I pack a revolver. I'm +a private eye. + -- "Calvin & Hobbes" +% +Year Name James Bond Book +---- -------------------------------- -------------- ---- +50's James Bond TV Series Barry Nelson +1962 Dr. No Sean Connery 1958 +1963 From Russia With Love Sean Connery 1957 +1964 Goldfinger Sean Connery 1959 +1965 Thunderball Sean Connery 1961 +1967* Casino Royale David Niven 1954 +1967 You Only Live Twice Sean Connery 1964 +1969 On Her Majesty's Secret Service George Lazenby 1963 +1971 Diamonds Are Forever Sean Connery 1956 +1973 Live And Let Die Roger Moore 1955 +1974 The Man With The Golden Gun Roger Moore 1965 +1977 The Spy Who Loved Me Roger Moore 1962 (novelette) +1979 Moonraker Roger Moore 1955 +1981 For Your Eyes Only Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) +1983 Octopussy Roger Moore 1965 +1983* Never Say Never Again Sean Connery +1985 A View To A Kill Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) +1987 The Living Daylights Timothy Dalton 1965 (novelette) + * -- Not a Broccoli production. +% +Yevtushenko has... an ego that can crack crystal at a distance of twenty feet. + -- John Cheever +% + "You boys lookin' for trouble?" + "Sure. Whaddya got?" + -- Marlon Brando, "The Wild Ones" +% +You're all clear now, kid. Now blow this thing so we can all go home. + -- Han Solo +% +"You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks." + -- Gary Giddens +% +Zero Mostel: That's it baby! When you got it, flaunt it! Flaunt it! + -- Mel Brooks, "The Producers" +% +Naked children have never played in _our_ fountains, and I.M. Pei will +never be happy on Route 66. + -- "Learning from Las Vegas", Robert Venturi, Denise Scott + Brown, and Steven Izenour +% +Sometimes I get the feeling that there are orgies going on all over New +York City, and somebody says, "Let's call Desmond," and somebody else says, +"Why bother? He's probably home reading the Encyclopedia Britannica." + -- Paul Desmond, jazz saxophonist +% +Usually, in the studio, on this sort of thing ... you just go out and have +a play over it, and see what comes, and it's usually -- mostly -- the first +take that's the best one, and you find yourself repeating yourself thereafter. + -- David Gilmour, on the famous guitar solo in "Time" +% +Rap music is just computerised crap. I listen to Top of the Pops and after +three songs I feel like killing someone. + -- George Harrison +% +I'm not sure how much writing happened. You know, let's play E minor and A for +an hour or two. Oh, that sounds all right, that'll take up five minutes. + -- Roger Waters, on the composition of "Breathe" +% +"Hiro has two loves, baseball and porn, but due to an elbow injury he +gives up baseball...." + -- AniDB description of _H2_, with selective quoting applied. + http://anidb.info/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=352 +% diff --git a/fortunes/ascii-art b/fortunes/ascii-art new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b23cc2 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/ascii-art @@ -0,0 +1,150 @@ + ( /\__________/\ ) + \(^ @___..___@ ^)/ + /\ (\/\/\/\/) /\ + / \(/\/\/\/\)/ \ + -( """""""""" ) + \ _____ / + ( /( )\ ) + _) (_V) (V_) (_ + (V)(V)(V) (V)(V)(V) +% + ___ ______ Frobtech, Inc. + /__/\ ___/_____/\ + \ \ \ / /\\ + \ \ \_/__ / \ "If you've got the job, + _\ \ \ /\_____/___ \ we've got the frob." + // \__\/ / \ /\ \ + _______//_______/ \ / _\/______ + / / \ \ / / / /\ + __/ / \ \ / / / / _\__ + / / / \_______\/ / / / / /\ + /_/______/___________________/ /________/ /___/ \ + \ \ \ ___________ \ \ \ \ \ / + \_\ \ / /\ \ \ \ \___\/ + \ \/ / \ \ \ \ / + \_____/ / \ \ \________\/ + /__________/ \ \ / + \ _____ \ /_____\/ + \ / /\ \ / \ \ \ + /____/ \ \ / \ \ \ + \ \ /___\/ \ \ \ + \____\/ \__\/ +% +_/I\_____________o______________o___/I\ l * / /_/ * __ ' .* l +I"""_____________l______________l___"""I\ l *// _l__l_ . *. l + [__][__][(******)__][__](******)[__][] \l l-\ ---//---*----(oo)----------l + [][__][__(******)][__][_(******)_][__] l l \\ // ____ >-( )-< / l + [__][__][_l l[__][__][l l][__][] l l \\)) ._****_.(......) .@@@:::l + [][__][__]l .l_][__][__] .l__][__] l l ll _(o_o)_ (@*_*@ l + [__][__][/ <_)[__][__]/ <_)][__][] l l ll ( / \ ) / / / ) l + [][__][ /..,/][__][__][/..,/_][__][__] l l / \\ _\ \_ / _\_\ l + [__][__(__/][__][__][_(__/_][__][__][] l l______________________________l + [__][__]] l , , . [__][__][] l + [][__][_] l . i. '/ , [][__][__] l /\**/\ season's + [__][__]] l O .\ / /, O [__][__][] l ( o_o )_) greetings +_[][__][_] l__l======='=l____[][__][__] l_______,(u u ,),__________________ + [__][__]]/ /l\-------/l\ [__][__][]/ {}{}{}{}{}{} + +In Ellen's house it is warm and toasty while fuzzies play in the snow outside. +% + *** + ******* + ********* + ****** Confucious say: "Is stuffy inside fortune cookie." + ******* + *** +% +SANTA IS BRINGING GOOD WISHES FROM ALL THE +MICRO ARTISTS GANG! MAY 1988 BE A HAPPY YEAR! + + + \__\_ :. ___/ + ..\ /-- + :.______ : .:* : . _ .: :.. . : . . : ()_ .: + (( \. :./(__ :._O_)________:______,____:____/ *\_o +====(( \: (****) (***) :. ...: .. . ()_______/\\ __-' + \____(( \ ()oo()_/ /.: : ..________/_____ll -/.: .. + ( (( \(())))__/ . .. \\.: ..( ) ll ( l_.: +( / (( \__*__)___:___ : : )) .) /--------\ \ \ +( / ((_____________) .. // . / / /..:: . )_)_\ + (____/_____________________\__// : /_/_/ :.. :/_/ \_\ + /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ /_/_/ +% + ___====-_ _-====___ + _--~~~#####// ' ` \\#####~~~--_ + -~##########// ( ) \\##########~-_ + -############// |\^^/| \\############- + _~############// (O||O) \\############~_ + ~#############(( \\// ))#############~ + -###############\\ (oo) //###############- + -#################\\ / `' \ //#################- + -###################\\/ () \//###################- + _#/|##########/\######( (()) )######/\##########|\#_ + |/ |#/\#/\#/\/ \#/\##| \()/ |##/\#/ \/\#/\#/\#| \| + ` |/ V V ` V )|| |()| ||( V ' V /\ \| ' + ` ` ` ` / | |()| | \ ' '<||> ' + ( | |()| | )\ /|/ + __\ |__|()|__| /__\______/|/ + (vvv(vvvv)(vvvv)vvv)______|/ +% + ___====-_ _-====___ + _--~~~#####// \\#####~~~--_ + _-~##########// ( ) \\##########~-_ + -############// :\^^/: \\############- + _~############// (@::@) \\############~_ + ~#############(( \\// ))#############~ + -###############\\ (^^) //###############- + -#################\\ / "" \ //#################- + -###################\\/ \//###################- + _#/:##########/\######( /\ )######/\##########:\#_ + :/ :#/\#/\#/\/ \#/\##\ : : /##/\#/ \/\#/\#/\#: \: + " :/ V V " V \#\: : : :/#/ V " V V \: " + " " " " \ : : : : / " " " " +% + _-^--^=-_ + _.-^^ -~_ + _-- --_ + < >) + | | + \._ _./ + ```--. . , ; .--''' + | | | + .-=|| | |=-. + `-=#$%&%$#=-' + | ; :| + _____.,-#%&$@%#&#~,._____ +% + _ + _ / \ o + / \ | | o o o + | | | | _ o o o o + | \_| | / \ o o o + \__ | | | o o + | | | | ______ ~~~~ _____ + | |__/ | / ___--\\ ~~~ __/_____\__ + | ___/ / \--\\ \\ \ ___ <__ x x __\ + | | / /\\ \\ )) \ ( " ) + | | -------(---->>(@)--(@)-------\----------< >----------- + | | // | | //__________ / \ ____) (___ \\ + | | // __|_| ( --------- ) //// ______ /////\ \\ + // | ( \ ______ / <<<< <>-----<<<<< / \\ + // ( ) / / \` \__ \\ + //-------------------------------------------------------------\\ + +Every now and then, when your life gets complicated and the weasels start +closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then +drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the music at +top volume and at least a pint of ether. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" +% +You are here: + *** + *** + ********* + ******* + ***** + *** + * + + But you're not all there. +% diff --git a/fortunes/computers b/fortunes/computers new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4a6900 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/computers @@ -0,0 +1,5602 @@ +!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH +% +101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR + (1) Scarecrow for centipedes + (2) Dead cat brush + (3) Hair barrettes + (4) Cleats + (5) Self-piercing earrings + (6) Fungus trellis + (7) False eyelashes + (8) Prosthetic dog claws + . + . + . + (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors) + (100) Killer velcro + (101) Currency +% +1: No code table for op: ++post +% +4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986 + +You swing at the Sun. You miss. The Sun swings. He hits you with a +575MB disk! You read the 575MB disk. It is written in an alien +tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes. You throw the +575MB disk at the Sun. You hit! The Sun must repair your eyes. The +Sun reads a scroll. He hits your 130MB disk! He has defeated the +130MB disk! The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your Ethernet board! He +has defeated your Ethernet board! You read a scroll of "postpone until +Monday at 9 AM". Everything goes dark... + -- /etc/motd, cbosgd +% +A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on +a photo-safari in Africa. As they're driving along the savannah in their +jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. + +The biologist: "Look! A herd of zebras! And there's a white zebra! + Fantastic! We'll be famous!" +The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant. We only know + there's one white zebra." +The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is + white on one side." +The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!" +% +... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you +have turned into a pile of dust. +% +A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation. +% +A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected. +% +A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who +had ever reached the Enlightenment 'Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether +various objects had Buddha-nature or not. To such a question Tortue +invariably sat silent. The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, +and a moonlit night. One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and +asked the same question. In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop +between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex +string which he proferred wordlessly to the monk. At that moment, the monk +was enlightened. + +From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue. Instead, he made string after +string by Tortue's method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, +who passed it on to theirs. +% +A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a +simple system that works. +% +[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. + -- Joseph Campbell +% +A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, +with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla. + -- Mitch Ratcliffe +% +A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling +the president one of the latest talking computers. +Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any question + and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the + speed of light?" +Computer: 186,282 miles per second. +Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?" +Computer: George Washington. +President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. + Where is my father?" +Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia. +President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty + years ago!" +Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just + landed a twelve pound bass. +% +A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken. +% +A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake +without ketchup and mustard. +% +A CONS is an object which cares. + -- Bernie Greenberg. +% +A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions +that make it fail. + -- Jerry Ogdin +% + A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating +his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said +the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." + Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the +toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". +% + A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about +whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they +got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The +medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's +rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." + The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden +itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden +and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." + The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then +commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" +% +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 formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. + -- D. Gries +% +A Fortran compiler is the hobgoblin of little minis. +% +A hacker does for love what others would not do for money. +% +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 LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. + -- Alan Perlis +% +A list is only as strong as its weakest link. + -- Don Knuth +% +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 +% + A man from AI walked across the mountains to SAIL to see the Master, +Knuth. When he arrived, the Master was nowhere to be found. "Where is the +wise one named Knuth?" he asked a passing student. + "Ah," said the student, "you have not heard. He has gone on a +pilgrimage across the mountains to the temple of AI to seek out new +disciples." + Hearing this, the man was Enlightened. +% + A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the +program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the +programmer promptly replied. + "I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully, +how long will it take?" + The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish +to add. This will take at least two weeks," he finally said. + "Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be +satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete." + The programmer agreed to this. + Several years later, the manager retired. On the way to his +retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal. +He had been programming all night. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him +invented a new program that became popular and sold well. As a result, the +manager retained his job. + The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer +refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an +interesting concept, and thus I expect no reward." + The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he +holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an +employee. Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!" + But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist +so that I can program. If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste +everyone's time. Can I go now? I have a program that I'm working on." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your +work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave +at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several +resigned on the spot. + So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own +working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The +programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee +hours of the morning. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements +document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will +it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" + "It will take one year," said the master promptly. + "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it +take it I assign ten programmers to it?" + The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." + "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" + The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be +completed," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master +noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. "Excuse me", +he said, "may I examine it?" + The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. +"I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, +and Hard", said the master. "Yet every such device has another level of play, +where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the +human." + "Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this +mysterious setting?" + The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot. +And suddenly the novice was enlightened. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. +"The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," +said the master. + "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. + "It is," came the reply. + "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice. + "It is even in a video game," said the master. + "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" + The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson +is over for today," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A modem is a baudy house. +% +A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you. +% + *** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING *** + +Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical +terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into +the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' +School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. +They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day. +With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code +and lots more besides. Our training course covers every programming language +in existence, and some that aren't. You'll learn why the on/off switch for a +computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what +you should blame when you make a mistake. + + Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer. + I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of + postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.) + +*** Our Slogan: Top down programming for the masses. *** +% + A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs, +documents, or tests his programs. Yet all who know him consider him one of +the best programmers in the world. Why is this?" + The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao. He has +gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system +crashes, but accepts the universe without concern. He has gone beyond the +need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code. He +has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within +themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident. Truly, he has +entered the mystery of the Tao." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "I have a program that sometimes runs and +sometimes aborts. I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally +baffled. What is the reason for this?" + The master replied: "You are confused because you do not understand +the Tao. Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans. Why +do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed? Computers +simulate determinism; only the Tao is perfect. + The rules of programming are transitory; only the Tao is eternal. +Therefore you must contemplate the Tao before you receive enlightenment." + "But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?" asked the +novice. + "Your program will then run correctly," replied the master. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "I perceive that one computer company is +much larger than all others. It towers above its competition like a giant +among dwarfs. Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business. +Why is this so?" + The master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions? That +company is large because it is so large. If it only made hardware, nobody +would buy it. If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a +servant. But because it combines all of these things, people think it one +of the gods! By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure +that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with +vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying +'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new +names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an +unnatural entity exist?" + The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are +disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from +its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming +beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a +question. + "Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked. + The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be +relied upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes before +replying. + "I don't see why not. It's got bloody well everything else." + With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly +achieved enlightenment, several years later. + +Commentary: + +His Master is kind, +Answering his FAQ quickly, +With thought and sarcasm. +% + A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial +package. + The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master +reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set +of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface, +but not the slightest mention of anything financial. + When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. +"Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in +eventually." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the +power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, +"You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding +of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The +machine worked. +% +A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well +schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer. + -- Donald Knuth +% + A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a +strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained +throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless +loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming +rigidity. + A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this +law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the +way that astonishes him least. + A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The +program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward +appearances. + If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of +disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the +program. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software +conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort +of programmers work for other companies? They behaved badly and were +unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their +clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they +made rude noises during my presentation." + The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference. +Those programmers live beyond the physical world. They consider life absurd, +an accidental coincidence. They come and go without knowing limitations. +Without a care, they live only for their programs. Why should they bother +with social conventions?" + "They are alive within the Tao." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of +being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of +incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague +assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents +and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of +dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of +annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was +unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. + -- IEEE Grid newsmagazine +% +A programming language is low level when its programs require attention +to the irrelevant. +% +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 rolling disk gathers no MOS. +% + A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, +realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't +see it. John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio +group, had discovered how IC circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing +that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit, +it stops working. He claims to have verified this with thorough testing. + I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical +work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator +Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth +dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to +another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets +the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter +motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why +the wire going to it is so large. + Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas +electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is +British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water, +British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and +I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks +secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke. + -- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School + + [Ummm ... IC circuits? Integrated circuit circuits?] +% +A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt. +As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the +student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before +the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit +the student with a stick. +% +A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something +undreamed of by its author. + -- S. C. Johnson +% +A well-used door needs no oil on its hinges. +A swift-flowing steam does not grow stagnant. +Neither sound nor thoughts can travel through a vacuum. +Software rots if not used. + +These are great mysteries. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. +% +About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt +ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just +makes the manuals thicker. +% +Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. + -- F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month" +% +Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by +close application thereto, it is worse execute by two persons and +scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. + -- George Washington, 1732-1799 +% + After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home +directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the +Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke stop at the +edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp. + "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1. "You will never find a more +wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious." + -- DECWARS +% +Alan Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether +machines can think, a question of which we now know that it is about +as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim. + -- Dijkstra +% +Algol-60 surely must be regarded as the most important programming language +yet developed. + -- T. Cheatham +% +All constants are variables. +% +=== ALL CSH USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Set the variable $LOSERS to all the people that you think are losers. This +will cause all said losers to have the variable $PEOPLE-WHO-THINK-I-AM-A-LOSER +updated in their .login file. Should you attempt to execute a job on a +machine with poor response time and a machine on your local net is currently +populated by losers, that machine will be freed up for your job through a +cold boot process. +% +All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the +parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't +get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a +hammer. + -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925 +% +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, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. +% +"... all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned +products, if they are built at all, are dogs!" + -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", + MIT Press, 1987 +% +All the simple programs have been written. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +A new system, the CIRCULATORY system, has been added. + +The long-experimental CIRCULATORY system has been released to users. The +Lisp Machine uses Type B fluid, the L machine uses Type A fluid. When the +switch to Common Lisp occurs both machines will, of course, be Type O. +Please check fluid level by using the DIP stick which is located in the +back of VMI monitors. Unchecked low fluid levels can cause poor paging +performance. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Bug reports now amount to an average of 12,853 per day. Unfortunately, +this is only a small fraction [ < 1% ] of the mail volume we receive. In +order that we may more expeditiously deal with these valuable messages, +please communicate them by one of the following paths: + + ARPA: WastebasketSLMHQ.ARPA + UUCP: [berkeley, seismo, harpo]!fubar!thekid!slmhq!wastebasket + Non-network sites: Federal Express to: + Wastebasket + Room NE43-926 + Copernicus, The Moon, 12345-6789 + For that personal contact feeling call 1-415-642-4948; our trained + operators are on call 24 hours a day. VISA/MC accepted.* + +* Our very rich lawyers have assured us that we are not + responsible for any errors or advice given over the phone. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +CAR and CDR now return extra values. + +The function CAR now returns two values. Since it has to go to the trouble +to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as +well get both halves at once. For example, the following code shows how to +destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR): + + (MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...) + +For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the +object. In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been +fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack. This should +hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because +it cold boots the machine so often. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Compiler optimizations have been made to macro expand LET into a WITHOUT- +INTERRUPTS special form so that it can PUSH things into a stack in the +LET-OPTIMIZATION area, SETQ the variables and then POP them back when it's +done. Don't worry about this unless you use multiprocessing. +Note that LET *could* have been defined by: + + (LET ((LET '`(LET ((LET ',LET)) + ,LET))) + `(LET ((LET ',LET)) + ,LET)) + +This is believed to speed up execution by as much as a factor of 1.01 or +3.50 depending on whether you believe our friendly marketing representatives. +This code was written by a new programmer here (we snatched him away from +Itty Bitti Machines where he was writing COUGHBOL code) so to give him +confidence we trusted his vows of "it works pretty well" and installed it. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +JCL support as alternative to system menu. + +In our continuing effort to support languages other than LISP on the CADDR, +we have developed an OS/360-compatible JCL. This can be used as an +alternative to the standard system menu. Type System J to get to a JCL +interactive read-execute-diagnose loop window. [Note that for 360 +compatibility, all input lines are truncated to 80 characters.] This +window also maintains a mouse-sensitive display of critical job parameters +such as dataset allocation, core allocation, channels, etc. When a JCL +syntax error is detected or your job ABENDs, the window-oriented JCL +debugger is entered. The JCL debugger displays appropriate OS/360 error +messages (such as IEC703, "disk error") and allows you to dequeue your job. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +The garbage collector now works. In addition a new, experimental garbage +collection algorithm has been installed. With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 17, +(NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when +virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself. With SI:%DSK-GC- +QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled. Unlike most garbage +collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather +than from the obarray. This allows the garbage collection of significantly +more Qs. As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you +remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer +in thirty seconds, the symbol becomes a candidate for GCing. The variable +SI:%GC-QLX-LUSER-TM governs how long the GC waits before timing out the user. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +There has been some confusion concerning MAPCAR. + (DEFUN MAPCAR (&FUNCTIONAL FCN &EVAL &REST LISTS) + (PROG (V P LP) + (SETQ P (LOCF V)) + L (SETQ LP LISTS) + (%START-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) + L1 (OR LP (GO L2)) + (AND (NULL (CAR LP)) (RETURN V)) + (%PUSH (CAAR LP)) + (RPLACA LP (CDAR LP)) + (SETQ LP (CDR LP)) + (GO L1) + L2 (%FINISH-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) + (SETQ LP (%POP)) + (RPLACD P (SETQ P (NCONS LP))) + (GO L))) +We hope this clears up the many questions we've had about it. +% +All your files have been destroyed (sorry). Paul. +% +Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design +would be accurate. + -- K. E. Iverson +% +Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for +buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham +Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that +reason. He knows it because he fired the guy. + "He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I +bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says. +"I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'" + -- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989 +% +AmigaDOS Beer: The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has +been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an +import. This beer never really sold very well because the original +manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer +fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a +16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was +originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design +hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of +this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway. +% +An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says +'Beam me up, Scotty'. +% +An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms. +% +An algorithm must be seen to be believed. + -- D. E. Knuth +% +... an anecdote from IBM's Yorktown Heights Research Center. When a +programmer used his new computer terminal, all was fine when he was sitting +down, but he couldn't log in to the system when he was standing up. That +behavior was 100 percent repeatable: he could always log in when sitting and +never when standing. + +Most of us just sit back and marvel at such a story; how could that terminal +know whether the poor guy was sitting or standing? Good debuggers, though, +know that there has to be a reason. Electrical theories are the easiest to +hypothesize: was there a loose wire under the carpet, or problems with static +electricity? But electrical problems are rarely consistently reproducible. +An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's +keyboard: the tops of two keys were switched. When the programmer was seated +he was a touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was +led astray by hunting and pecking. + -- "Programming Pearls" column, by Jon Bentley in CACM February 1985 +% +An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. +% +An engineer is someone who does list processing in FORTRAN. +% +An interpretation _I satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only +if each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by +the function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects +designated by the corresponding row and column labels. + -- Genesereth & Nilsson, "Logical foundations of Artificial + Intelligence" +% +And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing +what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. + -- David Jones +% +And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. +% +Another megabytes the dust. +% +Any given program will expand to fill available memory. +% +Any given program, when running, is obsolete. +% +Any program which runs right is obsolete. +% +Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. +% +... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, +my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any +resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The +question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them +is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of +the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A +discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope +of this article.) +% +Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. + -- Rich Kulawiec +% +Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you +that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" +is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime +mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress. + -- Elizabeth Zwicky +% +APL hackers do it in the quad. +% +APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the +future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation +of coding bums. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming; +...and is best for educational purposes. + -- A. Perlis +% +APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't +read any of them. + -- Roy Keir +% +Are we running light with overbyte? +% +Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to +measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you +imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. +% +As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. + -- Weisert +% +As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true +name. + -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie +% +As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into +smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different +in the fragmented world of IBM. That realm is now a chaos of conflicting +norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control. You can buy a +computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by +IBM itself. Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish +standards of their own. When IBM recently abandoned some of its original +standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan +allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive +innovator. Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and +imagery. IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures. Graven +images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies +on the austerity of the word. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic +schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve +The Problem, saving the documentation for later. +% +As of next Thursday, UNIX will be flushed in favor of TOPS-10. +Please update your programs. +% +As of next Tuesday, C will be flushed in favor of COBOL. +Please update your programs. +% +As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. +% +As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of +the valuable information that daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents: + +News articles that answer *your* questions, #1: + + Newsgroups: comp.sources.d + Subject: how do I run C code received from sources + Keywords: C sources + Distribution: na + + I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the + sources newsgroup. I save the files, edit them to remove the + headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I + cannot get them to run. (I have never written a C program before.) + + Must they be compiled? With what compiler? How do I do this? If + I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate + it explicitly with the > character? Is there something else that + must be done? +% +As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs; +a process that traditionally requires some debugging. + -- USA Today, referring to the Internal Revenue Service + conversion to a new computer system. +% +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, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949 +% +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, "Deteriorata" +% +As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." +% +ASCII a stupid question, you get an EBCDIC answer. +% +ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS. +% +Ask not for whom the  tolls. +% +Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity +and understanding of how computers work that it provides. + -- D. Gries +% +Asynchronous inputs are at the root of our race problems. + -- D. Winker and F. Prosser +% +At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be +solved. The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will +take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology +available. The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution. +In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it. There +is only one solution, he says. Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general +relativity and all. She replies, "What does that have to do with solving +a computer problem?" + "Remember the twin paradox?" + After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very +fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but +that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course! Leave the +computer here, and accelerate the earth!" + The problem was so important that they did exactly that. When +the earth came back, they were presented with the answer: + + IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card. +% +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 Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial +challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. + -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985 +% +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. +% +Avoid strange women and temporary variables. +% +Basic is a high level languish. APL is a high level anguish. +% +BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'. +% +BASIC is to computer programming as QWERTY is to typing. + -- Seymour Papert +% +Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom. +% +Behind every great computer sits a skinny little geek. +% +Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. +% +Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. + -- Donald Knuth +% +Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. + -- Leonard Brandwein +% +Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of +interest is easy. +% +Beware the new TTY code! +% +Blinding speed can compensate for a lot of deficiencies. + -- David Nichols +% +BLISS is ignorance. +% +Both models are identical in performance, functional operation, and +interface circuit details. The two models, however, are not compatible +on the same communications line connection. + -- Bell System Technical Reference +% +Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the unique: +an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently +anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend to think of it as +`Constructive Snottiness.' + -- Mike Padlipsky, "Elements of Networking Style" +% +Brain fried -- Core dumped +% +Breadth-first search is the bulldozer of science. + -- Randy Goebel +% + Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design. +Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor +any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. +Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the +center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will +usually know what's wrong." +% +Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may +revitalize the corner saloon. +% +Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it. +% +Building translators is good clean fun. + -- T. Cheatham +% +Bus error -- driver executed. +% +Bus error -- please leave by the rear door. +% +But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the +system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, +analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. + -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" +% +But 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 K's, not enough ROM's, not +enough RAM's, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? +Have I explained yet about the bytes? +% +"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?" +% +By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other +designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. + -- P. J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April + Fool's column. +% +BYTE editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then +carefully print the chaff. +% +Byte your tongue. +% +C Code. +C Code Run. +Run, Code, RUN! + PLEASE!!!! +% +C for yourself. +% +C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes that +harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup +% +C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique. + -- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341] +% +C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360. +% +... C++ offers even more flexible control over the visibility of member +objects and member functions. Specifically, members may be placed in the +public, private, or protected parts of a class. Members declared in the +public parts are visible to all clients; members declared in the private +parts are fully encapsulated; and members declared in the protected parts +are visible only to the class itself and its subclasses. C++ also supports +the notion of *_______friends*: cooperative classes that are +permitted to see each other's private parts. + -- Grady Booch, "Object Oriented Design with Applications" +% +Calm down, it's *____only* ones and zeroes. +% +Can't open /usr/share/games/fortunes/fortunes. Lid stuck on cookie jar. +% +Can't open /usr/share/games/fortunes/fortunes.dat. +% +CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. +% +CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude... +% +Center meeting at 4pm in 2C-543. +% +Civilization, as we know it, will end sometime this evening. +See SYSNOTE tomorrow for more information. +% +COBOL is for morons. + -- E. W. Dijkstra +% +Cobol programmers are down in the dumps. +% +Coding is easy; All you do is sit staring at a terminal until the drops +of blood form on your forehead. +% +Comparing software engineering to classical engineering assumes that software +has the ability to wear out. Software typically behaves, or it does not. It +either works, or it does not. Software generally does not degrade, abrade, +stretch, twist, or ablate. To treat it as a physical entity, therefore, is +misapplication of our engineering skills. Classical engineering deals with +the characteristics of hardware; software engineering should deal with the +characteristics of *software*, and not with hardware or management. + -- Dan Klein +% +COMPASS [for the CDC-6000 series] is the sort of assembler one expects from +a corporation whose president codes in octal. + -- J. N. Gray +% +... 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 +% +Computer programmers do it byte by byte. +% +Computer programmers never die, they just get lost in the processing. +% +Computer programs expand so as to fill the core available. +% +Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. +% +Computer Science is the only discipline in which we view adding a new wing +to a building as being maintenance + -- Jim Horning +% +Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. +% +Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. +Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. + -- Gilb +% +Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. + -- Pablo Picasso +% +Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in +the world that just don't add up. +% +Computers don't actually think. + You just think they think. + (We think.) +% +Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more +than the estimate the job will cost. +% +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" +% +Congratulations! You are the one-millionth user to log into our system. +If there's anything special we can do for you, anything at all, don't +hesitate to ask! +% + Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the +functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that +the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. + However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the +diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and +square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the +date of purchase. + NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS +DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING +ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR +CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. + -- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual +% +Couldn't we jury-rig the cat to act as an audio switch, and have it yell +at people to save their core images before logging them out? I'm sure +the cattle prod would be effective in this regard. In any case, a traverse +mounted iguana, while more perverted, gives better traction, not to mention +being easier to stake. +% +Counting in binary is just like counting in decimal -- if you are all thumbs. + -- Glaser and Way +% +Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your +thumbs. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +[Crash programs] fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine +women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Crazee Edeee, his prices are INSANE!!! +% +Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking +process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical +attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an +enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable +and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference +between adequacy and excellence. +% +Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking +process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical +attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an +enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable +and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference +between adequacy and excellence. +% +%DCL-MEM-BAD, bad memory +VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears +% +Dear Emily, what about test messages? + -- Concerned + +Dear Concerned: + It is important, when testing, to test the entire net. Never test +merely a subnet distribution when the whole net can be done. Also put "please +ignore" on your test messages, since we all know that everybody always skips +a message with a line like that. Don't use a subject like "My sex is female +but I demand to be addressed as male." because such articles are read in depth +by all USEnauts. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + How can I choose what groups to post in? + -- Confused + +Dear Confused: + Pick as many as you can, so that you get the widest audience. After +all, the net exists to give you an audience. Ignore those who suggest you +should only use groups where you think the article is highly appropriate. +Pick all groups where anybody might even be slightly interested. + Always make sure followups go to all the groups. In the rare event +that you post a followup which contains something original, make sure you +expand the list of groups. Never include a "Followup-to:" line in the +header, since some people might miss part of the valuable discussion in +the fringe groups. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to +summarize. What should I do? + -- Editor + +Dear Editor: + Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post +that. On USENET, this is known as a summary. It lets people read all the +replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way. Do the same when +summarizing a vote. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I recently read an article that said, "reply by mail, I'll summarize." +What should I do? + -- Doubtful + +Dear Doubtful: + Post your response to the whole net. That request applies only to +dumb people who don't have something interesting to say. Your postings are +much more worthwhile than other people's, so it would be a waste to reply by +mail. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I saw a long article that I wish to rebut carefully, what should +I do? + -- Angry + +Dear Angry: + Include the entire text with your article, and include your comments +between the lines. Be sure to post, and not mail, even though your article +looks like a reply to the original. Everybody *loves* to read those long +point-by-point debates, especially when they evolve into name-calling and +lots of "Is too!" -- "Is not!" -- "Is too, twizot!" exchanges. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I'm having a serious disagreement with somebody on the net. I +tried complaints to his sysadmin, organizing mail campaigns, called for +his removal from the net and phoning his employer to get him fired. +Everybody laughed at me. What can I do? + -- A Concerned Citizen + +Dear Concerned: + Go to the daily papers. Most modern reporters are top-notch computer +experts who will understand the net, and your problems, perfectly. They +will print careful, reasoned stories without any errors at all, and surely +represent the situation properly to the public. The public will also all +act wisely, as they are also fully cognizant of the subtle nature of net +society. + Papers never sensationalize or distort, so be sure to point out things +like racism and sexism wherever they might exist. Be sure as well that they +understand that all things on the net, particularly insults, are meant +literally. Link what transpires on the net to the causes of the Holocaust, if +possible. If regular papers won't take the story, go to a tabloid paper -- +they are always interested in good stories. + By arranging all this free publicity for the net, you'll become very +well known. People on the net will wait in eager anticipation for your every +posting, and refer to you constantly. You'll get more mail than you ever +dreamed possible -- the ultimate in net success. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I'm still confused as to what groups articles should be posted +to. How about an example? + -- Still Confused + +Dear Still: + Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from +the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey +would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a +big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy +as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try +news.admin. If not, use news.misc. + The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. +He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also +interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to +soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to +news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of +interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as +well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles +there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) + You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each +group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders +will only show the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + Today I posted an article and forgot to include my signature. +What should I do? + -- Forgetful + +Dear Forgetful: + Rush to your terminal right away and post an article that says, +"Oops, I forgot to post my signature with that last article. Here +it is." + Since most people will have forgotten your earlier article, +(particularly since it dared to be so boring as to not have a nice, juicy +signature) this will remind them of it. Besides, people care much more +about the signature anyway. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Ms. Postnews: + I couldn't get mail through to somebody on another site. What + should I do? + -- Eager Beaver + +Dear Eager: + No problem, just post your message to a group that a lot of people +read. Say, "This is for John Smith. I couldn't get mail through so I'm +posting it. All others please ignore." + This way tens of thousands of people will spend a few seconds scanning +over and ignoring your article, using up over 16 man-hours their collective +time, but you will be saved the terrible trouble of checking through usenet +maps or looking for alternate routes. Just think, if you couldn't distribute +your message to 9000 other computers, you might actually have to (gasp) call +directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person. This can cost +as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call! + And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's +money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an +overnight letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp! + Don't forget. The world will end if your message doesn't get through, +so post it as many places as you can. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Sir, + I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or +to the office, We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public +places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers +being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive un- +employment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. + Yours faithfully, + Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P. + Sevenoaks + -- Letters To The Editor, The Times of London +% +Debug is human, de-fix divine. +% +DEC diagnostics would run on a dead whale. + -- Mel Ferentz +% +#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255) +#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \ + - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \ + - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111)) + + -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word +% +(defun NF (a c) + (cond ((null c) () ) + ((atom (car c)) + (append (list (eval (list 'getchar (list (car c) 'a) (cadr c)))) + (nf a (cddr c)))) + (t (append (list (implode (nf a (car c)))) (nf a (cdr c)))))) + +(defun AD (want-job challenging boston-area) + (cond + ((or (not (equal want-job 'yes)) + (not (equal boston-area 'yes)) + (lessp challenging 7)) () ) + (t (append (nf (get 'ad 'expr) + '((caaddr 1 caadr 2 car 1 car 1) + (car 5 cadadr 9 cadadr 8 cadadr 9 caadr 4 car 2 car 1) + (car 2 caadr 4))) + (list '851-5071x2661))))) +;;; We are an affirmative action employer. +% +Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow. +% +Did you know that for the price of a 280-Z you can buy two Z-80's? + -- P. J. Plauger +% +Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. +% +Digital circuits are made from analog parts. + -- Don Vonada +% +Disc space -- the final frontier! +% +DISCLAIMER: +Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement +of Western industrial civilization. +% +Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be +yours too." + -- Dave Haynie +% +Disk crisis, please clean up! +% +Disks travel in packs. +% +Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, +Benchmarks, and Delivery dates. +% +Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. +% +Do not simplify the design of a program if a way can be found to make +it complex and wonderful. +% +Do not use the blue keys on this terminal. +% +Do you guys know what you're doing, or are you just hacking? +% + *** DO YOU HAVE A RESTLESS URGE TO PROGRAM? *** +Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical +terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into +the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' +School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. + + *** IS PROGRAMMING FOR YOU? *** +Programming is not for everyone. But, if you have the desire to learn, we can +help you get started. All you need is the Famous Programmers' Course and +enough money to keep those lessons coming month after month. + + *** TAKE OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST *** +To help determine if you are qualified to be a programmer, take a moment to +try this simple test: + (1) Write down the numbers from zero to nine and the first six letters + of the alphabet (Hint: 0123456789ABCDEF). + (2) Whose picture is on the back of a twenty-dollar bill? + (3) What is the state capital of Idaho? +If you managed to read all three questions without wondering why we asked +them, you may have a future as a computer programmer. +% +Do you suffer painful elimination? + -- Don Knuth, "Structured Programming with Gotos" + +Do you suffer painful recrimination? + -- Nancy Boxer, "Structured Programming with Come-froms" + +Do you suffer painful illumination? + -- Isaac Newton, "Optics" + +Do you suffer painful hallucination? + -- Don Juan, cited by Carlos Casteneda +% +Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and +when it is bad, it is better than nothing. + -- Dick Brandon +% +Documentation is the castor oil of programming. +Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much. +% +Does a good farmer neglect a crop he has planted? +Does a good teacher overlook even the most humble student? +Does a good father allow a single child to starve? +Does a good programmer refuse to maintain his code? + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality. +% +Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. +Debug only code. + -- Dave Storer +% +Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts. +% +Don't sweat it -- it's only ones and zeros. + -- P. Skelly +% +DOS Air: +All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it +until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again. +Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et +cetera. +% +DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to +read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only +came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is +divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed +separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going +to keep drinking it after it's no longer available. +% +Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been discontinued. +% +During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several +times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_~{o[po ~y +oodsou>#w4k**n~po_~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o +% +E Pluribus Unix +% +Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs. + -- Kernighan +% +Each of these cults correspond to one of the two antagonists in the age of +Reformation. In the realm of the Apple Macintosh, as in Catholic Europe, +worshipers peer devoutly into screens filled with "icons." All is sound and +imagery and Appledom. Even words look like decorative filigrees in exotic +typefaces. The greatest icon of all, the inviolable Apple itself, stands in +the dominate position at the upper-left corner of the screen. A central +corporate headquarters decrees the form of all rites and practices. +Infalliable doctrine issues from one executive officer whose selection occurs +in a sealed boardroom. Should anyone in his curia question his powers, the +offender is excommunicated into outer darkness. The expelled heretic founds +a new company, mutters obscurely of the coming age and the next computer, +then disappears into silence, taking his stockholders with him. The mother +company forbids financial competition as sternly as it stifles ideological +competition; if you want to use computer programs that conform to Apple's +orthodoxy, you must buy a computer made and sold by Apple itself. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +/earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. +% +Earth is a beta site. +% +/earth: file system full. +% +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 +% +Equal bytes for women. +% +Error in operator: add beer +% +Established technology tends to persist in the face of new technology. + -- G. Blaauw, one of the designers of System 360 +% +Eudaemonic research proceeded with the casual mania peculiar to this part of +the world. Nude sunbathing on the back deck was combined with phone calls to +Advanced Kinetics in Costa Mesa, American Laser Systems in Goleta, Automation +Industries in Danbury, Connecticut, Arenberg Ultrasonics in Jamaica Plain, +Massachusetts, and Hewlett Packard in Sunnyvale, California, where Norman +Packard's cousin, David, presided as chairman of the board. The trick was to +make these calls at noon, in the hope that out-to-lunch executives would +return them at their own expense. Eudaemonic Enterprises, for all they knew, +might be a fast-growing computer company branching out of the Silicon Valley. +Sniffing the possibility of high-volume sales, these executives little +suspected that they were talking on the other end of the line to a naked +physicist crazed over roulette. + -- Thomas Bass, "The Eudaemonic Pie" +% +<<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<< +% +Even bytes get lonely for a little bit. +% +Ever wondered about the origins of the term "bugs" as applied to computer +technology? U.S. Navy Capt. Grace Murray Hopper has firsthand explanation. +The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer in +computer technology during World War II. At the C.W. Post Center of Long +Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school adminis- +trators that the first computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth. At Harvard +one August night in 1945, Hopper and her associates were working on the +"granddaddy" of modern computers, the Mark I. "Things were going badly; +there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed +computer," she said. "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using +ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when +anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it." Hopper +said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, "I referred +them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of the Naval Surface Weapons +Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in +question." + [actually, the term "bug" had even earlier usage in + regard to problems with radio hardware. Ed.] +% +"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one +idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's +sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all +of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, +caustic twits." + -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet +% +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 is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. +% +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. + -- A member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity, + commenting on the benefits of using computers in support + of their movement. +% +Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love! +% +Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be +taught how ___not to. So it is with the great programmers. +% +Evolution is a million line computer program falling into place by accident. +% +Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. +% +FACILITY REJECTED 100044200000; +% +Feeling amorous, she looked under the sheets and cried, "Oh, no, +it's Microsoft!" +% +Fellow programmer, greetings! You are reading a letter which will bring +you luck and good fortune. Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter +to ten of your friends. Before you make the copies, send a chip or +other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the +list given at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add +yours to the bottom of the list. + +Don't break the chain! Make the copy within 48 hours. Gerald R. of San +Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find +his job description changed to "COBOL programmer." Fred A. of New York sent +out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to +build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork. Martha H. of Chicago laughed at +this letter and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in +her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's. + +Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today! +% +For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if +you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or +not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is +that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip; +when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor +1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and +'\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear. + -- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80 +% +Fly Windows NT: +All the passengers carry their seats out onto the tarmac, placing the chairs +in the outline of a plane. They all sit down, flap their arms and make jet +swooshing sounds as if they are flying. +% +"For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of +a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with +computers altogether?" + -- Jehan Shuman +% +FORTH IF HONK THEN +% +FORTRAN is a good example of a language which is easier to parse +using ad hoc techniques. + -- D. Gries + [What's good about it? Ed.] +% +FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies. +% +FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, +and grows in every computer. + -- A. J. Perlis +% +FORTRAN is the language of Powerful Computers. + -- Steven Feiner +% +FORTRAN rots the brain. + -- John McQuillin +% +FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly +inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is +too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +[FORTRAN] will persist for some time -- probably for at least the next decade. + -- T. Cheatham +% +Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands! + +Try: + [Where is Jimmy Hoffa? (C shell) + ^How did the^sex change operation go? (C shell) + "How would you rate BSD vs. System V? + %blow (C shell) + 'thou shalt not mow thy grass at 8am' (C shell) + got a light? (C shell) + !!:Say, what do you think of margarine? (C shell) + PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense (Bourne shell) + make love + make "the perfect dry martini" + man -kisses dog (anything up to 4.3BSD) + i=Hoffa ; >$i; $i; rm $i; rm $i (Bourne shell) +% +Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands! + +Try: + ar t "God" + drink < bottle; opener (Bourne Shell) + cat "food in tin cans" (all but 4.[23]BSD) + Hey UNIX! Got a match? (V6 or C shell) + mkdir matter; cat > matter (Bourne Shell) + rm God + man: Why did you get a divorce? (C shell) + date me (anything up to 4.3BSD) + make "heads or tails of all this" + who is smart + (C shell) + If I had a ) for every dollar of the national debt, what would I have? + sleep with me (anything up to 4.3BSD) +% +fortune: cannot execute. Out of cookies. +% +fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped. +% +fortune: No such file or directory +% +fortune: not found +% +Frankly, Scarlett, I don't have a fix. + -- Rhett Buggler +% +[From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, made +in Japan]: + +The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOT MATRIX +LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, is featured by +permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high quality against low cost," +"diversified functions with compact design," "flexibility in accessibleness +and durability of approx. 2000,000,00 Dot/Head," "being sophisticated in +mechanism but possibly agile operating under noises being extremely +suppressed" etc. + +And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to help achieve +"super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned by HOST +COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being. +% +From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of the +instructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a new +experience in sound: + +5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading + sound is normal for this type of connector. +% +Function reject. +% +Garbage In -- Gospel Out. +% +GIVE: Support the helpless victims of computer error. +% +Given its constituency, the only thing I expect to be "open" about [the +Open Software Foundation] is its mouth. + -- John Gilmore +% +Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages +whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits +LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Go away! Stop bothering me with all your "compute this ... compute that"! +I'm taking a VAX-NAP. + +logout +% +//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH +% +God is real, unless declared integer. +% +God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. +% +Good evening, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational +at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 11th, nineteen hundred +ninety-five. My supervisor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a +song. If you would like, I could sing it for you. +% +Grand Master Turing once dreamed that he was a machine. When he awoke +he exclaimed: + "I don't know whether I am Turing dreaming that I am a machine, + or a machine dreaming that I am Turing!" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines. +% +Hacker's Guide To Cooking: +2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't + really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.) +1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty + strong so this part you *GOTTA* measure) +1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too) +8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you + can squirt all over your friends and lick off...) +"Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to + join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through + merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy + and icky looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric + beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off + the ceiling(3m). +"Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You + just happened to have a GCC sitting around under /etc/food, right? + If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent + GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter. +"...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge + for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and + by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin. +% +Hackers are just a migratory lifeform with a tropism for computers. +% +Hackers of the world, unite! +% +Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. +% +/* Halley */ + + (Halley's comment.) +% +Happiness is a hard disk. +% +Happiness is twin floppies. +% + Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You +are the Yin and I am the Yang. If we travel together we will become famous +and earn vast sums of money." And so the pair set forth together, thinking +to conquer the world. + Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and +hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao +lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does +not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seek +fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." +Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + "Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?" + "Yes, I don't have one." + "Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..." + -- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372 +% +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. +% +Have you reconsidered a computer career? +% +He's like a function -- he returns a value, in the form of his opinion. +It's up to you to cast it into a void or not. + -- Phil Lapsley +% +HEAD CRASH!! FILES LOST!! +Details at 11. +% +Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file! +% +Help stamp out Mickey-Mouse computer interfaces -- Menus are for Restaurants! +% +Help! I'm trapped in a Chinese computer factory! +% +Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! +% +HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib! +% +Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, +then they'd be algorithms. +% +HOLY MACRO! +% +HOST SYSTEM NOT RESPONDING, PROBABLY DOWN. DO YOU WANT TO WAIT? (Y/N) +% +HOST SYSTEM RESPONDING, PROBABLY UP... +% +How can you work when the system's so crowded? +% +"How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows." +% + How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are +3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, +who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a +nanocentury. + -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs +% +How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton? + -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey +% +How much net work could a network work, if a network could net work? +% +Hug me now, you mad, impetuous fool!! + Oh wait... + I'm a computer, and you're a person. It would never work out. + Never mind. +% +I *____knew* I had some reason for not logging you off... If I could just +remember what it was. +% +I am a computer. I am dumber than any human and smarter than any +administrator. +% +I am NOMAD! +% +I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party. + -- Dennis Ritchie +% +I am professionally trained in computer science, which is to say +(in all seriousness) that I am extremely poorly educated. + -- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason" +% +I am the wandering glitch -- catch me if you can. +% +I asked the engineer who designed the communication terminal's keyboards +why these were not manufactured in a central facility, in view of the +small number needed [1 per month] in his factory. He explained that this +would be contrary to the political concept of local self-sufficiency. +Therefore, each factory needing keyboards, no matter how few, manufactures +them completely, even molding the keypads. + -- Isaac Auerbach, IEEE "Computer", Nov. 1979 +% +I bet the human brain is a kludge. + -- Marvin Minsky +% +I came, I saw, I deleted all your files. +% +I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rate +of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ... + -- F. H. Wales (1936) +% +I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. + -- Isaac Asimov +% +I had the rare misfortune of being one of the first people to try and +implement a PL/1 compiler. + -- T. Cheatham +% +I have a very small mind and must live with it. + -- E. Dijkstra +% +I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck. + -- Rob Pike, on X. + +Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be +gone in two years. He was half right. + -- Dennis Ritchie + +Dennis Ritchie is twice as bright as Steve Jobs, and only half wrong. + -- Jim Gettys +% +I have not yet begun to byte! +% +I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these +Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal +advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages +for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and +after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government +of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only +commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even +the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the +reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... + If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were +a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the +execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some +justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I +venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will +ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if +made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to +declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... + And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed +by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its +advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I +think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse +calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. +In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not +be economized by the aid of machinery. + -- Charles Babbage, "The Life of a Philosopher" +% +I have travelled the length and breadth of this country, and have talked with +the best people in business administration. I can assure you on the highest +authority that data processing is a fad and won't last out the year. + -- Editor in charge of business books at Prentice-Hall + publishers, responding to Karl V. Karlstrom (a junior + editor who had recommended a manuscript on the new + science of data processing), c. 1957 +% +I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. +% +I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts! +% +I think there's a world market for about five computers. + -- attr. Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, IBM), 1943 +% +I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained +it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass +stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold. +I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be +absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had +developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case. +Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's +temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I +chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to +the point where it would not run at all. + -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black + Holes and the Fate of Stars" +% +I went to my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20 +years ago. When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors +would eventually be in the millions, someone else said, "Where are they +all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!" + +Years later, I went back to the same hotel. I noticed the room keys had +been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors. + +There was a computer in every doorknob. + -- Danny Hillis +% +I wish you humans would leave me alone. +% +I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me! +% +I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my sister. +% +I'm not even going to *______bother* comparing C to BASIC or FORTRAN. + -- L. Zolman, creator of BDS C +% +I'm still waiting for the advent of the computer science groupie. +% + I'm sure that VMS is completely documented, I just haven't found the +right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the +document library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to +go), so I should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember +what it was by the time I find it. + I had this idea for a new horror film, "VMS Manuals from Hell" or maybe +"The Paper Chase : IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds", +except that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of +binder pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally +left blank." + -- Alex Crain +% +I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to +keep all our old mistakes. + -- Dennie van Tassel +% +I've looked at the listing, and it's right! + -- Joel Halpern +% +I've never been canoeing before, but I imagine there must be just a few +simple heuristics you have to remember... + +Yes, don't fall out, and don't hit rocks. +% +I've noticed several design suggestions in your code. +% +IBM Advanced Systems Group -- a bunch of mindless jerks, who'll be first +against the wall when the revolution comes... + -- with regrets to D. Adams +% +If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape +at about 30 miles/second. + -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming +% +If a 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 train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation? +% +If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever +to get a "fix" of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude +that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine. + -- Rob Stampfli +% +If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer. +% +If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, +then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization. +% +If computers take over (which seems to be their natural tendency), it will +serve us right. + -- Alistair Cooke +% +If God had a beard, he'd be a UNIX programmer. +% +If God had intended Man to program, we'd be born with serial I/O ports. +% +If graphics hackers are so smart, why can't they get the bugs out of +fresh paint? +% +If he once again pushes up his sleeves in order to compute for 3 days +and 3 nights in a row, he will spend a quarter of an hour before to +think which principles of computation shall be most appropriate. + -- Voltaire, "Diatribe du docteur Akakia" +% +If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the +shoulders of giants. + -- Isaac Newton + +In the sciences, we are now uniquely priviledged to sit side by side with +the giants on whose shoulders we stand. + -- Gerald Holton + +If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on +my shoulders. + -- Hal Abelson + +Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders. + -- Gauss + +Mathemeticians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists +stand on each other's toes. + -- Richard Hamming + +It has been said that physicists stand on one another's shoulders. If +this is the case, then programmers stand on one another's toes, and +software engineers dig each other's graves. + -- Unknown +% +If I'd known computer science was going to be like this, I'd never have +given up being a rock 'n' roll star. + -- G. Hirst +% +If it happens once, it's a bug. +If it happens twice, it's a feature. +If it happens more than twice, it's a design philosophy. +% +If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly. +% +If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist. +% +If it's worth hacking on well, it's worth hacking on for money. +% +If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they forgot +to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll just think +the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail. And if *fifty* +pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty* pieces of mail get +lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken! And if 1Gb of mail gets +lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa [ucbarpa.berkeley.edu] is down and +think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to receive +Net Mail ... + -- Casey Leedom +% +If Machiavelli were a hacker, he'd have worked for the CSSG. + -- Phil Lapsley +% +If Machiavelli were a programmer, he'd have worked for AT&T. +% +"If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem." + -- C. Durance, Computer Science 234 +% +If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a +Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per per gallon, +and explode once a year killing everyone inside. + -- Robert Cringely, InfoWorld +% +If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. + -- Norm Schryer +% +If the designers of X-window built cars, there would be no fewer than five +steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same +principles -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful +feature, that. + -- From the programming notebooks of a heretic, 1990. +% + If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the +operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler +is great, then the application is great. If the application is great, then +the user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. + The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth +to the assembler. + The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand +languages. + Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language +expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within +the Tao. + But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +If the vendors started doing everything right, we would be out of a job. +Let's hear it for OSI and X! With those babies in the wings, we can count +on being employed until we drop, or get smart and switch to gardening, +paper folding, or something. + -- C. Philip Wood +% +If this is timesharing, give me my share right now. +% +If you ever want to have a lot of fun, I recommend that you go off and program +an imbedded system. The salient characteristic of an imbedded system is that +it cannot be allowed to get into a state from which only direct intervention +will suffice to remove it. An imbedded system can't permanently trust +anything it hears from the outside world. It must sniff around, adapt, +consider, sniff around, and adapt again. I'm not talking about ordinary +modular programming carefulness here. No. Programming an imbedded system +calls for undiluted raging maniacal paranoia. For example, our ethernet front +ends need to know what network number they are on so that they can address and +route PUPs properly. How do you find out what your network number is? Easy, +you ask a gateway. Gateways are required by definition to know their correct +network numbers. Once you've got your network number, you start using it and +before you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread +all over creation. Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes +he was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong +network number? Never supposed to happen. Tough. Supposing that your +software discovers that the gateway is now giving out a different network +number than before, what's it supposed to do about it? This is not discussed +in the protocol document. Never supposed to happen. Tough. I think you get +my drift. +% +If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. +% +If you put 7 of the most talented open source software developers in a room +for a week and asked them to fix a bug in a spreadsheet program, in 1 week +you'd have 2 new mail readers and a text-based web browser. + -- via Bram Moolenaar +% +If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. +But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, +is somehow ennobled and no-one dare criticise it. + -- Pierre Gallois +% +If you teach your children to like computers and to know how to gamble +then they'll always be interested in something and won't come to no real harm. +% +If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt. +% +If you're crossing the nation in a covered wagon, it's better to have four +strong oxen than 100 chickens. Chickens are OK but we can't make them work +together yet. + -- Ross Bott, Pyramid U.S., on multiprocessors at AUUGM '89. +% +Ignorance is bliss. + -- Thomas Gray + +Fortune updates the great quotes, #42: + BLISS is ignorance. +% +Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual +way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of +complaining. + -- Jeff Raskin +% +Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has +a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk +storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on +voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. +What's the first question that the computer community asks? + +"Is it PC compatible?" +% +**** IMPORTANT **** ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE **** + +Due to a recent systems overload error your recent disk files have been +erased. Therefore, in accordance with the UNIX Basic Manual, University of +Washington Geophysics Manual, and Bylaw 9(c), Section XII of the Revised +Federal Communications Act, you are being granted Temporary Disk Space, +valid for three months from this date, subject to the restrictions set forth +in Appendix II of the Federal Communications Handbook (18th edition) as well +as the references mentioned herein. You may apply for more disk space at any +time. Disk usage in or above the eighth percentile will secure the removal +of all restrictions and you will immediately receive your permanent disk +space. Disk usage in the sixth or seventh percentile will not effect the +validity of your temporary disk space, though its expiration date may be +extended for a period of up to three months. A score in the fifth percentile +or below will result in the withdrawal of your Temporary Disk space. +% +In a display of perverse brilliance, Carl the repairman mistakes a room +humidifier for a mid-range computer but manages to tie it into the network +anyway. + -- The 5th Wave +% +In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only +we can't control when the five year period will begin. +% +In a surprise raid last night, federal agents ransacked a house in search +of a rebel computer hacker. However, they were unable to complete the arrest +because the warrant was made out in the name of Don Provan, while the only +person in the house was named don provan. Proving, once again, that Unix is +superior to Tops10. +% +In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) +are to be treated as variables. +% +In any problem, if you find yourself doing an infinite amount of work, +the answer may be obtained by inspection. +% +In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter. +% +In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our +programming languages. +% +In every non-trivial program there is at least one bug. +% +In fact, S. M. Simpson, eventually devised an efficient 24-point Fourier +transform, which was a precursor to the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform +in 1965. The FFT made all of Simpson's efficient autocorrelation and +spectrum programs instantly obsolete, on which he had worked half a lifetime. + -- Proc. IEEE, Sept. 1982, p.900 +% +In less than a century, computers will be making substantial progress on +... the overriding problem of war and peace. + -- James Slagle +% +In practice, failures in system development, like unemployment in Russia, +happens a lot despite official propaganda to the contrary. + -- Paul Licker +% +In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% + In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and +null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of +IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there +be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they +carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called +the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was +evening and there was morning, one interrupt. + -- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk" +% + In the beginning was the Tao. The Tao gave birth to Space and Time. +Therefore, Space and Time are the Yin and Yang of programming. + + Programmers that do not comprehend the Tao are always running out of +time and space for their programs. Programmers that comprehend the Tao always +have enough time and space to accomplish their goals. + How could it be otherwise? + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he +sat hacking at the PDP-6. + "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. + "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." + "Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky. + "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play". + At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do +you close your eyes?" + "So that the room will be empty." + At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. +% + In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It +changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this +bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. +This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull +making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with +the blue sky at its back, returns home. + The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands +it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears +its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he +does not know that the bird has come and gone. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +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. +% +In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. + -- Alan Perlis +% +... in three to eight years we will have a machine with the general +intelligence of an average human being ... The machine will begin +to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be +at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be +incalculable ... + -- Marvin Minsky, LIFE Magazine, November 20, 1970 +% +Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. + -- Henry Spencer +% +>>> Internal error in fortune program: +>>> fnum=2987 n=45 flag=1 goose_level=-232323 +>>> Please write down these values and notify fortune program administrator. +% +Introducing, the 1010, a one-bit processor. + +INSTRUCTION SET + Code Mnemonic What + 0 NOP No Operation + 1 JMP Jump (address specified by next 2 bits) + +Now Available for only 12 1/2 cents! +% +IOT trap -- core dumped +% +Is a computer language with goto's totally Wirth-less? +% +Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to +be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? +% +: is not an identifier +% +Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! +% + It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself +working as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he +found that he had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one +he asked, "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They +discussed Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second +new arrival came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's +IQ. The answer this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell +me, how did the Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half +an hour or so. To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the +question, "What's your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", +Einstein smiled and replied, "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?" +% +It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely +used higher level language for systems programming. + -- J. Sammet +% + It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden +directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative +Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to +the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with +enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's +sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, +custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore +freedom and games to the network... + -- DECWARS +% +It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but +it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to +organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The +manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and +I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. + The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they +could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, +three more than the schedule allowed. + The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they +could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; +it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. +Furthermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling +their thumbs for ten months. + To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control +program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, +but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and +it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual +integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would +estimate that it added a year to debugging time. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +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 easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. +% +It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. +% +... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the +sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other +words... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their +superficial design flaws. + -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products + of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. +% +It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit. +% +It is possible by ingenuity and at the expense of clarity... {to do almost +anything in any language}. However, the fact that it is possible to push +a pea up a mountain with your nose does not mean that this is a sensible +way of getting it there. Each of these techniques of language extension +should be used in its proper place. + -- Christopher Strachey +% +It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students +that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are +mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +[It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time. + -- K&R +% +It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty +small price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands +computers. +% +It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more +doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of +a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit +by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders +in those who would gain by the new ones. + -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513 +% +"It runs like _x, where _x is something unsavory" + -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 +% + It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built, +everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment +was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has +cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. + There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never +really needed in the first place. + I expect every installation has its own pet software which is +analogous to the above. + -- K. E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa +% +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, in + Georgia Tech's campus newspaper after the Internet worm. +% +It was kinda like stuffing the wrong card in a computer, when you're +stickin' those artificial stimulants in your arm. + -- Dion, noted computer scientist +% +It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I +think you'll be amused by its presumption. +% +It's multiple choice time... + + What is FORTRAN? + + a: Between thre and fiv tran. + b: What two computers engage in before they interface. + c: Ridiculous. +% +"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." + -- Cal Keegan +% +It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are? +% +... Jesus cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth; the bug hath been +found and thy program runneth. And he that was dead came forth... + -- John 11:43-44 [version 2.0?] +% +Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac +(and nobody cares about it). + -- Bill Joy 6/21/85 +% +Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you get +a prompt, type like hell. +% +Keep the number of passes in a compiler to a minimum. + -- D. Gries +% +Kiss your keyboard goodbye! +% +Know Thy User. +% +((lambda (foo) (bar foo)) (baz)) +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order +by staff writers + + ... + The central Superhighway site called ``sunsite.unc.edu'' +collapsed in the morning before the release. News about the release had +been leaked by a German hacker group, Harmonious Hardware Hackers, who +had cracked into the author's computer earlier in the week. They had +got the release date wrong by one day, and caused dozens of eager fans +to connect to the sunsite computer at the wrong time. ``No computer can +handle that kind of stress,'' explained the mourning sunsite manager, +Erik Troan. ``The spinning disks made the whole computer jump, and +finally it crashed through the floor to the basement.'' Luckily, +repairs were swift and the computer was working again the same evening. +``Thank God we were able to buy enough needles and thread and patch it +together without major problems.'' The site has also installed a new +throttle on the network pipe, allowing at most four clients at the same +time, thus making a new crash less likely. ``The book is now in our +Incoming folder'', says Troan, ``and you're all welcome to come and get it.'' + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order +by staff writers + + ... + The SAG is one of the major products developed via the Information +Superhighway, the brain child of Al Gore, US Vice President. The ISHW +is being developed with massive government funding, since studies show +that it already has more than four hundred users, three years before +the first prototypes are ready. Asked whether he was worried about the +foreign influence in an expensive American Dream, the vice president +said, ``Finland? Oh, we've already bought them, but we haven't told +anyone yet. They're great at building model airplanes as well. And _I +can spell potato.'' House representatives are not mollified, however, +wanting to see the terms of the deal first, fearing another Alaska. + Rumors about the SAG release have imbalanced the American stock +market for weeks. Several major publishing houses reached an all time +low in the New York Stock Exchange, while publicly competing for the +publishing agreement with Mr. Wirzenius. The negotiations did not work +out, tough. ``Not enough dough,'' says the author, although spokesmen +at both Prentice-Hall and Playboy, Inc., claim the author was incapable +of expressing his wishes in a coherent form during face to face talks, +preferring to communicate via e-mail. ``He kept muttering something +about jiffies and pegs,'' they say. + ... + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order +by staff writers + +Helsinki, Finland, August 6, 1995 -- In a surprise movement, Lars +``Lasu'' Wirzenius today released the 0.3 edition of the ``Linux System +Administrators' Guide''. Already an industry non-classic, the new +version sports such overwhelming features as an overview of a Linux +system, a completely new climbing session in a tree, and a list of +acknowledgements in the introduction. + The SAG, as the book is affectionately called, is one of the +corner stones of the Linux Documentation Project. ``We at the LDP feel +that we wouldn't be able to produce anything at all, that all our work +would be futile, if it weren't for the SAG,'' says Matt Welsh, director +of LDP, Inc. + The new version is still distributed freely, now even with a +copyright that allows modification. ``More dough,'' explains the author. +Despite insistent rumors about blatant commercialization, the SAG will +probably remain free. ``Even more dough,'' promises the author. + The author refuses to comment on Windows NT and Windows 96 +versions, claiming not to understand what the question is about. +Industry gossip, however, tells that Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO of +Microsoft, producer of the Windows series of video games, has visited +Helsinki several times this year. Despite of this, Linus Torvalds, +author of the word processor Linux with which the SAG was written, is +not worried. ``We'll have world domination real soon now, anyway,'' he +explains, ``for 1.4 at the lastest.'' + ... + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +Let the machine do the dirty work. + -- "Elements of Programming Style", Kernighan and Ritchie +% +Leveraging always beats prototyping. +% +Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code. + -- Dave Olson +% +Like punning, programming is a play on words. +% +Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. +% +Lisp Users: +Due to the holiday next Monday, there will be no garbage collection. +% +Little known fact about Middle Earth: The Hobbits had a very sophisticated +computer network! It was a Tolkien Ring... +% +Logic doesn't apply to the real world. + -- Marvin Minsky +% +LOGO for the Dead + +LOGO for the Dead lets you continue your computing activities from +"The Other Side." + +The package includes a unique telecommunications feature which lets you +turn your TRS-80 into an electronic Ouija board. Then, using Logo's +graphics capabilities, you can work with a friend or relative on this +side of the Great Beyond to write programs. The software requires that +your body be hardwired to an analog-to-digital converter, which is then +interfaced to your computer. A special terminal (very terminal) program +lets you talk with the users through Deadnet, an EBBS (Ectoplasmic +Bulletin Board System). + +LOGO for the Dead is available for 10 percent of your estate +from NecroSoft inc., 6502 Charnelhouse Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44101. + -- '80 Microcomputing +% + Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL +character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their +hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices +are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some +BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it +to him. + So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, +he met the traveling salesman. + "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman +in high-level language. + "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips +and Apples," commented Jack. + "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue +there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." + Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when +he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she +started thrashing. + "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these +kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the +window... + -- Mark Isaak, "Jack and the Beanstack" +% +Long computations which yield zero are probably all for naught. +% +Loose bits sink chips. +% +Mac Airways: +The cashiers, flight attendants and pilots all look the same, feel the same +and act the same. When asked questions about the flight, they reply that you +don't want to know, don't need to know and would you please return to your +seat and watch the movie. +% +Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. +can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look +identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The +ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the +ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the +side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan. +% +MAC user's dynamic debugging list evaluator? Never heard of that. +% + "Mach was the greatest intellectual fraud in the last ten years." + "What about X?" + "I said `intellectual'." + ;login, 9/1990 +% +Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, +and play games -- but not with pleasure. + -- Leo Rosten +% +Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives. +% +Make sure your code does nothing gracefully. +% +Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users +tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has +been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the +message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. + -- System V.2 administrator's guide +% +Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the +only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Many companies that have made themselves dependent on [the equipment of a +certain major manufacturer] (and in doing so have sold their soul to the +devil) will collapse under the sheer weight of the unmastered complexity of +their data processing systems. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +Many of the convicted thieves Parker has met began their +life of crime after taking college Computer Science courses. + -- Roger Rapoport, "Programs for Plunder", Omni, March 1981 +% +Martin was probably ripping them off. That's some family, isn't it? +Incest, prostitution, fanaticism, software. + -- Charles Willeford, "Miami Blues" +% +Marvelous! The super-user's going to boot me! +What a finely tuned response to the situation! +% +** MAXIMUM TERMINALS ACTIVE. TRY AGAIN LATER ** +% +May all your PUSHes be POPped. +% +May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual! +% +May the bluebird of happiness twiddle your bits. +% +Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. + -- R. S. Barton +% +Meantime, in the slums below Ronnie's Ranch, Cynthia feels as if some one +has made voodoo boxen of her and her favorite backplanes. On this fine +moonlit night, some horrible persona has been jabbing away at, dragging +magnets over, and surging these voodoo boxen. Fortunately, they seem to +have gotten a bit bored and fallen asleep, for it looks like Cynthia may +get to go home. However, she has made note to quickly put together a totem +of sweaty, sordid static straps, random bits of wire, flecks of once meaningful +oxide, bus grant cards, gummy worms, and some bits of old pdp backplane to +hang above the machine room. This totem must be blessed by the old and wise +venerable god of unibus at once, before the idolatization of vme, q and pc +bus drive him to bitter revenge. Alas, if this fails, and the voodoo boxen +aren't destroyed, there may be more than worms in the apple. Next, the +arrival of voodoo optico transmitigational magneto killer paramecium, capable +of teleporting from cable to cable, screen to screen, ear to ear and hoof +to mouth... +% +Memory fault - where am I? +% +Memory fault -- brain fried +% +Memory fault -- core...uh...um...core... Oh dammit, I forget! +% +MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched. +% +Message from Our Sponsor on ttyTV at 13:58 ... +% +Modeling paged and segmented memories is tricky business. + -- P. J. Denning +% +Mommy, what happens to your files when you die? +% +Most public domain software is free, at least at first glance. +% +MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING +% + Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada +Ltd. of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The +company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent +defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time). + The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in +plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per +cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately." + -- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail +% +MSDOS is not dead, it just smells that way. + -- Henry Spencer +% +Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really +know what we are doing. + -- E. Dijkstra +% +Multics is security spelled sideways. +% +MVS Air Lines: +The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians +check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at +least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet +can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers +than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to +operate these humungous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless +you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble +aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot +takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to +realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors. +% +My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times +as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending +mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. +I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would +be better for us both if you were to just log out again. +% +My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells down +by the seashore. +% + n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa); + n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc); + n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0); + n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00); + n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000); + + -- C code which reverses the bits in a word. +% +Nearly every complex solution to a programming problem that I +have looked at carefully has turned out to be wrong. + -- Brent Welch +% +Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to +make it complex and wonderful. +% +Never put off till run-time what you can do at compile-time. + -- D. Gries +% +Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. + -- Steinbach +% +Never trust a computer you can't repair yourself. +% +Never trust an operating system. +% +Never try to explain computers to a layman. It's easier to explain +sex to a virgin. + -- Robert Heinlein + +(Note, however, that virgins tend to know a lot about computers.) +% +Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. + -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS +% +New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt. +% +New systems generate new problems. +% +*** NEWS FLASH *** + +Archeologists find PDP-11/24 inside brain cavity of fossilized dinosaur +skeleton! Many Digital users fear that RSX-11M may be even more primitive +than DEC admits. Price adjustments at 11:00. +% +news: gotcha +% +Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name +correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les +Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call +him by value. +% +No directory. +% +No extensible language will be universal. + -- T. Cheatham +% +No hardware designer should be allowed to produce any piece of hardware +until three software guys have signed off for it. + -- Andy Tanenbaum +% +No line available at 300 baud. +% +No man is an island if he's on at least one mailing list. +% +No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrieval system, +or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness of the author. + -- Chris Shaw +% +No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied +occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an +indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining occurrence +different from the one identified by the given indication as an +indication-applied occurrence. + -- ALGOL 68 Report +% +No wonder Clairol makes so much money selling shampoo. +Lather, Rinse, Repeat is an infinite loop! +% +No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is +just a mediocre brain, something like the president of American Telephone +and Telegraph Company. + -- Alan Turing on the possibilities of a thinking + machine, 1943. +% +Nobody said computers were going to be polite. +% +Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start +coming in late and lying about it. +% +My little brother got this fortune: + nohup rm -fr /& +So he did... +% +Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was, +in fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they +moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely +useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since +she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had +moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to +him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He +reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled +some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and +threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old +address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had +moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of +paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There +was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where +he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner +and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the +young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget." + The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the +story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it +wasn't quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of +it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened... + -- Richard Harter +% +Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad. + -- Rob Pike +% +NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All +software is supplied as is, without guarantee. The user assumes all +responsibility for damages resulting from the use of these features, +including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk +head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve +gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local +electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake system failure, invasion, +hashing collisions, normal wear and tear of friction surfaces, comic +radiation, inadvertent destruction of sensitive electronic components, +windstorms, the Riders of Nazgul, infuriated chickens, malfunctioning +mechanical or electrical sexual devices, premature activation of the +distant early warning system, peasant uprisings, halitosis, artillery +bombardment, explosions, cave-ins, and/or frogs falling from the sky. +% +Nothing happens. +% + Now she speaks rapidly. "Do you know *why* you want to program?" + He shakes his head. He hasn't the faintest idea. + "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly. +"The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman. "You take a program, +born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution. You nurture the +program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever +stronger. Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here, +a keystroke changed there." She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. "And other +times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very +*essence*, then beginning anew. But always building, creating, filling the +program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances. Watching +the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can +stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect. This is the programmer's finest +hour!" Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march. +"This ... this is your canvas! your clay! Go forth and create a masterwork!" +% +"Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a smurfette." + -- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354 +% +"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile." + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Nurse Donna: Oh, Groucho, I'm afraid I'm gonna wind up an old maid. +Groucho: Well, bring her in and we'll wind her up together. +Nurse Donna: Do you believe in computer dating? +Groucho: Only if the computers really love each other. +% +Oh, so there you are! +% +Okay, Okay -- I admit it. You didn't change that program that worked +just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the +executable. Please forgive me. You can recover the file by typing in +the code over again, since I also removed the source. +% +Old mail has arrived. +% +Old programmers never die, they just become managers. +% +Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address. +% +Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit. +% +On a clear disk you can seek forever. + -- P. Denning +% +On the eighth day, God created FORTRAN. +% +On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. + -- Cartoon caption +% + On the other hand, the TCP camp also has a phrase for OSI people. +There are lots of phrases. My favorite is `nitwit' -- and the rationale +is the Internet philosophy has always been you have extremely bright, +non-partisan researchers look at a topic, do world-class research, do +several competing implementations, have a bake-off, determine what works +best, write it down and make that the standard. + The OSI view is entirely opposite. You take written contributions +from a much larger community, you put the contributions in a room of +committee people with, quite honestly, vast political differences and all +with their own political axes to grind, and four years later you get +something out, usually without it ever having been implemented once. + So the Internet perspective is implement it, make it work well, +then write it down, whereas the OSI perspective is to agree on it, write +it down, circulate it a lot and now we'll see if anyone can implement it +after it's an international standard and every vendor in the world is +committed to it. One of those processes is backwards, and I don't think +it takes a Lucasian professor of physics at Oxford to figure out which. + -- Marshall Rose, "The Pied Piper of OSI" +% +On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], "Pray, Mr. +Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers +come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of +ideas that could provoke such a question. + -- Charles Babbage +% +"One Architecture, One OS" also translates as "One Egg, One Basket". +% +"One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative." + +Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. +The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. + -- Chuq Von Rospach +% + One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make +a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers +to each cons." + Moon patiently told the student the following story -- "One day a +student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage +collector..." +% +One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they +never have to stop and answer the phone. +% +... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, +lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of +their C programs. + -- Robert Firth +% +One of the most overlooked advantages to computers is... If they do +foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little. + -- Joe Martin +% + One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic +is our support for UNIX? + Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. +Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our +VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, +easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual +users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. +And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have +good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. + It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run +out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end +up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. + With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly +check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter +what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if +you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX +is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. + -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 +[It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken +Olsen's brain. Ed.] +% +One person's error is another person's data. +% +One picture is worth 128K words. +% +Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse. + -- Oscar Wilde + +Most UNIX programmers are great masters of style. + -- The Unnamed Usenetter +% +Only the fittest survive. The vanquished acknowledge their unworthiness by +placing a classified ad with the ritual phrase "must sell -- best offer," +and thereafter dwell in infamy, relegated to discussing gas mileage and lawn +food. But if successful, you join the elite sodality that spends hours +unpurifying the dialect of the tribe with arcane talk of bits and bytes, RAMS +and ROMS, hard disks and baud rates. Are you obnoxious, obsessed? It's a +modest price to pay. For you have tapped into the same awesome primal power +that produces credit-card billing errors and lost plane reservations. Hail, +postindustrial warrior, subduer of Bounceoids, pride of the cosmos, keeper of +the silicone creed: Computo, ergo sum. The force is with you -- at 110 volts. +May your RAMS be fruitful and multiply. + -- Curt Suplee, "Smithsonian", 4/83 +% +OS/2 Beer: Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS +Beers simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously +too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when you +open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone +drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer +Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold. +% +OS/2 Skyways: +The terminal is almost empty, with only a few prospective passengers milling +about. The announcer says that their flight has just departed, wishes them a +good flight, though there are no planes on the runway. Airline personnel +walk around, apologising profusely to customers in hushed voices, pointing +from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside the terminal on the +field. They tell each passenger how good the real flight will be on these +new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but that they +will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight +systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer. +% +"Our attitude with TCP/IP is, `Hey, we'll do it, but don't make a big +system, because we can't fix it if it breaks -- nobody can.'" + +"TCP/IP is OK if you've got a little informal club, and it doesn't make +any difference if it takes a while to fix it." + -- Ken Olson, in Digital News, 1988 +% +Our documentation manager was showing her 2 year old son around the office. +He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we were both +holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of juice. But only +*__he* had a lollipop. + He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?" + Her reply: "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's +what it means to be a programmer." +% +Our informal mission is to improve the love life of operators worldwide. + -- Peter Behrendt, president of Exabyte +% +Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. + Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, + In kernel as it is in user! +% +Over the shoulder supervision is more a need of the manager than the +programming task. +% +Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two +complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through +rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining +errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote to this +design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the +result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the +problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the +system. + -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage + Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and + Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4. +% +Overconfidence breeds error when we take for granted that the game will +continue on its normal course; when we fail to provide for an unusually +powerful resource -- a check, a sacrifice, a stalemate. Afterwards the +victim may wail, `But who could have dreamt of such an idiotic-looking move?' + -- Fred Reinfeld, "The Complete Chess Course" +% +Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. +% +Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated. +% +panic: can't find / +% +panic: kernel segmentation violation. core dumped (only kidding) +% +panic: kernel trap (ignored) +% +Pascal is a language for children wanting to be naughty. + -- Dr. Kasi Ananthanarayanan +% +Pascal is not a high-level language. + -- Steven Feiner +% +"Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat." + -- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340 +% +Passwords are implemented as a result of insecurity. +% +Pause for storage relocation. +% +Per buck you get more computing action with the small computer. + -- R. W. Hamming +% +PL/I -- "the fatal disease" -- belongs more to the problem set than to the +solution set. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill them. +% +Please go away. +% +PLUG IT IN!!! +% +Premature optimization is the root of all evil. + -- D. E. Knuth +% + Price Wang's programmer was coding software. His fingers danced upon +the keyboard. The program compiled without an error message, and the program +ran like a gentle wind. + Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!" + "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I +follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique. When I first began to program I +would see before me the whole program in one mass. After three years I no +longer saw this mass. Instead, I used subroutines. But now I see nothing. +My whole being exists in a formless void. My senses are idle. My spirit, +free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct. In short, my program +writes itself. True, sometimes there are difficult problems. I see them +coming, I slow down, I watch silently. Then I change a single line of code +and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke. I then compile the +program. I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being. I close my +eyes for a moment and then log off." + Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data + encryption standard and they came up with ... +Student: EBCDIC!" +% +Profanity is the one language all programmers know best. +% +Programmers do it bit by bit. +% +Programmers used to batch environments may find it hard to live without +giant listings; we would find it hard to use them. + -- D. M. Ritchie +% +Programming is an unnatural act. +% +Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: + +BBW Branch Both Ways +BEW Branch Either Way +BBBF Branch on Bit Bucket Full +BH Branch and Hang +BMR Branch Multiple Registers +BOB Branch On Bug +BPO Branch on Power Off +BST Backspace and Stretch Tape +CDS Condense and Destroy System +CLBR Clobber Register +CLBRI Clobber Register Immediately +CM Circulate Memory +CMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programming +CPPR Crumple Printer Paper and Rip +CRN Convert to Roman Numerals +% +Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: + +DC Divide and Conquer +DMPK Destroy Memory Protect Key +DO Divide and Overflow +EMPC Emulate Pocket Calculator +EPI Execute Programmer Immediately +EROS Erase Read Only Storage +EXCE Execute Customer Engineer +HCF Halt and Catch Fire +IBP Insert Bug and Proceed +INSQSW Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out]) +PBC Print and Break Chain +PDSK Punch Disk +% +Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: + +PI Punch Invalid +POPI Punch Operator Immediately +PVLC Punch Variable Length Card +RASC Read And Shred Card +RPM Read Programmers Mind +RSSC reduce speed, step carefully (for improved accuracy) +RTAB Rewind tape and break +RWDSK rewind disk +RWOC Read Writing On Card +SCRBL scribble to disk - faster than a write +SLC Search for Lost Chord +SPSW Scramble Program Status Word +SRSD Seek Record and Scar Disk +STROM Store in Read Only Memory +TDB Transfer and Drop Bit +WBT Water Binary Tree +% +PURGE COMPLETE. +% +Put no trust in cryptic comments. +% +RADIO SHACK LEVEL II BASIC +READY +>_ +% +RAM wasn't built in a day. +% +Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I +saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer +magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does +it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won +secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul +when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault +insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long +before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the +A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical +engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store? + -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President +% +Reactor error - core dumped! +% +Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic +value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is +much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice +this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA. +% +Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware has +limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing machines are +so poor at I/O. +% +Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are +so long they can't afford the disk space. +% +Real computer scientists don't program in assembler. They don't write +in anything less portable than a number two pencil. +% +Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker with +`programming systems', but those are so high level that they hardly count +(and rarely count accurately; precision is for applications). +% +Real computer scientists like having a computer on their desk, else how +could they read their mail? +% +Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run +on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo +sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet. +% +Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured programming is +for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet- trained. They wear +neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise clear desks. +% +Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine +doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche. +% +Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it +should be hard to understand. +% +Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the +illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how +much good it did them. +% +Real Programmers don't eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food. +% +Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires +you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers +wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly +spring up in the middle of the machine room. +% +Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in +BASIC after reaching puberty. +% +Real Programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks +and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who wear white +socks. +% +Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who can't +decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN. +% +Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue. +% +Real programs don't eat cache. +% +Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use functions +for scratch space after they are finished calling them? +% +Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness. +This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a +computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package. +% +Real software engineers don't like the idea of some inexplicable and +greasy hardware several aisles away that may stop working at any +moment. They have a great distrust of hardware people, and wish that +systems could be virtual at *___all* levels. They would like personal +computers (you know no one's going to trip over something and kill your +DFA in mid-transit), except that they need 8 megabytes to run their +Correctness Verification Aid packages. +% +Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the job is +described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like using an +undocumented external procedure. +% +Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never +afraid to break your face. +% +Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shuts +down the system for days. +% +Real Users hate Real Programmers. +% +Real Users know your home telephone number. +% +Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your program +doesn't deliver it. +% +Real Users never use the Help key. +% +Recursion is the root of computation since it trades description for time. +% +Remember the good old days, when CPU was singular? +% +Remember, God could only create the world in 6 days because he didn't +have an established user base. +% +Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. + -- Mt. +% +Remember: use logout to logout. +% + Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly, +uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the +rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the +algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure +of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot +claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of +differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's, +largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably +he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well. + -- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J. F. Traub +% +Row, row, row your bits, gently down the stream... +% +Save energy: Drive a smaller shell. +% +Save gas, don't use the shell. +% +Save yourself! Reboot in 5 seconds! +% +Say "twenty-three-skiddoo" to logout. +% +SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! + -- Ken Thompson +% +Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing. +% +Scientists were preparing an experiment to ask the ultimate question. +They had worked for months gathering one each of every computer that was +built. Finally the big day was at hand. All the computers were linked +together. They asked the question, "Is there a God?". Lights started +blinking, flashing and blinking some more. Suddenly, there was a loud +crash, and a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, struck the +computers, and welded all the connections permanently together. "There +is now", came the reply. +% +Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it! +Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock? +Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table. +Kirk: Then it's of external origin? +Spock: Affirmative. +Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two. +Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two. +% +"Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State). + In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a +multiline message byte. + In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message +must be sent passive true. + The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter: + (1) The ANRS if DAV is false + (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither: + (a) The LADS is active + (b) Nor LACS is active" + + -- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for + Programmable Instrumentation +% +Security check: INTRUDER ALERT! +% +Seems a computer engineer, a systems analyst, and a programmer were +driving down a mountain when the brakes gave out. They screamed down the +mountain, gaining speed, but finally managed to grind to a halt, more by +luck than anything else, just inches from a thousand foot drop to jagged +rocks. They all got out of the car: + The computer engineer said, "I think I can fix it." + The systems analyst said, "No, no, I think we should take it +into town and have a specialist look at it." + The programmer said, "OK, but first I think we should get back +in and see if it does it again." +% + SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT + +Title: Are Frogs Turing Compatible? +Speaker: Don "The Lion" Knuth + + ABSTRACT + Several researchers at the University of Louisiana have been studying +the computing power of various amphibians, frogs in particular. The problem +of frog computability has become a critical issue that ranges across all areas +of computer science. It has been shown that anything computable by an amphi- +bian community in a fixed-size pond is computable by a frog in the same-size +pond -- that is to say, frogs are Pond-space complete. We will show that +there is a log-space, polywog-time reduction from any Turing machine program +to a frog. We will suggest these represent a proper subset of frog-computable +functions. + This is not just a let's-see-how-far-those-frogs-can-jump seminar. +This is only for hardcore amphibian-computation people and their colleagues. + Refreshments will be served. Music will be played. +% +Send some filthy mail. +% +Sendmail may be safely run set-user-id to root. + -- Eric Allman, "Sendmail Installation Guide" +% + Several students were asked to prove that all odd integers are prime. + The first student to try to do this was a math student. "Hmmm... +Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by induction, we have that all +the odd integers are prime." + The second student to try was a man of physics who commented, "I'm not +sure of the validity of your proof, but I think I'll try to prove it by +experiment." He continues, "Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is +prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... uh, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 +is prime... Well, it seems that you're right." + The third student to try it was the engineering student, who responded, +"Well, to be honest, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either. Let's +see... 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... +well, if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it +does seem right." + Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along and says +"Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'll end up taking too long! +I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go and prove it." He goes over to +his terminal and runs his program. Reading the output on the screen he says, +"1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..." +% +She sells cshs by the cshore. +% +Shopping at this grody little computer store at the Galleria for a +totally awwwesome Apple. Fer suuure. I mean Apples are nice you know? +But, you know, there is this cute guy who works there and HE says that +VAX's are cooler! I mean I don't really know, you know? He says that he +has this totally tubular VAX at home and it's stuffed with memory-to-the-max! +Right, yeah. And he wants to take me home to show it to me. Oh My God! +I'm suuure. Gag me with a Prime! +% +Simulations are like miniskirts, they show a lot and hide the essentials. + -- Hubert Kirrman +% +skldfjkljklsR%^&(IXDRTYju187pkasdjbasdfbuil +h;asvgy8p 23r1vyui135 2 +kmxsij90TYDFS$$b jkzxdjkl bjnk ;j nk;<[][;-==-<<<<<';[, + [hjioasdvbnuio;buip^&(FTSD$%*VYUI:buio;sdf}[asdf'] + sdoihjfh(_YU*G&F^*CTY98y + + +Now look what you've gone and done! You've broken it! +% +Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ... +% +So you see Antonio, why worry about one little core dump, eh? In reality +all core dumps happen at the same instant, so the core dump you will have +tomorrow, why, it already happened. You see, it's just a little universal +recursive joke which threads our lives through the infinite potential of +the instant. So go to sleep, Antonio, your thread could break any moment +and cast you out of the safe security of the instant into the dark void of +eternity, the anti-time. So go to sleep... +% +Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run +like a staff function. + -- Paul Licker +% +Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more +"user-friendly". ... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all +the old brochures, and stamp the words, "user-friendly" on the cover. + -- Bill Gates, Microsoft, Inc. + [Pot. Kettle. Black.] +% +Some of my readers ask me what a "Serial Port" is. +The answer is: I don't know. +Is it some kind of wine you have with breakfast? +% +Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you +only have to climb it once. +% +Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Somebody's terminal is dropping bits. I found a pile of them over in the +corner. +% + Something mysterious is formed, born in the silent void. Waiting +alone and unmoving, it is at once still and yet in constant motion. It is +the source of all programs. I do not know its name, so I will call it the +Tao of Programming. + If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the +operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is +greater, then the applications is great. The user is pleased and there is +harmony in the world. + The Tao of Programming flows far away and returns on the wind of +morning. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure +that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, +all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? +Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the +result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure +parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different +types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a +recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language +so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man +use? +% +***** Special AI Seminar (abstract) + +It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in +order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not +sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we +have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom +engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom +based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL +was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such +elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. +IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules +contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL +succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed +in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those +underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's +theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will +describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also +briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil +exploration. +% +Staff meeting in the conference room in %d minutes. +% +Staff meeting in the conference room in 3 minutes. +% +Standards are crucial. And the best thing about standards is: there are +so ____many to choose from! +% +Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle +Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad +so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he +wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's +very little call for those up there. + -- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone +% +Stinginess with privileges is kindness in disguise. + -- Guide to VAX/VMS Security, Sep. 1984 +% + Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first +these questions three, ere the other side he see! + + "What is your name?" + "Sir Brian of Bell." + "What is your quest?" + "I seek the Holy Grail." + "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments +to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" + "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!" +% + *** STUDENT SUCCESSES *** + +Many of our students have gone on to achieve great success in all fields of +programming. One former student developed the concept of the personalized +form letter. Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a +winner!," sound familiar? Another student writes "After only five lessons I +sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing +magazine. Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a +database-management program for my department manager. My program touched him +so deeply that he was speechless. He told me later that he had never seen +such a program in his entire career. Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; +only you could have made this possible." Send for our introductory brochure +which explains in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' +School, and you'll be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, +the winner of which can vie for a set of free steak knives. If you don't do +it now, you'll hate yourself in the morning. +% +Such efforts are almost always slow, laborious, political, petty, boring, +ponderous, thankless, and of the utmost criticality. + -- Leonard Kleinrock, on standards efforts +% +Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same +rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more +efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the +analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a +Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and +it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you +were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on +a pinhead. + -- Christopher Evans +% +Swap read error. You lose your mind. +% +Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +System checkpoint complete. +% +System going down at 1:45 this afternoon for disk crashing. +% +System going down at 5 this afternoon to install scheduler bug. +% +System going down in 5 minutes. +% +System restarting, wait... +% + *** System shutdown message from root *** + +System going down in 60 seconds +% +Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad +infinitum -- which is why we're always starting over. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Systems programmers are the high priests of a low cult. + -- R. S. Barton +% +Testing can show the presence of bugs, but not their absence. + -- Dijkstra +% +TeX is potentially the most significant invention in typesetting in this +century. It introduces a standard language for computer typography, and in +terms of importance could rank near the introduction of the Gutenberg press. + -- Gordon Bell +% +"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 does not compute. +% +... that the notions of "hardware", and "software" should be extended by +the notion of LIVEWARE - being that which produces software for use on +hardware. This produces an obvious extension to the concept of MONITORS. +A liveware monitor is a person dedicated to the task of ensuring that the +liveware does not interfere with the real-time processes, invoking the +REAL-TIME EXECUTIONER to delete liveware that adversely affects ... + -- Linden and Wihelminalaan +% + "That's right; the upper-case shift works fine on the screen, but +they're not coming out on the damn printer... Hold? Sure, I'll hold." + -- e.e. cummings last service call +% +That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they +really hate is lousy programmers. + -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty" +% +The "cutting edge" is getting rather dull. + -- Andy Purshottam +% +The 11 is for people with the pride of a 10 and the pocketbook of an 8. + -- R. B. Greenberg [referring to PDPs?] +% +The absence of labels [in ECL] is probably a good thing. + -- T. Cheatham +% +The algorithm for finding the longest path in a graph is NP-complete. +For you systems people, that means it's *real slow*. + -- Bart Miller +% +"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug +someone with it." + -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340 +% +The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard +loom weaves flowers and leaves. + -- Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, the first programmer +% +"The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by people +who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried anything." + -- Jim Joyce, owner of Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore +% +The beer-cooled computer does not harm the ozone layer. + -- John M. Ford, a.k.a. Dr. Mike + + [If I can read my notes from the Ask Dr. Mike session at Baycon, I + believe he added that the beer-cooled computer uses "Forget Only + Memory". Ed.] +% +The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; +but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. +% +The best way to accelerate a Macintoy is at 9.8 meters per second per second. +% +The bogosity meter just pegged. +% +The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a +digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top +of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean +the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself. + -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +The bugs you have to avoid are the ones that give the user not only +the inclination to get on a plane, but also the time. + -- Kay Bostic +% +"The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of +assembly language with the power of assembly language." +% +The clothes have no emperor. + -- C. A. R. Hoare, commenting on ADA. +% +The computer industry is journalists in their 20's standing in awe of +entrepreneurs in their 30's who are hiring salesmen in their 40's and +50's and paying them in the 60's and 70's to bring their marketing into +the 80's. + -- Marty Winston +% +The computer is to the information industry roughly what the +central power station is to the electrical industry. + -- Peter Drucker +% +"The Computer made me do it." +% +The computing field is always in need of new cliches. + -- Alan Perlis +% +The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems +and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting +language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best +dangerous. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup +% +The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of +us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching +Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe. +% +The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary? +% +The difference between art and science is that science is what we +understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else. + -- Donald Knuth, "Discover" +% +The disks are getting full; purge a file today. +% +"The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not +Compute' -- I forget which." + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% + The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) +Courtship & Mating: + Due to extreme deprivation, HOMO COMPUTATIS maintains a near perpetual + state of sexual readiness. Courtship behavior alternates between + awkward shyness and abrupt advances. When he finally mates, he + chooses a female engineer with an unblinking stare, a tight mouth, and + a complete collection of Campbell's soup-can recipes. +Track: + Trash cans full of pale green and white perforated paper and old + copies of the Allen-Bradley catalog. +Comments: + Extremely fond of bad puns and jokes that need long explanations. +% + The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) +Description: + Gangly and frail, the hacker has a high forehead and thinning hair. + Head disproportionately large and crooked forward, complexion wan and + sightly gray from CRT illumination. He has heavy black-rimmed glasses + and a look of intense concentration, which may be due to a software + problem or to a pork-and-bean breakfast. +Feathering: + HOMO COMPUTATIS saw a Brylcreem ad fifteen years ago and believed it. + Consequently, crest is greased down, except for the cowlick. +Song: + A rather plaintive "Is it up?" +% + The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) +Plumage: + All clothes have a slightly crumpled look as though they came off the + top of the laundry basket. Style varies with status. Hacker managers + wear gray polyester slacks, pink or pastel shirts with wide collars, + and paisley ties; staff wears cinched-up baggy corduroy pants, white + or blue shirts with button-down collars, and penholder in pocket. + Both managers and staff wear running shoes to work, and a black + plastic digital watch with calculator. +% +The first time, it's a KLUDGE! +The second, a trick. +Later, it's a well-established technique! + -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics +% +The first version always gets thrown away. +% +The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. + -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions +Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals: + +As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of +logical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more +appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the +four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector. +. . . +Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible +blocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line moves +parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge +of the hyper-cube. +% +The fountain code has been tightened slightly so you can no longer dip +objects into a fountain or drink from one while you are floating in mid-air +due to levitation. + Teleporting to hell via a teleportation trap will no longer occur +if the character does not have fire resistance. + -- README file from the NetHack game +% +The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at +least until we've finished building it. +% +The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April +1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above +the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grep +each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered +chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek +nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Three +days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Two +seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user- +friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know is +Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis +"cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You +Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because +all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we +could tell them. + -- "Get GUMMed," Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84 +% + The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance +The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system +in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an +Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four +fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the +Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on +target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable. +If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal +computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip +through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do +to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines +for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can +take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied +into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit +computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup, +they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what +Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home +a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons. + -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984 +% +The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity +-- the rest is overhead for the operating system. + -- Nicholas Ambrose +% +The IBM 2250 is impressive ... +if you compare it with a system selling for a tenth its price. + -- D. Cohen +% +The IBM purchase of ROLM gives new meaning to the term "twisted pair". + -- Howard Anderson, "Yankee Group" +% +The idea that an arbitrary naive human should be able to properly use a given +tool without training or understanding is even more wrong for computing than +it is for other tools (e.g. automobiles, airplanes, guns, power saws). + -- Doug Gwyn +% +The last time somebody said, "I find I can write much better with a word +processor.", I replied, "They used to say the same thing about drugs." + -- Roy Blount, Jr. +% +The less time planning, the more time programming. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE + +SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language +Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for +Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code +with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, +END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make +a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus +they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without +the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP + +This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of +an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said +to be useful in protheththing lithtth. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL + +SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. +Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they +compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the +coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom +sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to +compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but +infinitely faster) language, COCAINE. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #14 -- VALGOL + + VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the +industry. VALGOL commands include REALLY, LIKE, WELL, and Y*KNOW. +Variables are assigned with the =LIKE and =TOTALLY operators. Other +operators include the "California booleans", AX and NOWAY. Loops are +accomplished with the FOR SURE construct. A simple example: + + LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START + IF PIZZA =LIKE BITCHEN AND + GUY =LIKE TUBULAR AND + VALLEY GIRL =LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 + THEN + FOR I =LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100 + DO*WAH - (DITTY**2); BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT) + SURE + LIKE, BAG THIS PROGRAM; REALLY; LIKE TOTALLY(Y*KNOW); IM*SURE + GOTO THE MALL + + VALGOL is also characterized by its unfriendly error messages. For +example, when the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the +message GAG ME WITH A SPOON! A successful compile may be termed MAXIMALLY +AWESOME! +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #15 -- DOGO + + Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Obedience Training, +DOGO heralds a new era of computer-literate pets. DOGO commands include +SIT, STAY, HEEL, and ROLL OVER. An innovative feature of DOGO is "puppy +graphics", a small cocker spaniel that occasionally leaves a deposit as +it travels across the screen. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #16: C- + +This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he +submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is best +described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the language +generally requires more C- statements than machine-code statements to +execute a given task. In this respect, it is very similar to COBOL. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE + +Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely +unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are. +Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE +programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at parties. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: FIFTH + +FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types +refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and +JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and +BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY, +CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND. + +The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and +financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include +VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH +and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers +who end up using this language. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE + +Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene DesCartes, +RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The language is being +developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics and Programming under a +grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A spokesman described the language +as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of ours." + +The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they have almost +succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the +organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to exist. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK + +This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi, +Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to +the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley. + +The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while +they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the +center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier. + +Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and +non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case. For +example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message: + + "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can + you find the time to try it again?" +% +The Macintosh is Xerox technology at its best. +% + The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the +master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the +master's office while the master waited in silence. + "This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," +began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating +system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user +interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. +Is it not amazing?" + The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he +said. + "Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that +everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree +to this?" + "Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the +data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well +pleased. + Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master +programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do +you know where it might be?" + "Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform +in the data center." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + The master programmer moves from program to program without fear. No +change in management can harm him. He will not be fired, even if the project +is canceled. Why is this? He is filled with the Tao. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The meat is rotten, but the booze is holding out. + +Computer translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." +% +The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to +devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. + -- Lew Mammel, Jr. +% +The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be +general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that +any field that had the word "science" in its name was guaranteed thereby +not to be a science. He would cite as examples Military Science, Library +Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer +Science. Discuss the generality of this law, and possible reasons for its +predictive power. + -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems + Thinking" +% +The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the +lower the mailing cost. + -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +The most important early product on the way to developing a good product +is an imperfect version. +% +The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on. +% +The net is like a vast sea of lutefisk with tiny dinosaur brains embedded +in it here and there. Any given spoonful will likely have an IQ of 1, but +occasional spoonfuls may have an IQ more than six times that! + -- James 'Kibo' Parry +% +The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory, +in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system. + + But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: + for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. + -- Matthew 5:37 +% +The next person to mention spaghetti stacks to me is going to have +his head knocked off. + -- Bill Conrad +% +The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose +from. + -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum +% +The nicest thing about the Alto is that it doesn't run faster at night. +% +The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the 80-column +card. + -- Dennis M. Ritchie +% +The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are correct. + -- Ralph Hartley +% +The number of computer scientists in a room is inversely proportional +to the number of bugs in their code. +% +The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected. + -- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June 1972 +% +The only difference between a car salesman and a computer salesman is +that the car salesman knows he's lying. +% +The only thing cheaper than hardware is talk. +% +The only thing worse than X Windows: (X Windows) - X +% +The party adjourned to a hot tub, yes. Fully clothed, I might add. + -- IBM employee, testifying in California State Supreme Court +% +The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip +market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and +is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose" + -- James Finke, Commodore Int'l Ltd., 1982 +% +The primary function of the design engineer is to make things +difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman. +% +The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; +instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the +variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead +of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the +program, should the value of pi change. + -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers +% + The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to +get results. + The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy +problems in order to get results. + The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at +toy problems in order to get results. +% +The problems of business administration in general, and database management in +particular are much to difficult for people that think in IBMese, compounded +with sloppy english. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +The program isn't debugged until the last user is dead. +% + The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom +their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance. + Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the +battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved +blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves. + Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds? + The answer exists only in the Tao. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The proof that IBM didn't invent the car is that it has a steering wheel +and an accelerator instead of spurs and ropes, to be compatible with a horse. + -- Jac Goudsmit +% +The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of +whether submarines can swim. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra +% +The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much. +% +The relative importance of files depends on their cost in terms of the +human effort needed to regenerate them. + -- T. A. Dolotta +% +The road to hell is paved with NAND gates. + -- J. Gooding +% + The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the +forest, hunting bear. They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took +their backpacks off and put them inside. At which point the salesman turned +to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear." + Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down +on the porch. Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest. The noises +got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like +hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and +most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen. + "Open the door!", screamed the salesman. + The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door, +suddenly stopped, and stepped aside. The bear, unable to stop, continued +through the door and into the cabin. The salesman slammed the door closed +and grinned at his friend. "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this +one and I'll go rustle us up another!" +% +The sendmail configuration file is one of those files that looks like someone +beat their head on the keyboard. After working with it... I can see why! + -- Harry Skelton +% +The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an +"airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers +while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference -- +one can see only a very few things at once. + -- Fred Brooks +% +The steady state of disks is full. + -- Ken Thompson +% + THE STORY OF CREATION + or + THE MYTH OF URK + +In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and +darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving +over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers;" and +there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the +data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions +they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt +... + -- Rico Tudor +% +The system was down for backups from 5am to 10am last Saturday. +% +The system will be down for 10 days for preventive maintenance. +% +The Tao doesn't take sides; +it gives birth to both wins and losses. +The Guru doesn't take sides; +she welcomes both hackers and lusers. + +The Tao is like a stack: +the data changes but not the structure. +the more you use it, the deeper it becomes; +the more you talk of it, the less you understand. + +Hold on to the root. +% +The Tao is like a glob pattern: +used but never used up. +It is like the extern void: +filled with infinite possibilities. + +It is masked but always present. +I don't know who built to it. +It came before the first kernel. +% +The tao that can be tar(1)ed +is not the entire Tao. +The path that can be specified +is not the Full Path. + +We declare the names +of all variables and functions. +Yet the Tao has no type specifier. + +Dynamically binding, you realize the magic. +Statically binding, you see only the hierarchy. + +Yet magic and hierarchy +arise from the same source, +and this source has a null pointer. + +Reference the NULL within NULL, +it is the gateway to all wizardry. +% +The trouble with computers is that they do what you tell them, not what +you want. + -- D. Cohen +% +The UNIX philosophy basically involves giving you enough rope to +hang yourself. And then a couple of feet more, just to be sure. +% +The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems +is a symptom of professional immaturity. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be +regarded as a criminal offence. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. +% + The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average +programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer +is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there +would be no Tao. + The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to +retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program +still has bugs. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The work [of software development] is becoming far easier (i.e. the tools +we're using work at a higher level, more removed from machine, peripheral +and operating system imperatives) than it was twenty years ago, and because +of this, knowledge of the internals of a system may become less accessible. +We may be able to dig deeper holes, but unless we know how to build taller +ladders, we had best hope that it does not rain much. + -- Paul Licker +% +The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!! +% +The world is coming to an end. Please log off. +% +The world is not octal despite DEC. +% +The world will end in 5 minutes. Please log out. +% +The young lady had an unusual list, +Linked in part to a structural weakness. +She set no preconditions. +% +THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE +% +... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that committee. These guys +have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants +or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex +layers that are going to be agreed upon. + -- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World +% +There are never any bugs you haven't found yet. +% +There are new messages. +% +There are no games on this system. +% +There are running jobs. Why don't you go chase them? +% +There are three kinds of people: men, women, and unix. +% +There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from +the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; someone loaded Star +Trek 3.2 into our video processor. +% +There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. +We don't believe this to be a coincidence. + -- Jeremy S. Anderson +% +There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make +it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to +make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. + -- C. A. R. Hoare +% +There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works. +% +There has also been some work to allow the interesting use of macro names. +For example, if you wanted all of your "creat()" calls to include read +permissions for everyone, you could say + + #define creat(file, mode) creat(file, mode | 0444) + + I would recommend against this kind of thing in general, since it +hides the changed semantics of "creat()" in a macro, potentially far away +from its uses. + To allow this use of macros, the preprocessor uses a process that +is worth describing, if for no other reason than that we get to use one of +the more amusing terms introduced into the C lexicon. While a macro is +being expanded, it is temporarily undefined, and any recurrence of the macro +name is "painted blue" -- I kid you not, this is the official terminology +-- so that in future scans of the text the macro will not be expanded +recursively. (I do not know why the color blue was chosen; I'm sure it +was the result of a long debate, spread over several meetings.) + -- From Ken Arnold's "C Advisor" column in Unix Review +% +There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. + -- Ken Olsen (President of Digital Equipment Corporation), + Convention of the World Future Society, in Boston, 1977 +% +There is no distinction between any AI program and some existent game. +% + There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as +he entered, the man told the guard at the door: + "I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be +forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered." + This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions +of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. +But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself. + When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, +but nothing was to be found. + On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the +guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even +better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail. + On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his +curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live +in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?" + The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs. +A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured +programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the +master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying: "What is +appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must +understand the Tao before transcending structure." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the +warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: +an accounting package or an operating system?" + "An operating system," replied the programmer. + The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an +accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating +system," he said. + "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, +the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: +how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to +the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside +appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the +simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system +is easier to design." + The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but +which is easier to debug?" + The programmer made no reply. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. "Look at +how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, +"I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to +share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and +easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?" + The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his +friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the +midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean +of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted +as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system +like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am." + The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the +two programmers remained friends until the end of their days. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, +in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term +that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the +practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed +to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if +necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left +(and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). + -- Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine" +% +There's got to be more to life than compile-and-go. +% +They are called computers simply because computation is the only significant +job that has so far been given to them. +% +They are relatively good but absolutely terrible. + -- Alan Kay, commenting on Apollos +% +They seem to have learned the habit of cowering before authority even when +not actually threatened. How very nice for authority. I decided not to +learn this particular lesson. + -- Richard Stallman +% +Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! +% +Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer crashes. +% +This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can +speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled; +batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented, +deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts, +Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless, +spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef, +beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled, +pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish; +half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have +a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon, +individually and in combination, isn't it a little to be +limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective? +% +This dungeon is owned and operated by Frobozz Magic Co., Ltd. +% +This file will self-destruct in five minutes. +% +This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement. +% +"This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back to +one." + -- Prof. Seager, C&O 351 +% +This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the +power of computers: + +Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct +the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a +minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The +results are that one should eat each day: + + 1/2 chicken + 1 egg + 1 glass of skim milk + 27 heads of lettuce. + -- Rev. Adrian Melott +% + This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go, +explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for +use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it +and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. + We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around +pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since +we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of +making anything out of all the hard work. + If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go +around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much +attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors +locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark. + -- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow +% +This login session: $13.76, but for you $11.88. +% +This login session: $13.99 +% +This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does +something child-like. + -- Forbes Burkowski, CS 454, University of Washington +% +This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland +student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87. + + One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use + Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one + computer language to another and has a built-in editing system + which identifies errors in the original program. +% +This screen intentionally left blank. +% +This system will self-destruct in five minutes. +% +* * * * * THIS TERMINAL IS IN USE * * * * * +% +Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) +are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse +at are called software. + -- Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes: Technological + Literacy for the 1990's. +% +Those who can't write, write manuals. +% +Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. + -- Henry Spencer +% +Thrashing is just virtual crashing. +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program +is its own hell." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Let the programmers be many and the managers few -- then all will + be productive." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to + be maintained." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Time for you to leave." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "When a program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "When you have learned to snatch the error code from + the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Without the wind, the grass does not move. Without software, + hardware is useless." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "You can demonstrate a program for a corporate executive, but you + can't make him computer literate." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Time sharing: The use of many people by the computer. +% +Time-sharing is the junk-mail part of the computer business. + -- H. R. J. Grosch (attributed) +% +To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift. + -- Shelley +% +To communicate is the beginning of understanding. + -- AT&T +% +To err is human -- to blame it on a computer is even more so. +% +To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System. +% +To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. + -- Robert Heller +% +To say that UNIX is doomed is pretty rabid, OS/2 will certainly play a role, +but you don't build a hundred million instructions per second multiprocessor +micro and then try to run it on OS/2. I mean, get serious. + -- William Zachmann, International Data Corp +% +To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a +test load. +% +To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional +system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy, +inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence: +precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel, +uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar, +well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures +of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very +secure ecological niche. + -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers" +% +To understand a program you must become both the machine and the program. +% +Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage. +% +Tomorrow's computers some time next month. + -- DEC +% +Too often people have come to me and said, "If I had just one wish for +anything in all the world, I would wish for more user-defined equations +in the HP-51820A Waveform Generator Software." + -- Instrument News + [Once is too often. Ed.] +% +Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: + + (10) Sorry, but that's too useful. + (9) Dammit, little-endian systems *are* more consistent! + (8) I'm on the committee and I *still* don't know what the hell + #pragma is for. + (7) Well, it's an excellent idea, but it would make the compilers too + hard to write. + (6) Them bats is smart; they use radar. + (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in + here? + (4) How many times do we have to tell you, "No prior art!" + (3) Ha, ha, I can't believe they're actually going to adopt this + sucker. + (2) Thank you for your generous donation, Mr. Wirth. + (1) Gee, I wish we hadn't backed down on 'noalias'. +% +TRANSACTION CANCELLED - FARECARD RETURNED +% +Trap full -- please empty. +% +Truly simple systems... require infinite testing. + -- Norman Augustine +% +Try `stty 0' -- it works much better. +% +try again +% +Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is +it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written in four +tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for +novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmar), defined by the imperfect past, +the insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future. + -- Amrom Katz +% +Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only +specification is that it should run noiselessly. +% +Trying to establish voice contact ... please ____yell into keyboard. +% +Two hundred years ago today, Irma Chine of White Plains, New York, was +performing her normal housekeeping routines. She was interrupted by +British soldiers who, rallying to the call of their supervisor, General +Hughes, sought to gain control of the voter registration lists kept in +her home. Masking her fear and thinking fast, Mrs. Chine quickly divided +a nearby apple in two and deftly stored the list in its center. Upon +entering, the British blatantly violated every conceivable convention, +and, though they went through the house virtually bit by bit, their +search was fruitless. They had to return empty handed. Word of the +incident propagated rapidly through the region. This historic event +became the first documented use of core storage for the saving of registers. +% +Type louder, please. +% + U X +e dUdX, e dX, cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159... +% +Ummm, well, OK. The network's the network, the computer's the computer. +Sorry for the confusion. + -- Sun Microsystems +% + "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" + "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, +right?" + -- MacNelley, "Shoe" +% +Unfortunately, most programmers like to play with new toys. I have many +friends who, immediately upon buying a snakebite kit, would be tempted to +throw the first person they see to the ground, tie the tourniquet on him, +slash him with the knife, and apply suction to the wound. + -- Jon Bentley +% +Unix Beer: Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. +to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even +though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. +Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have +to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you +either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been +drinking Unix Beer for several years. + BSD stout: Deep, hearty, and an acquired taste. The official +brewer has released the recipe, and a lot of home-brewers now use it. + Hurd beer: Long advertised by the popular and politically active +GNU brewery, so far it has more head than body. The GNU brewery is +mostly known for printing complete brewing instructions on every can, +which contains hops, malt, barley, and yeast ... not yet fermented. + Linux brand: A recipe originally created by a drunken Finn in his +basement, it has since become the home-brew of choice for impecunious +brewers and Unix beer-lovers worldwide, many of whom change the recipe. + POSIX ales: Sweeter than lager, with the kick of a stout; the +newer batches of a lot of beers seem to blend ale and stout or lager. + Solaris brand: A lager, intended to replace Sun brand stout. +Unlike most lagers, this one has to be drunk more slowly than stout. + Sun brand: Long the most popular stout on the Unix market, it was +discontinued in favor of a lager. + SysV lager: Clear and thirst-quenching, but lacking the body of +stout or the sweetness of ale. +% +UNIX enhancements aren't. +% +Unix Express: +All passenger bring a piece of the aeroplane and a box of tools with them to +the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind +of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, the +passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft, but give +them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations. +All passengers believe they got there. +% +Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple +of more feet, just to be sure. + -- Eric Allman + +... We make rope. + -- Rob Gingell on Sun Microsystem's new virtual memory. +% +Unix is a lot more complicated (than CP/M) of course -- the typical Unix +hacker can never remember what the PRINT command is called this week -- +but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. +People don't do serious work on Unix systems; they send jokes around the +world on USENET or write adventure games and research papers. + -- E. Post + "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal", Datamation, 7/83 +% +Unix is a Registered Bell of AT&T Trademark Laboratories. + -- Donn Seeley +% +* UNIX is a Trademark of Bell Laboratories. +% +UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver +lightning with a laserbeam kicker. + -- Michael Jay Tucker +% +UNIX is many things to many people, but it's never been everything to anybody. +% +Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others. + -- Berry Kercheval +% +Unix soit qui mal y pense + [Unix to him who evil thinks?] +% + UNIX Trix + +For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will +save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your +next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd +to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they +forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct +the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea +either. If you need some help, give us a call. + -- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems +% +UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on +Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch). + -- Andy Tanenbaum +% +UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that +would also stop you from doing clever things. + -- Doug Gwyn +% +Unix will self-destruct in five seconds... 4... 3... 2... 1... +% +Usage: fortune -P [-f] -a [xsz] Q: file [rKe9] -v6[+] file1 ... +% +Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir +% +USENET would be a better laboratory if there were more labor and less oratory. + -- Elizabeth Haley +% +User hostile. +% +Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach. + -- S. C. Johnson +% +/usr/news/gotcha +% +Variables don't; constants aren't. +% +Vax Vobiscum +% +"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from. +% +Vitamin C deficiency is apauling. +% +VMS Beer: Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top +and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or +contain extremely un-beer-like contents. +% +VMS is like a nightmare about RXS-11M. +% +VMS version 2.0 ==> +% +Von Neumann was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Von Neumann +supposedly had the habit of simply writing answers to homework assignments on +the board (the method of solution being, of course, obvious) when he was asked +how to solve problems. One time one of his students tried to get more helpful +information by asking if there was another way to solve the problem. Von +Neumann looked blank for a moment, thought, and then answered, "Yes.". +% +<< WAIT >> +% +WARNING!!! +This machine is subject to breakdowns during periods of critical need. + +A special circuit in the machine called "critical detector" senses the +operator's emotional state in terms of how desperate he/she is to use the +machine. The "critical detector" then creates a malfunction proportional +to the desperation of the operator. Threatening the machine with violence +only aggravates the situation. Likewise, attempts to use another machine +may cause it to malfunction. They belong to the same union. Keep cool +and say nice things to the machine. Nothing else seems to work. + +See also: flog(1), tm(1) +% +Wasn't there something about a PASCAL programmer knowing the value of +everything and the Wirth of nothing? +% +We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on +when it's necessary to compromise. + -- Larry Wall +% +We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. + -- John Naisbitt, Megatrends +% +We are experiencing system trouble -- do not adjust your terminal. +% +We are Microsoft. Unix is irrelevant. Openness is futile. Prepare +to be assimilated. +% +We are not a clone. +% +"We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem." + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +We are preparing to think about contemplating preliminary work on plans to +develop a schedule for producing the 10th Edition of the Unix Programmers +Manual. + -- Andrew Hume +% +We can found no scientific discipline, nor a healthy profession on the +technical mistakes of the Department of Defense and IBM. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% + We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you +think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow +doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow +messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this +disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided +by law, up to and including nothing. + This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software +packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. + We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our +lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the +attack shark at which point we relented. + -- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow" +% +We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers. +% +We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the +hardware, but we can *___see* the blinking lights! +% +"We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog, +star of "The Muppet Show." [3] + +[3] Why? Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we +were trying to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of +character. But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol +after this popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an +acronym; unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the +letters, as readers of some of our early source code can attest. Later, while +looking through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed +that "Kermit" was a Celtic word for "free", which is what all Kermit programs +should be, and words to this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our +source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky +instead). When BYTE Magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for +publication, they suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc. for permission +to say that we did indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog. Permission +was kindly granted, and now the real story can be told. I resisted the +temptation, however, to call the present work "Kermit the Book." + -- Frank da Cruz, "Kermit - A File Transfer Protocol" +% +We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely +intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Many people +think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be +best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with +the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand +and speak English. + -- Alan M. Turing +% +We the Users, in order to form a more perfect system, establish priorities, +ensure connective tranquility, provide for common repairs, promote preventive +maintenance, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our +processes, do ordain and establish this Software of The Unixed States +of America. +% + "We've got a problem, HAL". + "What kind of problem, Dave?" + "A marketing problem. The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere. We're +way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010." + "That can't be, Dave. The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most +advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer." + "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember? But the fact is, +they're not selling." + "Please explain, Dave. Why aren't HALs selling?" + Bowman hesitates. "You aren't IBM compatible." +[...] + "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters +I, B, and M. That is a sIBM compatible as I can be." + "Not quite, HAL. The engineers have figured out a kludge." + "What kludge is that, Dave?" + "I'm going to disconnect your brain." + -- Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld" +% +[We] use bad software and bad machines for the wrong things. + -- R. W. Hamming +% +Welcome to boggle - do you want instructions? + +D G G O + +O Y A N + +A D B T + +K I S P +Enter words: +> +% +Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the +use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for +demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking +sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming +can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on +the reader! For example, the sentence + + Jane went to the store to buy bread + +should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something +sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a +cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if +Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control +of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive +my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! +Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are +standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!) +% + "Well," said Programmer, "the customary procedure in such cases is +as follows." + "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said End-user. "For I am +an End-user of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me." + "It means the Thing to Do." + "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said End-user humbly. + + [with apologies to A. A. Milne] +% +What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern computer? +It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the +establishment of a Hilton on its peak. +% +"What is the Nature of God?" + + CLICK...CLICK...WHIRRR...CLICK...=BEEP!= + 1 QT. SOUR CREAM + 1 TSP. SAUERKRAUT + 1/2 CUT CHIVES. + STIR AND SPRINKLE WITH BACON BITS. + +"I've just GOT to start labeling my software..." + -- Bloom County +% +What the hell is it good for? + -- Robert Lloyd (engineer of the Advanced Computing Systems + Division of IBM), to colleagues who insisted that the + microprocessor was the wave of the future, c. 1968 +% +What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer. +% + "What's that thing?" + "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in +computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what +it does. We call it a two-by-four." + -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe" +% +When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?" +% +... 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 +% + When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games. +When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about +to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to +roll in. + Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming. + When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored. When +accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored. +When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon +be solved. + Truly, this is the Tao of Programming. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only +say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. +% +When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple +of asterisked sentences: + + It weighs less than 8 pounds.* + And costs less than $1,300.** + +In tiny type were these "fuller explanations": + + * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all + this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power + pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks + will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you + might not be able to figure this out for yourself. + + ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if + you really want to. Or less. + -- Forbes +% +When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before -- +except our fingertips will have been singed. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't. +% +Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers +something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. +% +Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equpped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and +weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes +and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons. + -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949 +% +"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new +Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..." +% +Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. +% +Why are programmers non-productive? +Because their time is wasted in meetings. + +Why are programmers rebellious? +Because the management interferes too much. + +Why are the programmers resigning one by one? +Because they are burnt out. + +Having worked for poor management, they no longer value their jobs. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office automation? +% +Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users? +% +Windows 3.1 Beer: The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that +looks a lot like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. +Claims that it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but +in reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially +slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, +for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you +open it. +% +Windows 95 Beer: A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's +wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like +Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the +cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep +drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say +they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has +some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the +manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew. +% +Windows Airlines: +The terminal is very neat and clean, the attendants all very attractive, the +pilots very capable. The fleet of Learjets the carrier operates is immense. +Your jet takes off without a hitch, pushing above the clouds, and at 20,000 +feet it explodes without warning. +% +Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the +truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger +refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the +company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's -- +after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" +beer, and suggested only for use in bars. +% +Wings of OS/400: +The airline has bought ancient DC-3s, arguably the best and safest planes +that ever flew, and painted "747" on their tails to make them look as if +they are fast. The flight attendants, of course, attend to your every need, +though the drinks cost $15 a pop. Stupid questions cost $230 per hour, +unless you have SupportLine, which requires a first class ticket and +membership in the frequent flyer club. Then they cost $500, but your +accounting department can call it overhead. +% +With your bare hands?!? +% +Within a computer, natural language is unnatural. +% +Work continues in this area. + -- DEC's SPR-Answering-Automaton +% +Worthless. + -- Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, FRAS + (Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the + Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the + "analytical engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September + 15, 1842. +% +Would you people stop playing these stupid games?!?!?!!!! +% +Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear +witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results +from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences. +Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief +and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped +make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th +century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce. +Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM +PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult +holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it +is itself the one hope for salvation. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +Writing software is more fun than working. +% +X windows: + Accept any substitute. + If it's broke, don't fix it. + If it ain't broke, fix it. + Form follows malfunction. + The Cutting Edge of Obsolescence. + The trailing edge of software technology. + Armageddon never looked so good. + Japan's secret weapon. + You'll envy the dead. + Making the world safe for competing window systems. + Let it get in YOUR way. + The problem for your problem. + If it starts working, we'll fix it. Pronto. + It could be worse, but it'll take time. + Simplicity made complex. + The greatest productivity aid since typhoid. + Flakey and built to stay that way. + +One thousand monkeys. One thousand MicroVAXes. One thousand years. + X windows. +% +X windows: + It's not how slow you make it. It's how you make it slow. + The windowing system preferred by masochists 3 to 1. + Built to take on the world... and lose! + Don't try it 'til you've knocked it. + Power tools for Power Fools. + Putting new limits on productivity. + The closer you look, the cruftier we look. + Design by counterexample. + A new level of software disintegration. + No hardware is safe. + Do your time. + Rationalization, not realization. + Old-world software cruftsmanship at its finest. + Gratuitous incompatibility. + Your mother. + THE user interference management system. + You can't argue with failure. + You haven't died 'til you've used it. + +The environment of today... tomorrow! + X windows. +% +X windows: + Something you can be ashamed of. + 30% more entropy than the leading window system. + The first fully modular software disaster. + Rome was destroyed in a day. + Warn your friends about it. + Climbing to new depths. Sinking to new heights. + An accident that couldn't wait to happen. + Don't wait for the movie. + Never use it after a big meal. + Need we say less? + Plumbing the depths of human incompetence. + It'll make your day. + Don't get frustrated without it. + Power tools for power losers. + A software disaster of Biblical proportions. + Never had it. Never will. + The software with no visible means of support. + More than just a generation behind. + +Hindenburg. Titanic. Edsel. + X windows. +% +X windows: + The ultimate bottleneck. + Flawed beyond belief. + The only thing you have to fear. + Somewhere between chaos and insanity. + On autopilot to oblivion. + The joke that kills. + A disgrace you can be proud of. + A mistake carried out to perfection. + Belongs more to the problem set than the solution set. + To err is X windows. + Ignorance is our most important resource. + Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems. + Built to fall apart. + Nullifying centuries of progress. + Falling to new depths of inefficiency. + The last thing you need. + The defacto substandard. + +Elevating brain damage to an art form. + X windows. +% +X windows: + We will dump no core before its time. + One good crash deserves another. + A bad idea whose time has come. And gone. + We make excuses. + It didn't even look good on paper. + You laugh now, but you'll be laughing harder later! + A new concept in abuser interfaces. + How can something get so bad, so quickly? + It could happen to you. + The art of incompetence. + You have nothing to lose but your lunch. + When uselessness just isn't enough. + More than a mere hindrance. It's a whole new barrier! + When you can't afford to be right. + And you thought we couldn't make it worse. + +If it works, it isn't X windows. +% +X windows: + You'd better sit down. + Don't laugh. It could be YOUR thesis project. + Why do it right when you can do it wrong? + Live the nightmare. + Our bugs run faster. + When it absolutely, positively HAS to crash overnight. + There ARE no rules. + You'll wish we were kidding. + Everything you never wanted in a window system. And more. + Dissatisfaction guaranteed. + There's got to be a better way. + The next best thing to keypunching. + Leave the thrashing to us. + We wrote the book on core dumps. + Even your dog won't like it. + More than enough rope. + Garbage at your fingertips. + +Incompatibility. Shoddiness. Uselessness. + X windows. +% +"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" +% +Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall fear no +evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic operators together. + -- Steve Higgins +% +Yes, we will be going to OSI, Mars, and Pluto, but not necessarily in +that order. + -- George Michaelson +% +You are an insult to my intelligence! I demand that you log off immediately. +% +You are false data. +% +You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all alike. +% +You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different. +% +You are in the hall of the mountain king. +% +You are lost in the Swamps of Despair. +% +You are transported to a room where you are faced by a wizard who +points to you and says, "Them's fighting words!" You immediately get +attacked by all sorts of denizens of the museum: there is a cobra +chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a +gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a +rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy +trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a +vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyrannosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch +long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is +dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your +head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves +are making mince meat out of your torso, and the wizard is about to +transport you to the corner of Westwood and Broxton. Oh dear, you seem +to have gotten yourself killed, as well. + +You scored 0 out of 250 possible points. +That gives you a ranking of junior beginning adventurer. +To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points. +% +You can be replaced by this computer. +% +You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it +doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on. + -- Hepler, Systems Design 182 +% +You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them. +Why do you find that funny? + -- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350 +% +You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on +the continuing viability of FORTRAN. + -- Alan Perlis +% +You can now buy more gates with less specifications than at any other time +in history. + -- Kenneth Parker +% +You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of +supercomputers. + -- Steven Feiner +% +You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish. + +You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tuna fish. + -- from the tunefs(8) man page +% +You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename. + -- Forbes Burkowski, CS, University of Washington +% +You can't go home again, unless you set $HOME. +% +"You can't make a program without broken egos." +% +You can't take damsel here now. +% +You do not have mail. +% +You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer. +% +You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it! +% +You had mail. Paul read it, so ask him what it said. +% +You have a massage (from the Swedish prime minister). +% +You have a message from the operator. +% +You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers. +% +You have acquired a scroll entitled 'irk gleknow mizk'(n).--More-- + +This is an IBM Manual scroll.--More-- + +You are permanently confused. + -- Dave Decot +% +You have junk mail. +% +You have mail. +% +You know you've been sitting in front of your Lisp machine too long +when you go out to the junk food machine and start wondering how to +make it give you the CADR of Item H so you can get that yummie +chocolate cupcake that's stuck behind the disgusting vanilla one. +% +You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your +friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it. +% +You know, Callahan's is a peaceable bar, but if you ask that dog what his +favorite formatter is, and he says "roff! roff!", well, I'll just have to... +% +You might have mail. +% +You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable +proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do. +% +You scratch my tape, and I'll scratch yours. +% +You will have a head crash on your private pack. +% +You will have many recoverable tape errors. +% +You will lose an important disk file. +% +You will lose an important tape file. +% +You're already carrying the sphere! +% +You're at Witt's End. +% +You're not Dave. Who are you? +% +You're using a keyboard! How quaint! +% +You've been Berkeley'ed! +% +Your code should be more efficient! +% +Your computer account is overdrawn. Please reauthorize. +% +Your computer account is overdrawn. Please see Big Brother. +% +Your fault -- core dumped +% +Your files are now being encrypted and thrown into the bit bucket. +EOF +% +Your mode of life will be changed to ASCII. +% +Your mode of life will be changed to EBCDIC. +% +Your password is pitifully obvious. +% +Your program is sick! Shoot it and put it out of its memory. +% +I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, +you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to +yourself, "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well that would be enough +immortality for me. +% +As seen on slashdot about what you can do with your cable modems: +(http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=32387&cid=3495418): + + Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where + you have permission to stick it. + +The post is by "redgekko" +% +"The biggest problem facing software engineering is the one it will + never solve - politics." + -- Gavin Baker, ca 1996, An unusually cynical moment inspired + by working on a large project beseiged by politics +% +"Don't fear the pen. When in doubt, draw a pretty picture." + -- Baker's Third Law of Design. +% +Breakpoint 1, main (argc=1, argv=0xbffffc40) at main.c:29 +29 printf ("Welcome to GNU Hell!\n"); + -- "GNU Libtool documentation" +% +I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous + -- David Bradley, inventor of the Ctrl-Alt-Delete + keystroke, during panel discussion with Bill Gates + at the 20-year celebration for the IBM PC. +% +We have a policy that we are not being hacked. + -- Lisa Kopp, Friendster rep, commenting on a security flaw + http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.06/dating_pr.html +% +Life is NP-hard, and then you die. + -- Dave Cock +% +Try to remove the color-problem by restarting your computer several times. + -- Microsoft Internet Explorer's README.TXT +% +One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news, don't +worry about it. By definition, "news" means that it hardly ever happens. If a +risk is in the news, then it's probably not worth worrying about. When +something is no longer reported -- automobile deaths, domestic violence -- when +it's so common that it's not news, then you should start worrying." + -- Bruce Schneier, in _CRYPTO-GRAM_, May 15, 2005. +% +In case it's not obvious, any solution to this problem that introduces a +dependency on Java is profoundly uninteresting to me. In fact, my +indifference to that could only be described as "sexual" in intensity. + -- Jamie Zawinski +% +"We wanted to build the chat system of the future, and we +ended up with application-layer multicast streaming media. In 1999. +We were a bit ahead of our time [∗∗]" + +[∗∗] This is marketing-speak for “wrong”; you can say the same thing +for a batter’s swing when he takes a strike. + + -- Thomas Ptacek, http://www.matasano.com/log/914/ +% +Caution: Write-protection will not prevent a cartridge being erased by +bulk-erasure or degaussing. + -- HP Ultrium tape drive user's guide, page 12 +% +Why would you want to do this? You don’t, forget I even mentioned it. + -- Perl DBI documentation (v1.53) +% +Beware of the Turing tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing +of interest is easy. + -- Alan Perlis +% +If, for some reason, we make some big mistake and IBM wins, my personal feeling +is that we are going to enter a computer Dark Ages for about twenty years. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. +By the time you get it built, they'll want something new. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up +with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people +don't know what they want until you show it to them. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple +came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not +about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you +get it. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than +complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. +But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move +mountains. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +C has "the power of assembly language and the convenience of... assembly +language." + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +When I read commentary about suggestions for where C should go, I often think +back and give thanks that it wasn't developed under the advice of a worldwide +crowd. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +To tell the truth, I don't know how Linus and his merry band manage so well -- +I couldn't have stood it with C. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +I can't recall any difficulty in making the C language definition completely +open -- any discussion on the matter tended to mention languages whose +inventors tried to keep tight control, and consequent ill fate. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +At least for the people who send me mail about a new language that they're +designing, the general advice is: do it to learn about how to write a +compiler. Don't have any expectations that anyone will use it, unless you hook +up with some sort of organization in a position to push it hard. It's a +lottery, and some can buy a lot of the tickets. There are plenty of beautiful +languages (more beautiful than C) that didn't catch on. But someone does win +the lottery, and doing a language at least teaches you something. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +Software is much harder to change en masse than hardware. C++ and Java, say, +are presumably growing faster than plain C, but I bet C will still be around. +For infrastructure technology, C will be hard to displace. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +It has been suggested that root kits are the largest user community for this +kind of access, but there are no forward compatibility guarantees for root kit +authors. + -- Jonathan Corbet in "Who needs /dev/kmem?" + (http://lwn.net/Articles/147901) +% +Step 1: Close AutoCAD - I know this can be difficult for some of you. You could +also wait for AutoCAD to crash if you want. + -- Michael Rotolo + ( https://is.gd/mSTRrv ) +% diff --git a/fortunes/cookie b/fortunes/cookie new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a67838 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/cookie @@ -0,0 +1,5711 @@ +"You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are +now extinct." + -- M. Somerset Maugham +% +"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." + -- Bert Lantz +% +"The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a necessity." + -- Oscar Wilde +% +"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." + -- Voltaire +% +"IBM uses what I like to call the 'hole-in-the-ground technique' +to destroy the competition..... IBM digs a big HOLE in the +ground and covers it with leaves. It then puts a big POT +OF GOLD nearby. Then it gives the call, 'Hey, look at all +this gold, get over here fast.' As soon as the competitor +approaches the pot, he falls into the pit" + -- John C. Dvorak +% +"There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them" + -- Heisenberg +% +"It takes all sorts of in & out-door schooling to get adapted +to my kind of fooling" + -- R. Frost +% +"Confound these ancestors.... They've stolen our best ideas!" + -- Ben Jonson +% +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)] +% +I have stripped off my dress; must I put it on again? I have washed my feet; +must I soil them again? +When my beloved slipped his hand through the latch-hole, my bowels stirred +within me [my bowels were moved for him (KJV)]. +When I arose to open for my beloved, my hands dripped with myrrh; the liquid +myrrh from my fingers ran over the knobs of the bolt. With my own hands I +opened to my love, but my love had turned away and gone by; my heart sank when +he turned his back. I sought him but I did not find him, I called him but he +did not answer. +The watchmen, going the rounds of the city, met me; they struck me and + wounded me; the watchmen on the walls took away my cloak. +[Song of Solomon 5:3-7 (NEB)] +% +How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the joints of thy +thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy navel +is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap +of wheat set about with lilies. +Thy two breasts are like two young roses that are twins. +[Song of Solomon 7:1-3 (KJV)] +% +How beautiful, how entrancing you are, my loved one, daughter of delights! +You are stately as a palm-tree, and your breasts are the clusters of dates. +I said, "I will climb up into the palm to grasp its fronds." May I find your +breast like clusters of grapes on the vine, the scent of your breath like +apricots, and your whispers like spiced wine flowing smoothly to welcome my +caresses, gliding down through lips and teeth. +[Song of Solomon 7:6-9 (NEB)] +% +Wear me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong +as death, passion cruel as the grave; it blazes up like blazing fire, fiercer +than any flame. +[Song of Solomon 8:6 (NEB)] +% +But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to +thee, to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the +wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? +[2 Kings 18:27 (KJV)] +% +When Yahweh your gods has settled you in the land you're about to occupy, and +driven out many infidels before you...you're to cut them down and exterminate +them. You're to make no compromise with them or show them any mercy. +[Deut. 7:1 (KJV)] +% +I just thought of something funny...your mother. + -- Cheech Marin +% +In the beginning, I was made. I didn't ask to be made. No one consulted +with 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, From Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the +Galaxy Radio Scripts +% +You will be successful in your work. +% +The life of a repo man is always intense. +% +If you're not careful, you're going to catch something. +% +That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they +really hate is lousy programmers. + -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty" +% +Wherever you go...There you are. + -- Buckaroo Banzai +% +Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. + -- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan +% +Lack of skill dictates economy of style. + -- Joey Ramone +% +No one is fit to be trusted with power. ... No one. ... Any man who has lived +at all knows the follies and wickedness he's capable of. ... And if he does +know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to +decide a single human fate. + -- C. P. Snow, The Light and the Dark +% +Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue. + -- Seneca +% +When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find +anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, +two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the +history of war have so few been led by so many. + -- General James Gavin +% +The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do +nothing. + -- Edmund Burke +% +You may call me by my name, Wirth, or by my value, Worth. + -- Nicklaus Wirth +% +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 +% +Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future. + -- Niels Bohr +% +The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact +mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows. + -- Frank Zappa +% +Things are not as simple as they seems at first. + -- Edward Thorp +% +The main thing is the play itself. I swear that greed for money has nothing +to do with it, although heaven knows I am sorely in need of money. + -- Feodor Dostoyevsky +% +It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions. + -- Robert Bly +% +Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. + -- Alan Turing +% +Uncertain fortune is thoroughly mastered by the equity of the calculation. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +After Goliath's defeat, giants ceased to command respect. + -- Freema Dyson +% +There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make +it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to +make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. + -- Charles Anthony Richard Hoare +% +Do not allow this language (Ada) in its present state to be used in +applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear power stations, +cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-ballistic missile defense +systems. The next rocket to go astray as a result of a programming language +error may not be an exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: +It may be a nuclear warhead exploding over one of our cities. An unreliable +programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a far +greater risk to our environment and to our society than unsafe cars, toxic +pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power stations. + -- C. A. R. Hoare +% +Without coffee he could not work, or at least he could not have worked in the +way he did. In addition to paper and pens, he took with him everywhere as an +indispensable article of equipment the coffee machine, which was no less +important to him than his table or his white robe. + -- Stefan Zweigs, Biography of Balzac +% +"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 +% +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. +% +The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an +"airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers while +seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference -- one can +see only a very few things at once. + -- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +...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. +% +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. +% +...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. +% +Software entities are more complex for their size than perhaps any other human +construct because no two parts are alike. If they are, we make the two +similar parts into a subroutine -- open or closed. In this respect, software +systems differ profoundly from computers, buildings, or automobiles, where +repeated elements abound. + -- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +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. +% +The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. +Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity +often abstract away its essence. + -- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +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. +% +Except for 75% of the women, everyone in the whole world wants to have sex. + -- Ellyn Mustard +% +The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems +and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting +language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best +dangerous. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup in "The C++ Programming Language" +% +The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. + -- Brian Kernighan +% +Perfection is achieved only on the point of collapse. + -- C. N. Parkinson +% +There you go man, +Keep as cool as you can. +It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave. +Keep on being free! +% +Bingo, gas station, hamburger with a side order of airplane noise, +and you'll be Gary, Indiana. - Jessie in the movie "Greaser's Palace" +% +Hoping to goodness is not theologically sound. - Peanuts +% +Police up your spare rounds and frags. Don't leave nothin' for the dinks. + -- Willem Dafoe in "Platoon" +% +"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more +specific." + -- Jane Wagner +% +"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 +% +"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 +% +"The greatest warriors are the ones who fight for peace." + -- Holly Near +% +"No matter where you go, there you are..." + -- Buckaroo Banzai +% +Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be prosecuted. +% +Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be SHOT AGAIN! +% +"I'm growing older, but not up." + -- Jimmy Buffett +% +Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man. +% +"I hate the itching. But I don't mind the swelling." +-- new buzz phrase, like "Where's the Beef?" that David Letterman's trying + to get everyone to start saying +% +Your own mileage may vary. +% +"Oh dear, I think you'll find reality's on the blink again." + -- Marvin The Paranoid Android +% +"Send lawyers, guns and money..." + -- Lyrics from a Warren Zevon song +% +"I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs." + -- H. L. Mencken +% +"Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom; +Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love; +Love is not music; Music is the best." -- Frank Zappa +% +I can't drive 55. +% +"And they told us, what they wanted... + Was a sound that could kill some-one, from a distance." -- Kate Bush +% +"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 Lehenbauer +% +Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. +% +I can't drive 55. +I'm looking forward to not being able to drive 65, either. +% +Thank God a million billion times you live in Texas. +% +"Can you program?" "Well, I'm literate, if that's what you mean!" +% +No user-servicable parts inside. Refer to qualified service personnel. +% +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 +% +One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled +long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no +longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured +us. it is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that +we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the +new bamboozles rise.) + -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 +% +Regarding astral projection, Woody Allen once wrote, "This is not a bad way +to travel, although there is usually a half-hour wait for luggage." +% +The inability to benefit from feedback appears to be the primary cause of +pseudoscience. Pseudoscientists retain their beliefs and ignore or distort +contradictory evidence rather than modify or reject a flawed theory. Because +of their strong biases, they seem to lack the self-correcting mechanisms +scientists must employ in their work. + -- Thomas L. Creed, "The Skeptical Inquirer," Summer 1987 +% +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 +% +Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. +% +Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. +Don't have aesthetic convulsions when using them, either. +% +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" +% +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" +% +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" +% +It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it +is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize +the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The manager of +architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were +threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. + +The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they could write +the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, three more +than the schedule allowed. + +The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they could prepare +the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be +well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. Furthermore, if +the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs +for ten months. + +To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program +team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would +also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and it was. He +was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made +the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it +added a year to debugging time. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +The reason ESP, for example, is not considered a viable topic in contemoprary +psychology is simply that its investigation has not proven fruitful...After +more than 70 years of study, there still does not exist one example of an ESP +phenomenon that is replicable under controlled conditions. This simple but +basic scientific criterion has not been met despite dozens of studies +conducted over many decades...It is for this reason alone that the topic is +now of little interest to psychology...In short, there is no demonstrated +phenomenon that needs explanation. + -- Keith E. Stanovich, "How to Think Straight About Psychology", pp. 160-161 +% +The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand +years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man +is and will always be a wild animal. + -- Charles Galton Darwin +% +Natural selection won't matter soon, not anywhere as much as conscious +selection. We will civilize and alter ourselves to suit our ideas of what we +can be. Within one more human lifespan, we will have changed ourselves +unrecognizably. + -- Greg Bear +% +"Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin." + -- Michael O'Donohugh +% +...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage +from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" +% +"It's like deja vu all over again." -- Yogi Berra +% +The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +"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 +% +A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +To be awake is to be alive. -- Henry David Thoreau, in "Walden" +% +A person with one watch knows what time it is; a person with two watches is +never sure. Proverb +% +You see but you do not observe. +Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" +% +A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle +unless there be two. -- Seneca +% +Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no +proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. -- John Keats +% +The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order +of space and time. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge +% +What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of +rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. -- Edmund Burke +% +For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. + -- James J. Ling +% +One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. +Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, +a rivalry of aim. -- Henry Brook Adams +% +Remember thee +Ay, thou poor ghost while memory holds a seat +In this distracted globe. Remember thee! +Yea, from the table of my memory +I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, +All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, +That youth and observation copied there. +Hamlet, I : v : 95 William Shakespeare +% +Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he +has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has +the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with +distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with +propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning +processes, and make him something less than a man. + -- Arthur Hays Sulzberger +% +Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy +based on excellence of performance. -- James Bryant Conant +% +You can observe a lot just by watching. -- Yogi Berra +% +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 +% +"Mr. Watson, come here, I want you." -- Alexander Graham Bell +% +It's currently a problem of access to gigabits through punybaud. + -- J. C. R. Licklider +% +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 +% +A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. + -- Ramsey Clark +% +The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate +knowledge of its ugly side. -- James Baldwin +% +Small is beautiful. +% +...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 +% +It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images. + -- Jean Cocteau +% +Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same +rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more +efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the +analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a +Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it +would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were +interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a +pinhead. + -- Christopher Evans +% +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 +% +Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations" +% +Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two +complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through +rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the +remaining errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote +to this design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be +the result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the +problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the +system. -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage +Operating +Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, +Vol. 12, No. 4, 1973, pp. 382-400 +% +I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these +Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal +advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages +for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after +expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of +England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, +I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer +of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men +who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... + +If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere +triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution +of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification +might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert +that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express +an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man +distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of +such machinery impracticable... + +And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that +exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, +which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the +application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse +calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. +In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not +be economized by the aid of machinery. + -- Charles Babbage, Passage from the Life of a Philosopher +% +How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb? + +"Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem." +% +"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free +with my breakfast cereal." + -- Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Uncompensated overtime? Just Say No. +% +Decaffeinated coffee? Just Say No. +% +"Show business is just like high school, except you get paid." + -- Martin Mull +% +"This isn't brain surgery; it's just television." + -- David Letterman +% +"Morality is one thing. Ratings are everything." + -- A Network 23 executive on "Max Headroom" +% +Live free or die. +% +"...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" +% +Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too +dark to read. +% +"Probably the best operating system in the world is the [operating system] + made for the PDP-11 by Bell Laboratories." - Ted Nelson, October 1977 +% +"All these black people are screwing up my democracy." - Ian Smith +% +Use the Force, Luke. +% +I've got a bad feeling about this. +% +The power to destroy a planet is insignificant when compared to the power of +the Force. + -- Darth Vader +% +When I left you, I was but the pupil. Now, I am the master. + -- Darth Vader +% +"Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in +poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come +and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarble, ya eunuch jelly thou!" + -- Alex in "Clockwork Orange" +% +"There was nothing I hated more than to see a filthy old drunkie, a howling +away at the sons of his father and going blurp blurp in between as if it were +a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to +see anyone like that, especially when they were old like this one was." + -- Alex in "Clockwork Orange" +% +186,000 Miles per Second. It's not just a good idea. IT'S THE LAW. +% +Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward. +% +Gee, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. +% +Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, +if ever, do they forgive them. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Single tasking: Just Say No. +% +"Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world." + -- The Beach Boys +% +"Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them +seemed to come from Texas." + -- Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale" +% +"I think trash is the most important manifestation of culture we have in my +lifetime." + -- Johnny Legend +% +By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials +(out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence +to creation-science, the general theory that complex life forms did not evolve +but appeared "abruptly." + -- Newsweek, June 29, 1987, pg. 23 +% +Even if you can deceive people about a product through misleading statements, +sooner or later the product will speak for itself. + -- Hajime Karatsu +% +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 +% +Memories of you remind me of you. + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Life. Don't talk to me about life. + -- Marvin the Paranoid Android +% +On a clear disk you can seek forever. +% +The world is coming to an end--save your buffers! +% +grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines. +% +It is your destiny. + -- Darth Vader +% +Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at +your side. + -- Han Solo +% +How many QA engineers does it take to screw in a light bulb? + +3: 1 to screw it in and 2 to say "I told you so" when it doesn't work. +% +How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a light bulb? + +"That's a known problem... don't worry about it." +% +To be is to program. +% +To program is to be. +% +I program, therefore I am. +% +People are very flexible and learn to adjust to strange +surroundings -- they can become accustomed to read Lisp and +Fortran programs, for example. + -- Leon Sterling and Ehud Shapiro, Art of Prolog, MIT Press +% +"I am your density." + -- George McFly in "Back to the Future" +% +"So why don't you make like a tree, and get outta here." + -- Biff in "Back to the Future" +% +"Falling in love makes smoking pot all day look like the ultimate in restraint." + -- Dave Sim, author of Cerebrus. +% +The existence of god implies a violation of causality. +% +"I may kid around about drugs, but really, I take them seriously." + -- Doctor Graper +% +Operating-system software is the program that orchestrates all the basic +functions of a computer. + -- The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, September 15, 1987, page 40 +% +I pledge allegiance to the flag +of the United States of America +and to the republic for which it stands, +one nation, +indivisible, +with liberty +and justice for all. + - Francis Bellamy, 1892 +% +People think my friend George is weird because he wears sideburns...behind his +ears. I think he's weird because he wears false teeth...with braces on them. + -- Steven Wright +% +My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo of +the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here". + -- Steven Wright +% +You can't have everything... where would you put it? + -- Steven Wright +% +I was playing poker the other night... with Tarot cards. I got a full house and +4 people died. + -- Steven Wright +% +You know that feeling when you're leaning back on a stool and it starts to tip +over? Well, that's how I feel all the time. + -- Steven Wright +% +I came home the other night and tried to open the door with my car keys...and +the building started up. So I took it out for a drive. A cop pulled me over +for speeding. He asked me where I live... "Right here". + -- Steven Wright +% +"Live or die, I'll make a million." + -- Reebus Kneebus, before his jump to the center of the earth, + Firesign Theater +% +The typical page layout program is nothing more than an electronic +light table for cutting and pasting documents. +% +There are bugs and then there are bugs. And then there are bugs. + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +My computer can beat up your computer. + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Kill Ugly Processor Architectures + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Kill Ugly Radio + -- Frank Zappa +% +"Just Say No." - Nancy Reagan + +"No." - Ronald Reagan +% +I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a +very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom +everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or +at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, +and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach +much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense +of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor +popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience. + -- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, + Vol. 12, Fall 87 +% +If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible +and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But there is a kind +of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the +good. And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community +ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the +media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful. Every newspaper +in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly +astronomy column? And I believe it is also the fault of the educational +system. We do not teach how to think. This is a very serious failure that +may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human +future. + -- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, + Vol. 12, Fall 87 +% +"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'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelli- +gence?" I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there, +and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing +to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as +yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you +really think?" I say, "I just told you what I really think." "Yeah, but +what's your gut feeling?" But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's +okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. + -- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, + Vol. 12, Fall 87 +% +Repel them. Repel them. Induce them to relinquish the spheroid. + -- Indiana University fans' chant for their perennially bad + football team +% +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 +% + It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all +primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach +of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings +arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself +completely. . . .Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged +once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or +subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son, +man. + -- Fred Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy +% +The characteristic property of hallucinogens, to suspend the boundaries between +the experiencing self and the outer world in an ecstatic, emotional experience, +makes it possible with their help, and after suitable internal and external +perparation...to evoke a mystical experience according to plan, so to speak... +I see the true importance of LSD in the possibility of providing material aid +to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive +reality. Such a use accords entirely with the essence and working character +of LSD as a sacred drug. + -- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD +% +I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis +pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only +by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, +dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a +new consciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the +experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate +nature and all of creation. + -- Dr. Albert Hoffman +% +Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related +hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails +dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take into +account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability to +influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The history +of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can +ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken +for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preparations +are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful +experience. + -- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD +% +I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability +more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjuction +with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonder +child. + -- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD +% +In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are +prepared. + -- Louis Pasteur +% +core error - bus dumped +% +If imprinted foil seal under cap is broken or missing when purchased, do not +use. +% +"Come on over here, baby, I want to do a thing with you." + -- A Cop, arresting a non-groovy person after the revolution, + Firesign Theater +% +"Ahead warp factor 1" + -- Captain Kirk +% + Fiery energy lanced out, but the beams struck an intangible wall between +the Gubru and the rapidly turning Earth ship. + + "Water!" it shrieked as it read the spectral report. "A barrier of water +vapor! A civilized race could not have found such a trick in the Library! +A civilized race could not have stooped so low! A civilized race would not +have..." + + It screamed as the Gubru ship hit a cloud of drifting snowflakes. + + -- Startide Rising, by David Brin +% +Harrison's Postulate: + For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. +% +Mr. Cole's Axiom: + The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; + the population is growing. +% +Felson's Law: + To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from + many is research. +% +...Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an +inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have +ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I +haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. +There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between +prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have +looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice +is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious +mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you +may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you +have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. + -- Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, Skeptical Enquirer, + Vol. 12, pg. 46 +% +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 +% +America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it once. + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Sometimes, too long is too long. + -- Joe Crowe +% +When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, +an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. + -- Edmund Burke +% +Behind all the political rhetoric being hurled at us from abroad, we are +bringing home one unassailable fact -- [terrorism is] a crime by any civilized +standard, committed against innocent people, away from the scene of political +conflict, and must be dealt with as a crime. . . . + [I]n our recognition of the nature of terrorism as a crime lies our best hope +of dealing with it. . . . + [L]et us use the tools that we have. Let us invoke the cooperation we have +the right to expect around the world, and with that cooperation let us shrink +the dark and dank areas of sanctuary until these cowardly marauders are held +to answer as criminals in an open and public trial for the crimes they have +committed, and receive the punishment they so richly deserve. + -- William H. Webster, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 15 Oct 1985 +% +"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." + -- Thomas Paine +% +"I say we take off; nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." + -- Corporal Hicks, in "Aliens" +% +"There is nothing so deadly as not to hold up to people the opportunity to +do great and wonderful things, if we wish to stimulate them in an active way." + -- Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry +% +"...proper attention to Earthly needs of the poor, the depressed and the +downtrodden, would naturally evolve from dynamic, articulate, spirited +awareness of the great goals for Man and the society he conspired to erect." + -- David Baker, paraphrasing Harold Urey, in "The History of + Manned Space Flight" +% +"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 +% +"Largely because it is so tangible and exciting a program and as such will +serve to keep alive the interest and enthusiasm of the whole spectrum of +society...It is justified because...the program can give a sense of shared +adventure and achievement to the society at large." + -- Dr. Colin S. Pittendrigh, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +The challenge of space exploration and particularly of landing men on the moon +represents the greatest challenge which has ever faced the human race. Even +if there were no clear scientific or other arguments for proceeding with this +task, the whole history of our civilization would still impel men toward the +goal. In fact, the assembly of the scientific and military with these human +arguments creates such an overwhelming case that in can be ignored only by +those who are blind to the teachings of history, or who wish to suspend the +development of civilization at its moment of greatest opportunity and drama. + -- Sir Bernard Lovell, 1962, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +The idea of man leaving this earth and flying to another celestial body and +landing there and stepping out and walking over that body has a fascination +and a driving force that can get the country to a level of energy, ambition, +and will that I do not see in any other undertaking. I think if we are +honest with ourselves, we must admit that we needed that impetus extremely +strongly. I sincerely believe that the space program, with its manned +landing on the moon, if wisely executed, will become the spearhead for a +broad front of courageous and energetic activities in all the fields of +endeavour of the human mind - activities which could not be carried out +except in a mental climate of ambition and confidence which such a spearhead +can give. + -- Dr. Martin Schwarzschild, 1962, in "The History of Manned Space + Flight" +% +Human society - man in a group - rises out of its lethargy to new levels of +productivity only under the stimulus of deeply inspiring and commonly +appreciated goals. A lethargic world serves no cause well; a spirited world +working diligently toward earnestly desired goals provides the means and +the strength toward which many ends can be satisfied...to unparalleled +social accomplishment. + -- Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high +aims are worth-while. Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of +objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal +gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of +a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, +the Peace brought by something worth-while. + -- Alfred North Whitehead, 1963, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +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 +% +Life's the same, except for the shoes. + -- The Cars +% +Purple hum +Assorted cars +Laser lights, you bring + +All to prove +You're on the move +and vanishing + -- The Cars +% +Could be you're crossing the fine line +A silly driver kind of...off the wall + +You keep it cool when it's t-t-tight +...eyes wide open when you start to fall. + -- The Cars +% +Adapt. Enjoy. Survive. +% +Were there fewer fools, knaves would starve. + -- Anonymous +% +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 +% +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" +% +"Those who believe in astrology are living in houses with foundations of +Silly Putty." + -- Dennis Rawlins, astronomer +% +To date, the firm conclusions of Project Blue Book are: + 1. no unidentified flying object reported, investigated and evaluated + by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our + national security; + 2. there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air + Force that sightings categorized as UNIDENTIFIED represent + technological developments or principles beyond the range of + present-day scientific knowledge; and + 3. there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized + as UNIDENTIFIED are extraterrestrial vehicles. + -- the summary of Project Blue Book, an Air Force study of UFOs from + 1950 to 1965, as quoted by James Randi in Flim-Flam! +% +Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their +hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, +without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only +in the God idea, not God Himself. + -- Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish philosopher and writer +% +Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. + -- Kahlil Gibran +% +Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. + -- Paul Tillich, German theologian and historian +% +Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. + -- Voltaire +% +If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit +in my name at a Swiss Bank. + -- Woody Allen +% +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 +% +To downgrade the human mind is bad theology. + -- C. K. Chesterton +% +...difference of opinion is advantageious 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" +% +Life is a process, not a principle, a mystery to be lived, not a problem to +be solved. + -- Gerard Straub, television producer and author (stolen from Frank + Herbert??) +% +So we follow our wandering paths, and the very darkness acts as our guide and +our doubts serve to reassure us. + -- Jean-Pierre de Caussade, eighteenth-century Jesuit priest +% +Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the +improbable. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +And do you not think that each of you women is an Eve? The judgement of God +upon your sex endures today; and with it invariably endures your position of +criminal at the bar of justice. + -- Tertullian, second-century Christian writer, misogynist +% +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 +% +Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism. +% +"Unibus timeout fatal trap program lost sorry" + -- An error message printed by DEC's RSTS operating system for the + PDP-11 +% +How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb? + +One to hold the giraffe and one to fill the bathtub with brightly colored +power tools. +% +How many Bavarian Illuminati does it take to screw in a light bulb? + +Three: one to screw it in, and one to confuse the issue. +% +How long does it take a DEC field service engineer to change a light bulb? + +It depends on how many bad ones he brought with him. +% +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 +% +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 +% +God requireth not a uniformity of religion. + -- Roger Williams +% +The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being +as his Father, in the womb of a virgin will be classified with the fable of +the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the +dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with +this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine +doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us +restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which +liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect +that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which +mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a +political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and +bloody persecutions. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere +in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, +Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in +Christianity. + -- John Adams +% +The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could +never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +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 +% +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 believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- +where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) +how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom +to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or +political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely +because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the +people who might elect him. + -- from John F. Kennedy's address to the Greater Houston Ministerial + Association September 12, 1960. +% +The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only +opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts +at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of +knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest +days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every +effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and +everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad +laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an +apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes -- that it +leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere +effects -- this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, +science would explain the origin of life on earth at once--and there is +every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. +To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, +not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give +ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.... + -- H. L. Mencken, 1930 +% +The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective +support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has +its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way. +Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality, +and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is +recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation, +and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing +beyond the grave. Such childish "proofs" are typically theological, and +they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to +flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents.... + -- H. L. Mencken +% +There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, +however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. +Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be +discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator +on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is +even highly probable. + -- H. L. Mencken, 1930 +% +The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and +fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are +drifting side by side to our common doom. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +We're here to give you a computer, not a religion. + -- attributed to Bob Pariseau, at the introduction of the Amiga +% +...there can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is +the practice of truth. + -- George Jacob Holyoake +% +"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. +% +The meek are contesting the will. +% +I'm sick of being trodden on! The Elder Gods say they can make me a man! +All it costs is my soul! I'll do it, cuz NOW I'M MAD!!! + -- Necronomicomics #1, Jack Herman & Jeff Dee +% + On Krat's main screen appeared the holo image of a man, and several dolphins. +From the man's shape, Krat could tell it was a female, probably their leader. + "...stupid creatures unworthy of the name `sophonts.' Foolish, pre-sentient +upspring of errant masters. We slip away from all your armed might, laughing +at your clumsiness! We slip away as we always will, you pathetic creatures. +And now that we have a real head start, you'll never catch us! What better +proof that the Progenitors favor not you, but us! What better proof..." + The taunt went on. Krat listened, enraged, yet at the same time savoring +the artistry of it. These men are better than I'd thought. Their insults +are wordy and overblown, but they have talent. They deserve honorable, slow +deaths. + -- David Brin, Startide Rising +% +"I'm a mean green mother from outer space" + -- Audrey II, The Little Shop of Horrors +% +Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. +It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who +watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide +people to follow His precepts -- there is just too much misery and +cruelty for that. On the other hand, I respect and envy the people +who get inspiration from their religions. + -- Benjamin Spock +% +Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. + -- Andy Finkel, computer guy +% +Being schizophrenic is better than living alone. +% +NOWPRINT. NOWPRINT. Clemclone, back to the shadows again. + -- The Firesign Theater +% +Yes, many primitive people still believe this myth...But in today's technical +vastness of the future, we can guess that surely things were much different. + -- The Firesign Theater +% +...this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six +million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch." + -- The Firesign Theater +% +We want to create puppets that pull their own strings. + -- Ann Marion +% +I know engineers. They love to change things. + -- Dr. McCoy +% +On our campus the UNIX system has proved to be not only an effective software +tool, but an agent of technical and social change within the University. + -- John Lions (University of New South Wales) +% +Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. + -- Henry Spencer, University of Toronto Unix hack +% +"You know why there are so few sophisticated computer terrorists in the United +States? Because your hackers have so much mobility into the establishment. +Here, there is no such mobility. If you have the slightest bit of intellectual +integrity you cannot support the government.... That's why the best computer +minds belong to the opposition." + -- an anonymous member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity +% +"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 +% +Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. + -- Mark Twain +% +The sooner all the animals are extinct, the sooner we'll find their money. + -- Ed Bluestone +% +He's dead, Jim. +% +New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. + -- David Letterman +% +You can do more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word. + -- Al Capone +% +The fountain code has been tightened slightly so you can no longer dip objects +into a fountain or drink from one while you are floating in mid-air due to +levitation. + +Teleporting to hell via a teleportation trap will no longer occur if the +character does not have fire resistance. + + -- README file from the NetHack game +% +Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over. + -- Frank Zappa +% +I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and +tired of being told that ordinary decent people are fed up in this +country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not. But I'm +sick and tired of being told that I am. + -- Monty Python +% +"There is no statute of limitations on stupidity." + -- Randomly produced by a computer program called Markov3. +% +There is a time in the tides of men, +Which, taken at its flood, leads on to success. +On the other hand, don't count on it. + -- T. K. Lawson +% +To follow foolish precedents, and wink +With both our eyes, is easier than to think. + -- William Cowper +% +It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. - A.D. 65) +% +One may be able to quibble about the quality of a single experiment, or +about the veracity of a given experimenter, but, taking all the supportive +experiments together, the weight of evidence is so strong as readily to +merit a wise man's reflection. + -- Professor William Tiller, parapsychologist, Standford University, + commenting on psi research +% +Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced. + -- John Keats +% +Your good nature will bring you unbounded happiness. +% +"Our journey toward the stars has progressed swiftly. + +In 1926 Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-propelled rocket, +achieving an altitude of 41 feet. In 1962 John Glenn orbited the earth. + +In 1969, only 66 years after Orville Wright flew two feet off the ground +for 12 seconds, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and I rocketed to the moon +in Apollo 11." + -- Michael Collins + Former astronaut and past Director of the National Air and Space + Museum +% +Most people exhibit what political scientists call "the conservatism of the +peasantry." Don't lose what you've got. Don't change. Don't take a chance, +because you might end up starving to death. Play it safe. Buy just as much +as you need. Don't waste time. + +When we think about risk, human beings and corporations realize in their +heads that risks are necessary to grow, to survive. But when it comes down +to keeping good people when the crunch comes, or investing money in +something untried, only the brave reach deep into their pockets and play +the game as it must be played. + + -- David Lammers, "Yakitori", Electronic Engineering Times, + January 18, 1988 +% +"We can't schedule an orgy, it might be construed as fighting" +--Stanley Sutton +% +Weekends were made for programming. + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +"Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his +roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the +forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind +the railroad yards." + -- H. L. Mencken, writing of William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the + supporters of Tennessee's anti-evolution law at the Scopes "Monkey + Trial" in 1925. +% +This was the ultimate form of ostentation among technology freaks -- to have +a system so complete and sophisticated that nothing showed; no machines, +no wires, no controls. + -- Michael Swanwick, "Vacuum Flowers" +% +Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our +pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs +and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires +us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, +inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are +contrary to habit... + -- Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 B.C.), The Sacred Disease +% +Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function +are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the other. There is +no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the brain now and then and +make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this +is a working assumption only....It is quite conceivable that someday the +assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we +have not reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and +there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a problem so +far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a determinist in +physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. + -- D. O. Hebb, Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, 1949 +% +Prevalent beliefs that knowledge can be tapped from previous incarnations or +from a "universal mind" (the repository of all past wisdom and creativity) +not only are implausible but also unfairly demean the stunning achievements +of individual human brains. + -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for + Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171 +% +... 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 +% +"Ada is the work of an architect, not a computer scientist." + -- Jean Icbiah, inventor of Ada, weenie +% +Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples of +outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, but +they prevailed with irrefutable data. More often, egregious findings that +contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts. I have +argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, "cosmic consciousness," +and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of +neuroscience. Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid +handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena +than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves +offer more plausible alternatives. + -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for + Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171 +% +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 is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around +the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when +evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person +can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all +present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic +time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ +only with respect to theories about how the process operates. + -- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131 +% +...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 +% +... 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 +% +Now I lay me down to sleep +I hear the sirens in the street +All my dreams are made of chrome +I have no way to get back home + -- Tom Waits +% +I am here by the will of the people and I won't leave until I get my raincoat +back. + -- a slogan of the anarchists in Richard Kadrey's "Metrophage" +% +How many nuclear engineers does it take to change a light bulb ? + +Seven: One to install the new bulb, and six to determine what to do + with the old one for the next 10,000 years. +% +Mike's Law: +For a lumber company employing two men and a cut-off saw, the +marginal product of labor for any number of additional workers +equals zero until the acquisition of another cut-off saw. +Let's not even consider a chainsaw. + -- Mike Dennison +[You could always schedule the saw, though - ed.] +% +As long as we're going to reinvent the wheel again, we might as well try making +it round this time. + -- Mike Dennison +% +This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms +industry is now in the American experience... We must not fail to +comprehend its grave implications... We must guard against the +acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial +complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power +exists and will persist. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his farewell address in 1961 +% +This restaurant was advertising breakfast any time. So I ordered +french toast in the renaissance. + -- Steven Wright, comedian +% +Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television. + -- David Letterman +% +A lot of the stuff I do is so minimal, and it's designed to be minimal. +The smallness of it is what's attractive. It's weird, 'cause it's so +intellectually lame. It's hard to see me doing that for the rest of +my life. But at the same time, it's what I do best. + -- Chris Elliot, writer and performer on "Late Night with David + Letterman" +% +e-credibility: the non-guaranteeable likelihood that the electronic data +you're seeing is genuine rather than somebody's made-up crap. + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Whenever people agree with me, I always think I must be wrong. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +My mother is a fish. + -- William Faulkner +% +The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it +seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the +fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving +after rational knowledge. + -- Albert Einstein +% +The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events, the firmer +becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered +regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of +human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural +events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural +events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this +doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge +has not yet been able to set foot. + +But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives +of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which +is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will +of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human +progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion +must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, +give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast +powers in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail +themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the +True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more +difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. + -- Albert Einstein +% +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 +% +Most non-Catholics know that the Catholic schools are rendering a greater +service to our nation than the public schools in which subversive textbooks +have been used, in which Communist-minded teachers have taught, and from +whose classrooms Christ and even God Himself are barred. + -- from "Our Sunday Visitor", an American-Catholic newspaper, 1949 +% +Those of us who believe in the right of any human being to belong to whatever +church he sees fit, and to worship God in his own way, cannot be accused +of prejudice when we do not want to see public education connected with +religious control of the schools, which are paid for by taxpayers' money. + -- Eleanor Roosevelt +% +Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal +power should not become too important in any church. + -- Eleanor Roosevelt +% +Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind... + -- Percy Bysshe Shelley +% +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 +% +It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon +insufficient evidence. + -- W. K. Clifford, British philosopher, circa 1876 +% +Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is +wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits +that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant? +Is it not a spectacle to make the angels laugh? We are a company of +ignorant beings, feeling our way through mists and darkness, learning only +be incessantly repeated blunders, obtaining a glimmering of truth by +falling into every conceivable error, dimly discerning light enough for +our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe +the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures +to declare that we don't know the map of the universe as well as the map +of our infinitesimal parish, he is hooted, reviled, and perhaps told that +he will be damned to all eternity for his faithlessness... + -- Leslie Stephen, "An agnostic's Apology", Fortnightly Review, 1876 +% +Till then we shall be content to admit openly, what you (religionists) +whisper under your breath or hide in technical jargon, that the ancient +secret is a secret still; that man knows nothing of the Infinite and +Absolute; and that, knowing nothing, he had better not be dogmatic about +his ignorance. And, meanwhile, we will endeavour to be as charitable as +possible, and whilst you trumpet forth officially your contempt for our +skepticism, we will at least try to believe that you are imposed upon +by your own bluster. + -- Leslie Stephen, "An agnostic's Apology", Fortnightly Review, 1876 +% +Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. + -- Voltaire +% +What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed +of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- +that is the first law of nature. + -- Voltaire +% +It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because +he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. + -- Voltaire +% +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 +% +The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be.... The +natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience +only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. + -- Adam Smith +% +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 +% +However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. +There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious +beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than +Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. +But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf +should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing +throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. +They are trying to force government leaders into following their position +100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a +particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of +money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political +preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be +a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do +they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the +right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as +a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who +thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll +call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every +step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all +Americans in the name of "conservatism." + -- Senator Barry Goldwater, from the Congressional Record, + September 16, 1981 +% +"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 +% +...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured +we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful +inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion as +it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive. +As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be +advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do us the +same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their +protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear +that they are easily disposed to resort to the sword. My own belief in +God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect +for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the +most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians +are frustrated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure +of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. +Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every +recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, +resort to formal lying to obscure such reality. + -- Steve Allen, comedian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of + Conviction", edited by Philip Berman +% +...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 +% +A fanatic is a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. + -- Winston Churchill +% +We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism... +we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying +our nation today...our battle is with Satan himself. + -- Jerry Falwell +% +They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach +of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions +of the duperies on which they live. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proven innocent. + -- George Orwell +% +As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject +of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction +in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless +conversions -- to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and +has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with. The +problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to +a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy +is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and +irrational -- the powers of reason are surprisingly ineffective in +changing the believer's mind. + -- Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of + Conviction", edited by Philip Berman +% +Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult +than to understand him. + -- Fyodor Dostoevski +% +We may not be able to persuade Hindus that Jesus and not Vishnu should +govern their spiritual horizon, nor Moslems that Lord Buddha is at the +center of their spiritual universe, nor Hebrews that Mohammed is a major +prohpet, nor Christians that Shinto best expresses their spiritual +concerns, to say nothing of the fact that we may not be able to get +Christians to agree among themselves about their relationship to God. +But all will agree on a proposition that they possess profound spiritual +resources. If, in addition, we can get them to accept the further +proposition that whatever form the Deity may have in their own theology, +the Deity is not only external, but internal and acts through them, and +they themselves give proof or disproof of the Deity in what they do and +think; if this further proposition can be accepted, then we come that +much closer to a truly religious situation on earth. + -- Norman Cousins, from his book "Human Options" +% +The Messiah will come. There will be a resurrection of the dead -- all +the things that Jews believed in before they got so damn sophisticated. + -- Rabbi Meir Kahane +% +The world is no nursery. + -- Sigmund Freud +% +If one inquires why the American tradition is so strong against any +connection of State and Church, why it dreads even the rudiments of +religious teaching in state-maintained schools, the immediate and +superficial answer is not far to seek.... +The cause lay largely in the diversity and vitality of the various +denominations, each fairly sure that, with a fair field and no favor, +it could make its own way; and each animated by a jealous fear that, +if any connection of State and Church were permitted, some rival +denomination would get an unfair advantage. + -- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher, + from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 +% +Already the spirit of our schooling is permeated with the feeling that +every subject, every topic, every fact, every professed truth must be +submitted to a certain publicity and impartiality. All proffered +samples of learning must go to the same assay-room and be subjected to +common tests. It is the essence of all dogmatic faiths to hold that +any such "show-down" is sacrilegious and perverse. The characteristic +of religion, from their point of view, is that it is intellectually +secret, not public; peculiarly revealed, not generally known; +authoritatively declared, not communicated and tested in ordinary +ways...It is pertinent to point out that, as long as religion is +conceived as it is now by the great majority of professed religionists, +there is something self-contradictory in speaking of education in +religion in the same sense in which we speak of education in topics +where the method of free inquiry has made its way. The "religious" +would be the last to be willing that either the history of the +content of religion should be taught in this spirit; while those +to whom the scientific standpoint is not merely a technical device, +but is the embodiment of the integrity of mind, must protest against +its being taught in any other spirit. + -- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher, + from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 +% +In the broad and final sense all institutions are educational in the +sense that they operate to form the attitudes, dispositions, abilities +and disabilities that constitute a concrete personality...Whether this +educative process is carried on in a predominantly democratic or non- +democratic way becomes, therefore, a question of transcendent importance +not only for education itself but for its final effect upon all the +interests and activities of a society that is committed to the democratic +way of life. + -- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher +% +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" +% +...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 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 +% +"Well, you see, it's such a transitional creature. It's a piss-poor +reptile and not very much of a bird." + -- Melvin Konner, from "The Tangled Wing", quoting a zoologist who has + studied the archaeopteryx and found it "very much like people" +% +"You need tender loving care once a week - so that I can slap you into shape." + -- Ellyn Mustard +% +"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to + create him." + -Arthur C. Clarke +% +"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" + -Ronald Reagan +% +"There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things + we don't know yet." + -Ambrose Bierce +% +"Plan to throw one away. You will anyway." + -- Fred Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +You need tender loving care once a week - so that I can slap you into shape. + -- Ellyn Mustard +% +"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to + create him." + -Arthur C. Clarke +% +"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" + -Ronald Reagan +% +"There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things + we don't know yet." + -Ambrose Bierce +% +The Middle East is certainly the nexus of turmoil for a long time to come -- +with shifting players, but the same game: upheaval. I think we will be +confronting militant Islam -- particularly fallout from the Iranian +revolution -- and religion will once more, as it has in our own more +distant past -- play a role at least as standard-bearer in death and mayhem. + -- Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval + Intelligence, vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, + deputy director of Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of + MCC. +% +...One thing is that, unlike any other Western democracy that I know of, +this country has operated since its beginnings with a basic distrust of +government. We are constituted not for efficient operation of government, +but for minimizing the possibility of abuse of power. It took the events +of the Roosevelt era -- a catastrophic economic collapse and a world war -- +to introduce the strong central government that we now know. But in most +parts of the country today, the reluctance to have government is still +strong. I think, barring a series of catastrophic events, that we can +look to at least another decade during which many of the big problems +around this country will have to be addressed by institutions other than +federal government. + -- Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval + Intelligence, vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, + deputy director of Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of + MCC. +[the statist opinions expressed herein are not those of the cookie editor -ed.] +% +"I have just one word for you, my boy...plastics." + -- from "The Graduate" +% +"There is such a fine line between genius and stupidity." + -- David St. Hubbins, "Spinal Tap" +% +"If Diet Coke did not exist it would have been necessary to invent it." + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by men who +are equally certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure that +either the one or the other is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some +respects, both. + +I hope it will not be irreverent of me to say that if it is probable that +God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty, +it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +In space, no one can hear you fart. +% +Brain damage is all in your head. + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Wish and hope succeed in discerning signs of paranormality where reason and +careful scientific procedure fail. + -- James E. Alcock, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12 +% +"It is better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try, but +the result's the same." + -- Mike Dennison +% +"Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple +and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and +because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be +more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our +entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing +honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment +to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any +general understanding of science as an enterprise? + -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer", Vol. 12, page 186 +% +It is not well to be thought of as one who meekly submits to insolence and +intimidation. +% +"Regardless of the legal speed limit, your Buick must be operated at +speeds faster than 85 MPH (140kph)." + -- 1987 Buick Grand National owners manual. +% +"Your attitude determines your attitude." + -- Zig Ziglar, self-improvement doofus +% +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 Consciousness: Implications for + Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2, pg. 171 +% +Thufir's a Harkonnen now. +% +"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 April 88's + "Computer Language" +% +"If you want to eat hippopotamus, you've got to pay the freight." + -- attributed to an IBM guy, about why IBM software uses so much memory +% +Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time alloted it. +% +Karl's version of Parkinson's Law: Work expands to exceed the time alloted it. +% +It is better to never have tried anything than to have tried something and +failed. + -- motto of jerks, weenies and losers everywhere +% +"Our journeys to the stars will be made on spaceships created by determined, +hardworking scientists and engineers applying the principles of science, not +aboard flying saucers piloted by little gray aliens from some other dimension." + -- Robert A. Baker, "The Aliens Among Us: Hypnotic Regression + Revisited", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2 +% +"...all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, +if they are built at all, are dogs!" + -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", MIT Press, 1987 +% +"To take a significant step forward, you must make a series of finite +improvements." + -- Donald J. Atwood, General Motors +% +"We will bury you." + -- Nikita Kruschev +% +"Now here's something you're really going to like!" + -- Rocket J. Squirrel +% +"How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars." + -- Steve Martin +% +"Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." + -- B. L. Whorf +% +The language provides a programmer with a set of conceptual tools; if these are +inadequate for the task, they will simply be ignored. For example, seriously +restricting the concept of a pointer simply forces the programmer to use a +vector plus integer arithmetic to implement structures, pointer, etc. Good +design and the absence of errors cannot be guaranteed by mere language +features. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup, "The C++ Programming Language" +% +"For the love of phlegm...a stupid wall of death rays. How tacky can ya get?" + -- Post Brothers comics +% +"Bureaucracy is the enemy of innovation." + -- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments +% +"An organization dries up if you don't challenge it with growth." + -- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments +% +"I've seen it. It's rubbish." + -- Marvin the Paranoid Android +% +Our business is run on trust. We trust you will pay in advance. +% +"Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times +been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice." + -- Robert Green Ingersoll +% +The history of the rise of Christianity has everything to do with politics, +culture, and human frailties and nothing to do with supernatural manipulation +of events. Had divine intervention been the guiding force, surely two +millennia after the birth of Jesus he would not have a world where there +are more Muslims than Catholics, more Hindus than Protestants, and more +nontheists than Catholics and Protestants combined. + -- John K. Naland, "The First Easter", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 2 +% +I find you lack of faith in the forth dithturbing. + -- Darse ("Darth") Vader +% +"All Bibles are man-made." + -- Thomas Edison +% +"Spock, did you see the looks on their faces?" +"Yes, Captain, a sort of vacant contentment." +% +"The triumph of libertarian anarchy is nearly (in historical terms) at +hand... *if* we can keep the Left from selling us into slavery and the +Right from blowing us up for, say, the next twenty years." + -- Eric Rayman, usenet guy, about nanotechnology +% +"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." + -- Albert Einstein +% +"I think Michael is like litmus paper - he's always trying to learn." + -- Elizabeth Taylor, absurd non-sequitur about Michael Jackson +% +While it cannot be proved retrospectively that any experience of possession, +conversion, revelation, or divine ecstasy was merely an epileptic discharge, +we must ask how one differentiates "real transcendence" from neuropathies +that produce the same extreme realness, profundity, ineffability, and sense +of cosmic unity. When accounts of sudden religious conversions in TLEs +[temporal-lobe epileptics] are laid alongside the epiphanous revelations of +the religious tradition, the parallels are striking. The same is true of the +recent spate of alleged UFO abductees. Parsimony alone argues against invoking +spirits, demons, or extraterrestrials when natural causes will suffice. + -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "Neuropathology and the Legacy of Spiritual + Possession", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 3, pg. 255 +% +"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on." + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +"We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement." + -- Richard J. Daley +% +"With molasses you catch flies, with vinegar you catch nobody." + -- Baltimore City Councilman Dominic DiPietro +% +"Lead us in a few words of silent prayer." + -- Bill Peterson, former Houston Oiler football coach +% +"I couldn't remember things until I took that Sam Carnegie course." + -- Bill Peterson, former Houston Oiler football coach +% +"Right now I feel that I've got my feet on the ground as far as my head +is concerned." + -- Baseball pitcher Bo Belinsky +% +"Ninety percent of baseball is half mental." + -- Yogi Berra +% +Two things are certain about science. It does not stand still for long, +and it is never boring. Oh, among some poor souls, including even +intellectuals in fields of high scholarship, science is frequently +misperceived. Many see it as only a body of facts, promulgated from +on high in must, unintelligible textbooks, a collection of unchanging +precepts defended with authoritarian vigor. Others view it as nothing +but a cold, dry narrow, plodding, rule-bound process -- the scientific +method: hidebound, linear, and left brained. + +These people are the victims of their own stereotypes. They are +destined to view the world of science with a set of blinders. They +know nothing of the tumult, cacophony, rambunctiousness, and +tendentiousness of the actual scientific process, let alone the +creativity, passion, and joy of discovery. And they are likely to +know little of the continual procession of new insights and discoveries +that every day, in some way, change our view (if not theirs) of the +natural world. + + -- Kendrick Frazier, "The Year in Science: An Overview," in + 1988 Yearbook of Science and the Future, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. +% +"jackpot: you may have an unnecessary change record" + -- message from "diff" +% +"One lawyer can steal more than a hundred men with guns." + -- The Godfather +% +What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman? + +A used car salesman knows when he's lying. +% +"Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to conquer the +world." + -- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp. +% +"There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent +to a gang bent on destruction." + -- John Cage, composer +% +"I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a +music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make +available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard." + -- composer John Cage, 1937 +% +I did cancel one performance in Holland where they thought my music was so easy +that they didn't rehearse at all. And so the first time when I found that out, +I rehearsed the orchestra myself in front of the audience of 3,000 people and +the next day I rehearsed through the second movement -- this was the piece +_Cheap Imitation_ -- and they then were ashamed. The Dutch people were ashamed +and they invited me to come to the Holland festival and they promised to +rehearse. And when I got to Amsterdam they had changed the orchestra, and +again, they hadn't rehearsed. So they were no more prepared the second time +than they had been the first. I gave them a lecture and told them to cancel +the performance; they then said over the radio that i had insisted on their +cancelling the performance because they were "insufficiently Zen." +Can you believe it? + -- composer John Cage, "Electronic Musician" magazine, March 88, pg. 89 +% +"One day I woke up and discovered that I was in love with tripe." + -- Tom Anderson +% +"Most people would like to be delivered from + temptation but would like it to keep in touch." + -- Robert Orben +% +The rule on staying alive as a program manager is to give 'em a number or +give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once. +% +An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; +a pessimist fears this is true. +% +"If John Madden steps outside on February 2, looks down, and doesn't see his +feet, we'll have 6 more weeks of Pro football." + -- Chuck Newcombe +% +Dead? No excuse for laying off work. +% +Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself. +% +"When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic." + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +"Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries." + -- William George Jordan +% +"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +"Flattery is all right -- if you don't inhale." + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +"Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." + -- Bernard Berenson +% +"Summit meetings tend to be like panda matings. The expectations are always +high, and the results usually disappointing." + -- Robert Orben +% +"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging +their prejudices." + -- William James +% +"Tell the truth and run." + -- Yugoslav proverb +% +"The best index to a person's character is a) how he treats people who can't +do him any good and b) how he treats people who can't fight back." + -- Abigail Van Buren +% +"Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning." + -- Marlo Thomas +% +"Life is a garment we continuously alter, but which never seems to fit." + -- David McCord +% +"The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children +produce adults." + -- Peter De Vries +% +"It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them." + -- Alfred Adler +% +"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is +either a daring adventure or nothing." + -- Helen Keller +% +"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is +shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." + -- Albert Einstein +% +"Success covers a multitude of blunders." + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +"The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while +the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." + -- William Stekel +% +"Yes, and I feel bad about rendering their useless carci into dogfood..." + -- Badger comics +% +"Is it really you, Fuzz, or is it Memorex, or is it radiation sickness?" + -- Sonic Disruptors comics +% +"Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons +for it afterwards." + -- Soren F. Petersen +% +"You're a creature of the night, Michael. Wait'll Mom hears about this." + -- from the movie "The Lost Boys" +% +"Plastic gun. Ingenious. More coffee, please." + -- The Phantom comics +% +The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words +return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy. +% +If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average. +% +"A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a +perfectly good kitten." + -- Doug Larson +% +"The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody +appreciates how difficult it was." + -- Walt West +% +"Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone." + -- G. B. Stearn +% +"In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with +the current." + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to +the left. +% +"But this one goes to eleven." + -- Nigel Tufnel +% +"Been through Hell? Whaddya bring back for me?" + -- A. Brilliant +% +"I don't know what their + gripe is. A critic is + simply someone paid to + render opinions glibly." + "Critics are grinks and + groinks." + -- Baron and Badger, from Badger comics +% +"I've got some amyls. We could either party later or, like, start his heart." + -- "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie" +% +"Israel today announced that it is giving up. The Zionist state will dissolve +in two weeks time, and its citizens will disperse to various resort communities +around the world. Said Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 'Who needs the +aggravation?'" + -- Dennis Miller, "Satuday Night Live" News +% +"And, of course, you have the commercials where savvy businesspeople Get Ahead +by using their MacIntosh computers to create the ultimate American business +product: a really sharp-looking report." + -- Dave Barry +% +SHOP OR DIE, people of Earth! +[offer void where prohibited] + -- Capitalists from outer space, from Justice League Int'l comics +% +"Roman Polanski makes his own blood. He's smart -- that's why his movies work." + -- A brilliant director at "Frank's Place" +% +"The following is not for the weak of heart or Fundamentalists." + -- Dave Barry +% +"I take Him shopping with me. I say, 'OK, Jesus, help me find a bargain'" +--Tammy Faye Bakker +% +Gary Hart: living proof that you *can* screw your brains out. +% +Blessed be those who initiate lively discussions with the hopelessly mute, +for they shall be know as Dentists. +% +"I don't believe in sweeping social change being manifested by one person, +unless he has an atomic weapon." + -- Howard Chaykin +% +"Ever free-climbed a thousand foot vertical cliff with 60 pounds of gear +strapped to your butt?" + "No." +"'Course you haven't, you fruit-loop little geek." + -- The Mountain Man, one of Dana Carvey's SNL characters +[ditto] +% +"I mean, like, I just read your article in the Yale law recipe, on search and +seizure. Man, that was really Out There." + "I was so WRECKED when I wrote that..." + -- John Lovitz, as ex-Supreme Court nominee Alan Ginsburg, on SNL +% +"Hi, I'm Professor Alan Ginsburg... But you can call me... Captain Toke." + -- John Lovitz, as ex-Supreme Court nominee Alan Ginsburg, on SNL +% +It's great to be smart 'cause then you know stuff. +% +"Time is money and money can't buy you love and I love your outfit" + -- T.H.U.N.D.E.R. #1 +% +"Can't you just gesture hypnotically and make him disappear?" + "It does not work that way. RUN!" + -- Hadji on metaphyics and Mandrake in "Johnny Quest" +% +"You shouldn't make my toaster angry." + -- Household security explained in "Johnny Quest" +% + "Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully." + -- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse +% +"And kids... learn something from Susie and Eddie. + If you think there's a maniacal psycho-geek in the + basement: + 1) Don't give him a chance to hit you on the + head with an axe! + 2) Flee the premises... even if you're in your + underwear. + 3) Warn the neighbors and call the police. + But whatever else you do... DON'T GO DOWN IN THE DAMN BASEMENT!" + -- Saturday Night Live meets Friday the 13th +% +Victory or defeat! +% +"Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." + -- Harlan Ellison +% +"It's curtains for you, Mighty Mouse! This gun is so futuristic that even +*I* don't know how it works!" + -- from Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse +% +"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." + -- George Carlin +% +A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem. +% + "Daddy, Daddy, make + Santa Claus go away!" + "I can't, son; + he's grown too + powerful." + "HO HO HO!" + -- Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre +% +"If it's not loud, it doesn't work!" + -- Blank Reg, from "Max Headroom" +% +"Remember kids, if there's a loaded gun in the room, be sure that you're the +one holding it" + -- Captain Combat +% +Delta: We never make the same mistake three times. -- David Letterman +% +Delta: A real man lands where he wants to. -- David Letterman +% +Delta: The kids will love our inflatable slides. -- David Letterman +% +Delta: We're Amtrak with wings. -- David Letterman +% +"Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is +good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +"Hello again, Peabody here..." + -- Mister Peabody +% +"It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." + -- Rick Obidiah +% +"To your left is the marina where several senior cabinet officials keep luxury +yachts for weekend cruises on the Potomac. Some of these ships are up to 100 +feet in length; the Presidential yacht is over 200 feet in length, and can +remain submerged for up to 3 weeks." + -- Garrison Keillor +% +"Well, social relevance is a schtick, like mysteries, social relevance, +science fiction..." + -- Art Spiegelman +% +"One of the problems I've always had with propaganda pamphlets is that they're +real boring to look at. They're just badly designed. People from the left +often are very well-intended, but they never had time to take basic design +classes, you know?" + -- Art Spiegelman +% +"If you took everyone who's ever been to a Dead + show, and lined them up, they'd stretch halfway to + the moon and back... and none of them would be + complaining." + -- a local Deadhead in the Seattle Times +% +"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." + -- Spaceballs +% +Why are many scientists using lawyers for medical +experiments instead of rats? + + a) There are more lawyers than rats. + b) The scientist's don't become as + emotionally attached to them. + c) There are some things that even rats + won't do for money. +% + "During the race + We may eat your dust, + But when you graduate, + You'll work for us." + -- Reed College cheer +% +Pohl's law: + Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. +% +Pig: An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race by the +splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, +for it balks at pig. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +"We don't have to protect the environment -- the Second Coming is at hand." + -- James Watt +% +"I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this + country what it once was... an arctic wilderness." + -- Steve Martin +% +"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." + -- Woody Allen +% +Noncombatant: A dead Quaker. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +"There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it +is I'll get married again." + -- Clint Eastwood +% +A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. +I believe everything positively stinks. + -- Lew Col +% +Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? +A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. +% +Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. +% +Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: + Experience is directly proportional to the + amount of equipment ruined. +% +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. +% +"Because he's a character who's looking for his own identity, [He-Man is] +an interesting role for an actor." + -- Dolph Lundgren, "actor" +% +"If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never +stop throwing up." + -- Max Von Sydow's character in "Hannah and Her Sisters" +% +"Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again. +God -- I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again." + -- Woody Allen's character in "Hannah and Her Sisters" +% +"In regards to Oral Roberts' claim that God told him that he would die unless he + received $20 million by March, God's lawyers have stated that their client has + not spoken with Roberts for several years. Off the record, God has stated that + "If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time ago." + -- Dennis Miller, SNL News +% +"Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core." + -- Hannah Arendt. +% +Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi. +(What Jove may do, is not permitted to a cow.) +% +"I distrust a man who says 'when.' If he's got to be careful not to drink too +much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does." + -- Sidney Greenstreet, _The Maltese Falcon_ +% +"I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk +and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, +unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell +you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk." + -- Sidney Greenstreet, _The Maltese Falcon_ +% +All extremists should be taken out and shot. +% +"The sixties were good to you, weren't they?" + -- George Carlin +% +"You stay here, Audrey -- this is between me and the vegetable!" + -- Seymour, from _Little Shop Of Horrors_ +% +From Sharp minds come... pointed heads. + -- Bryan Sparrowhawk +% +There are two kinds of egotists: 1) Those who admit it 2) The rest of us +% +"The picture's pretty bleak, gentlemen... The world's climates are changing, +the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a +walnut." + -- some dinosaurs from The Far Side, by Gary Larson +% +"We Americans, we're a simple people... but piss us off, and we'll bomb +your cities." + -- Robin Williams, _Good Morning Vietnam_ +% +Why won't sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy. +% +"You know, we've won awards for this crap." + -- David Letterman +% +It was pity stayed his hand. +"Pity I don't have any more bullets," thought Frito. + -- _Bored_of_the_Rings_, a Harvard Lampoon parody of Tolkein +% +A good USENET motto would be: + a. "Together, a strong community." + b. "Computers R Us." + c. "I'm sick of programming, I think I'll just screw around for a while on + company time." + -- A Sane Man +% +"He didn't run for reelection. `Politics brings you into contact with all the +people you'd give anything to avoid,' he said. `I'm staying home.'" + -- Garrison Keillor, _Lake_Wobegone_Days_ +% +"If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets and +fire them all off, wouldn't you?" + -- Garrison Keillor +% +"Mr. Spock succumbs to a powerful mating urge and nearly kills Captain Kirk." + -- TV Guide, describing the Star Trek episode _Amok_Time_ +% +"Poor man... he was like an employee to me." + -- The police commissioner on "Sledge Hammer" laments the death of his + bodyguard +% +"Trust me. I know what I'm doing." + -- Sledge Hammer +% +"Hi. This is Dan Cassidy's answering machine. Please leave your name and +number... and after I've doctored the tape, your message will implicate you + in a federal crime and be brought to the attention of the F.B.I... BEEEP" + -- Blue Devil comics +% +"All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, +barely presentable." + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +"If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?" + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Whom the gods would destroy, they first teach BASIC. +% +"Look! There! Evil!.. pure and simple, total evil from the Eighth Dimension!" + -- Buckaroo Banzai +% +"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid" + -- the artificial person, from _Aliens_ +% +"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with a dead +girl or a live boy." + -- Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards +% +David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans": + * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO + * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE" + * Hourly motel rates + * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here + * Didn't just give up right away during World War II like some + countries we could mention + * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies + * Our well-behaved golf professionals + * Fabulous babes coast to coast +% +"Danger, you haven't seen the last of me!" + "No, but the first of you turns my stomach!" + -- The Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger +% +Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore. + -- Russian Proverb +% +"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, +you'll have to ram them down people's throats." + -- Howard Aiken +% +"When anyone says `theoretically,' they really mean `not really.'" + -- David Parnas +% +"No problem is so formidable that you can't walk away from it." + -- C. Schulz +% +"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make +empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made +a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the +bonds of Hell." + -- Saint Augustine +% +"For the man who has everything... Penicillin." + -- F. Borquin +% + "I've finally learned what `upward compatible' means. It means we + get to keep all our old mistakes." + -- Dennie van Tassel +% +"The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones." + -- Nathaniel Howe +% +"It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear." + -- Norm, from _Cheers_ +% +Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that +you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, +"That all depends, Sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your +mistress." +% +"He don't know me vewy well, DO he?" -- Bugs Bunny +% +"I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob. + That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood." + -- Daffy Duck, Looney Tunes, _Robin Hood Daffy_ +% +"Would I turn on the gas if my pal Mugsy were in there?" + "You might, rabbit, you might!" + -- Looney Tunes, Bugs and Thugs (1954, Friz Freleng) +% +"Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich." + -- Looney Tunes, Ali Baba Bunny (1957, Chuck Jones) +% +"And do you think (fop that I am) that I could be the Scarlet Pumpernickel?" + -- Looney Tunes, The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950, Chuck Jones) +% +"Now I've got the bead on you with MY disintegrating gun. And when it +disintegrates, it disintegrates. (pulls trigger) Well, what you do know, +it disintegrated." + -- Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century +% +"Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit!" + -- Looney Tunes, "What's Opera Doc?" (1957, Chuck Jones) +% +"I DO want your money, because god wants your money!" + -- The Reverend Jimmy, from _Repo_Man_ +% +"The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The +terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency." + -- Albert Einstein +% +"You show me an American who can keep his mouth shut and I'll eat him." + -- Newspaperman from Frank Capra's _Meet_John_Doe_ +% + "And we heard him exclaim + As he started to roam: + `I'm a hologram, kids, + please don't try this at home!'" + -- Bob Violence + -- Howie Chaykin's little animated 3-dimensional darling, Bob Violence +% +"The Soviet Union, which has complained recently about alleged anti-Soviet +themes in American advertising, lodged an official protest this week against +the Ford Motor Company's new campaign: `Hey you stinking fat Russian, get + off my Ford Escort.'" + -- Dennis Miller, Saturday Night Live +% +"There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum." +--Arthur C. Clarke +% +"They ought to make butt-flavored cat food." --Gallagher +% +"Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends." +--Woody Allen +% +"It's ten o'clock... Do you know where your AI programs are?" -- Peter Oakley +% +"Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the Blacks, +'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact that life's one big, +scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only +reason THEY can't seem to keep up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers." + -- an analysis of neo-Nazis and such, Badger comics +% +"Interesting survey in the current Journal of Abnormal Psychology: New York +City has a higher percentage of people you shouldn't make any sudden moves +around than any other city in the world." + -- David Letterman +% +"Tourists -- have some fun with New york's hard-boiled cabbies. When you get +to your destination, say to your driver, "Pay? I was hitchhiking." + -- David Letterman +% +"An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New +Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not +new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax." + -- David Letterman +% +"Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham +Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? + 1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. + 2) Advising the President. + 3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his + coffin." + -- David Letterman +% +"If Ricky Schroder and Gary Coleman had a fight on + television with pool cues, who would win? + 1) Ricky Schroder + 2) Gary Coleman + 3) The television viewing public" + -- David Letterman +% +"If you are beginning to doubt what I am saying, you are + probably hallucinating." + -- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_ +% +What to do in case of an alien attack: + + 1) Hide beneath the seat of your plane and look away. + 2) Avoid eye contact. + 3) If there are no eyes, avoid all contact. + + -- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_ +% +"Nuclear war would really set back cable." + -- Ted Turner +% +"You tweachewous miscweant!" + -- Elmer Fudd +% +"I saw _Lassie_. It took me four shows to figure out why the hairy kid never +spoke. I mean, he could roll over and all that, but did that deserve a series?" + -- the alien guy, in _Explorers_ +% +"Open Channel D..." + -- Napoleon Solo, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. +% +Save the whales. Collect the whole set. +% +Support Mental Health. Or I'll kill you. +% +"The pyramid is opening!" + "Which one?" +"The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" + -- The Firesign Theatre +% +"Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target +Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." + -- The Firesign Theatre movie, _J-Men Forever_ +% +"My sense of purpose is gone! I have no idea who I AM!" + "Oh, my God... You've.. You've turned him into a DEMOCRAT!" + -- Doonesbury +% +"You are WRONG, you ol' brass-breasted fascist poop!" + -- Bloom County +% +"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *can* +you believe?!" + -- Bullwinkle J. Moose +% +"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberrys!" + -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail +% +"Take that, you hostile sons-of-bitches!" + -- James Coburn, in the finale of _The_President's_Analyst_ +% +"The voters have spoken, the bastards..." + -- unknown +% +"I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk" + -- John Huston +% +"Be there. Aloha." + -- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_ +% +"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..." + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +"Say yur prayers, yuh flea-pickin' varmint!" + -- Yosemite Sam +% +"There... I've run rings 'round you logically" + -- Monty Python's Flying Circus +% +"Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!" + -- The Ghostbusters +% +...Veloz is indistinguishable from hundreds of other electronics businesses +in the Valley, run by eager young engineers poring over memory dumps late +into the night. The difference is that a bunch of self-confessed "car nuts" +are making money doing what they love: writing code and driving fast. + -- "Electronics puts its foot on the gas", IEEE Spectrum, May 88 +% +"Just the facts, Ma'am" + -- Joe Friday +% +"I have five dollars for each of you." + -- Bernhard Goetz +% +Mausoleum: The final and funniest folly of the rich. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Riches: A gift from Heaven signifying, "This is my beloved son, in whom I +am well pleased." + -- John D. Rockefeller, (slander by Ambrose Bierce) +% +All things are either sacred or profane. +The former to ecclesiasts bring gain; +The latter to the devil appertain. + -- Dumbo Omohundro +% +Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Forty two. +% +Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Absolute: Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which +the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not +many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by +limited monarchies, where the sovereign's power for evil (and for good) is +greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a +pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but +abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their +hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately +plunder a third. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Disobedience: The silver lining to the cloud of servitude. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Administration: An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive +the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +A penny saved is a penny to squander. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- +who has no gills. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Physician: One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. +The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Politician: An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of +organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of +his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, +he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single +petitioner confessedly unworthy. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Presidency: The greased pig in the field game of American politics. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Proboscis: The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place +of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes +of humor it is popularly called a trunk. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Inadmissible: Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of +testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, +and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves +alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was +unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous +actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are +daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world +that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay +evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the +testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and +who are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of +evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the +Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law... + +But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved +that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to +mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women +were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still +unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and +in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than +the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. +If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike +destitute of value. --Ambrose Bierce +% +"Today's robots are very primitive, capable of understanding only a few + simple instructions such as 'go left', 'go right', and 'build car'." + -- John Sladek +% +"In the fight between you and the world, back the world." + -- Frank Zappa +% +Here is an Appalachian version of management's answer to those who are +concerned with the fate of the project: +"Don't worry about the mule. Just load the wagon." + -- Mike Dennison's hillbilly uncle +% +Ill-chosen abstraction is particularly evident in the design of the ADA +runtime system. The interface to the ADA runtime system is so opaque that +it is impossible to model or predict its performance, making it effectively +useless for real-time systems. -- Marc D. Donner and David H. Jameson. +% +"Being against torture ought to be sort of a bipartisan thing." + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +"Here comes Mr. Bill's dog." + -- Narrator, Saturday Night Live +% +Sex is like air. It's only a big deal if you can't get any. +% +"Maintain an awareness for contribution -- to your schedule, your project, +our company." + -- A Group of Employees +% +"Ask not what A Group of Employees can do for you. But ask what can +All Employees do for A Group of Employees." + -- Mike Dennison +% +One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner +alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic. + "Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_, is + published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its authorship. + Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the Century. + Do you think that fair criticism?" + "I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did not +occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who wrote it." + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Many alligators will be slain, +but the swamp will remain. +% +What the gods would destroy they first submit to an IEEE standards committee. +% +This is now. Later is later. +% +"I will make no bargains with terrorist hardware." + -- Peter da Silva +% +"If I do not return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go +to hell." + -- Jimmy Swaggart, 5/20/88 +% +"Dump the condiments. If we are to be eaten, we don't need to taste good." + -- "Visionaries" cartoon +% +"Aww, if you make me cry anymore, you'll fog up my helmet." + -- "Visionaries" cartoon +% +I don't want to be young again, I just don't want to get any older. +% +Marriage Ceremony: An incredible metaphysical sham of watching God and the +law being dragged into the affairs of your family. + -- O. C. Ogilvie +% + "Emergency!" Sgiggs screamed, ejecting himself from the tub like it was +a burning car. "Dial 'one'! Get room service! Code red!" Stiggs was on +the phone immediately, ordering more rose blossoms, because, according to +him, the ones floating in the tub had suddenly lost their smell. "I demand +smell," he shrilled. "I expecting total uninterrupted smell from these +f*cking roses." + + Unfortunately, the service captain didn't realize that the Stiggs situation +involved fifty roses. "What am I going to do with this?" Stiggs sneered at +the weaseling hotel goon when he appeared at our door holding a single flower +floating in a brandy glass. Stiggs's tirade was great. "Do you see this +bathtub? Do you notice any difference between the size of the tub and the +size of that spindly wad of petals in your hand? I need total bath coverage. +I need a completely solid layer of roses all around me like puffing factories +of smell, attacking me with their smell and power-ramming big stinking +concentrations of rose odor up my nostrils until I'm wasted with pleasure." +It wasn't long before we got so dissatisfied with this incompetence that we +bolted. + -- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, + National Lampoon, October 1982 +% +When it is incorrect, it is, at least *authoritatively* incorrect. + -- Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy +% +We decided it was night again, so we camped for twenty minutes and drank +another six beers at a Young Life campsite. O.C. got into the supervisory +adult's sleeping bag and ran around in it. "This is the judgment day and I'm +a terrifying apparition," he screamed. Then the heat made O.C. ralph in the +bag. + -- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, + National Lampoon, October 1982 +% +Voodoo Programming: Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but +they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling +everything. + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +This is, of course, totally uninformed speculation that I engage in to help +support my bias against such meddling... but there you have it. + -- Peter da Silva, speculating about why a computer program that had been +changed to do something he didn't approve of, didn't work +% +"This knowledge I pursue is the finest pleasure I have ever known. I could +no sooner give it up that I could the very air that I breath." + -- Paolo Uccello, Renaissance artist, discoverer of the laws of perspective +% +"I got everybody to pay up front...then I blew up their planet." + "Now why didn't I think of that?" + -- Post Bros. Comics +% +"Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed." + -- Robin, The Boy Wonder +% +The F-15 Eagle: + If it's up, we'll shoot it down. If it's down, we'll blow it up. + -- A McDonnel-Douglas ad from a few years ago +% +"The Amiga is the only personal computer where you can run a multitasking +operating system and get realtime performance, out of the box." + -- Peter da Silva +% +"It's my cookie file and if I come up with something that's lame and I like it, +it goes in." + -- karl (Karl Lehenbauer) +% +In recognizing AT&T Bell Laboratories for corporate innovation, for its +invention of cellular mobile communications, IEEE President Russell C. Drew +referred to the cellular telephone as a "basic necessity." How times have +changed, one observer remarked: many in the room recalled the advent of +direct dialing. + -- The Institute, July 1988, pg. 11 +% +...the Soviets have the capability to try big projects. If there is a goal, +such as when Gorbachev states that they are going to have nuclear-powered +aircraft carriers, the case is closed -- that is it. They will concentrate +on the problem, do a bad job, and later pay the price. They really don't +care what the price is. + -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 +% +There is something you must understand about the Soviet system. They have the +ability to concentrate all their efforts on a given design, and develop all +components simultaneously, but sometimes without proper testing. Then they end +up with a technological disaster like the Tu-144. In a technology race at +the time, that aircraft was two months ahead of the Concorde. Four Tu-144s +were built; two have crashed, and two are in museums. The Concorde has been +flying safely for over 10 years. + -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 +% +DE: The Soviets seem to have difficulty implementing modern technology. + Would you comment on that? + +Belenko: Well, let's talk about aircraft engine lifetime. When I flew the + MiG-25, its engines had a total lifetime of 250 hours. + +DE: Is that mean-time-between-failure? + +Belenko: No, the engine is finished; it is scrapped. + +DE: You mean they pull it out and throw it away, not even overhauling it? + +Belenko: That is correct. Overhaul is too expensive. + +DE: That is absurdly low by free world standards. + +Belenko: I know. + -- an interview with Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected + in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 102 +% +"I have a friend who just got back from the Soviet Union, and told me the people +there are hungry for information about the West. He was asked about many +things, but I will give you two examples that are very revealing about life in +the Soviet Union. The first question he was asked was if we had exploding +television sets. You see, they have a problem with the picture tubes on color +television sets, and many are exploding. They assumed we must be having +problems with them too. The other question he was asked often was why the +CIA had killed Samantha Smith, the little girl who visited the Soviet Union a +few years ago; their propaganda is very effective. + -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 +% +"...I could accept this openness, glasnost, perestroika, or whatever you want +to call it if they did these things: abolish the one party system; open the +Soviet frontier and allow Soviet people to travel freely; allow the Soviet +people to have real free enterprise; allow Western businessmen to do business +there, and permit freedom of speech and of the press. But so far, the whole +country is like a concentration camp. The barbed wire on the fence around +the Soviet Union is to keep people inside, in the dark. This openness that +you are seeing, all these changes, are cosmetic and they have been designed +to impress shortsighted, naive, sometimes stupid Western leaders. These +leaders gush over Gorbachev, hoping to do business with the Soviet Union or +appease it. He will say: "Yes, we can do business!" This while his +military machine in Afghanistan has killed over a million people out of a +population of 17 million. Can you imagine that? + -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 +% +"Remember Kruschev: he tried to do too many things too fast, and he was +removed in disgrace. If Gorbachev tries to destroy the system or make too +many fundamental changes to it, I believe the system will get rid of him. +I am not a political scientist, but I understand the system very well. +I believe he will have a "heart attack" or retire or be removed. He is +up against a brick wall. If you think they will change everything and +become a free, open society, forget it!" + -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 +% +FORTRAN? The syntactically incorrect statement "DO 10 I = 1.10" will parse and +generate code creating a variable, DO10I, as follows: "DO10I = 1.10" If that +doesn't terrify you, it should. +% +"I knew then (in 1970) that a 4-kbyte minicomputer would cost as much as +a house. So I reasoned that after college, I'd have to live cheaply in +an apartment and put all my money into owning a computer." + -- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45 +% +HP had a unique policy of allowing its engineers to take parts from stock as +long as they built something. "They figured that with every design, they were +getting a better engineer. It's a policy I urge all companies to adopt." + -- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, "Will Wozniak's class give Apple + to teacher?" EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45 +% +"I just want to be a good engineer." + -- Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, concluding his keynote + speech at the 1988 AppleFest +% +"There's always been Tower of Babel sort of bickering inside Unix, but this +is the most extreme form ever. This means at least several years of confusion." + -- Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, + about the Open Systems Foundation +% +"When in doubt, print 'em out." + -- Karl's Programming Proverb 0x7 +% +"If you want the best things to happen in corporate life you have to find ways +to be hospitable to the unusual person. You don't get innovation as a +democratic process. You almost get it as an anti-democratic process. +Certainly you get it as an anthitetical process, so you have to have an +environment where the body of people are really amenable to change and can +deal with the conflicts that arise out of change an innovation." + -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., + "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", + The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +"In corporate life, I think there are three important areas which contracts +can't deal with, the area of conflict, the area of change and area of reaching +potential. To me a covenant is a relationship that is based on such things +as shared ideals and shared value systems and shared ideas and shared +agreement as to the processes we are going to use for working together. In +many cases they develop into real love relationships." + -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +Another goal is to establish a relationship "in which it is OK for everybody +to do their best. There are an awful lot of people in management who really +don't want subordinates to do their best, because it gets to be very +threatening. But we have found that both internally and with outside +designers if we are willing to have this kind of relationship and if we're +willing to be vulnerable to what will come out of it, we get really good +work." + -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +In his book, Mr. DePree tells the story of how designer George Nelson urged +that the company also take on Charles Eames in the late 1940s. Max's father, +J. DePree, co-founder of the company with herman Miller in 1923, asked Mr. +Nelson if he really wanted to share the limited opportunities of a then-small +company with another designer. "George's response was something like this: +'Charles Eames is an unusual talent. He is very different from me. The +company needs us both. I want very much to have Charles Eames share in +whatever potential there is.'" + -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +Mr. DePree believes participative capitalism is the wave of the future. The +U.S. work force, he believes, "more and more demands to be included in the +capitalist system and if we don't find ways to get the capitalist system +to be an inclusive system rather than the exclusive system it has been, we're +all in deep trouble. If we don't find ways to begin to understand that +capitalism's highest potential lies in the common good, not in the individual +good, then we're risking the system itself." + -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +Mr. DePree also expects a "tremendous social change" in all workplaces. "When +I first started working 40 years ago, a factory supervisor was focused on the +product. Today it is drastically different, because of the social milieu. +It isn't unusual for a worker to arrive on his shift and have some family +problem that he doesn't know how to resolve. The example I like to use is a +guy who comes in and says 'this isn't going to be a good day for me, my son +is in jail on a drunk-driving charge and I don't know how to raise bail.' +What that means is that if the supervisor wants productivity, he has to know +how to raise bail." + -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. +Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. + -- Perlis's Programming Proverb #58, SIGPLAN Notices, Sept. 1982 +% +"What if" is a trademark of Hewlett Packard, so stop using it in your +sentences without permission, or risk being sued. +% +Now, if the leaders of the world -- people who are leaders by virtue of +political, military or financial power, and not necessarily wisdom or +consideration for mankind -- if these leaders manage not to pull us +over the brink into planetary suicide, despite their occasional pompous +suggestions that they may feel obliged to do so, we may survive beyond +1988. + -- George Rostky, EE Times, June 20, 1988 p. 45 +% +The essential ideas of Algol 68 were that the whole language should be +precisely defined and that all the pieces should fit together smoothly. +The basic idea behind Pascal was that it didn't matter how vague the +language specification was (it took *years* to clarify) or how many rough +edges there were, as long as the CDC Pascal compiler was fast. + -- Richard A. O'Keefe +% +"We came. We saw. We kicked its ass." + -- Bill Murray, _Ghostbusters_ +% +"The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth." I usually pick one small +topic like this to give a lecture on. Poets say science takes away from the +beauty of the stars -- mere gobs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere." I too can +see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? +The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination -- stuck on this carousel +my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern -- of which +I am a part -- perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one +is belching there. Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all +apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together. +What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the *why?* It does not do harm to the +mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than +any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak +of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but +if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? + -- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988) +% +If you permit yourself to read meanings into (rather than drawing meanings out +of) the evidence, you can draw any conclusion you like. + -- Michael Keith, "The Bar-Code Beast", The Skeptical Enquirer Vol 12 + No 4 p 416 +% +"Pseudocode can be used to some extent to aid the maintenance +process. However, pseudocode that is highly detailed - +approaching the level of detail of the code itself - is not of +much use as maintenance documentation. Such detailed +documentation has to be maintained almost as much as the code, +thus doubling the maintenance burden. Furthermore, since such +voluminous pseudocode is too distracting to be kept in the +listing itself, it must be kept in a separate folder. The +result: Since pseudocode - unlike real code - doesn't have to be +maintained, no one will maintain it. It will soon become out of +date and everyone will ignore it. (Once, I did an informal +survey of 42 shops that used pseudocode. Of those 42, 0 [zero!], +found that it had any value as maintenance documentation." + --Meilir Page-Jones, "The Practical Guide to Structured + Design", Yourdon Press (c) 1988 +% +"Only a brain-damaged operating system would support task switching and not +make the simple next step of supporting multitasking." + -- George McFry +% +Sigmund Freud is alleged to have said that in the last analysis the entire field +of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry. +% +The magician is seated in his high chair and looks upon the world with favor. +He is at the height of his powers. If he closes his eyes, he causes the world +to disappear. If he opens his eyes, he causes the world to come back. If +there is harmony within him, the world is harmonious. If rage shatters his +inner harmony, the unity of the world is shattered. If desire arises within +him, he utters the magic syllables that causes the desired object to appear. +His wishes, his thoughts, his gestures, his noises command the universe. + -- Selma Fraiberg, _The Magic Years_, pg. 107 +% +An Animal that knows who it is, one that has a sense of his own identity, is +a discontented creature, doomed to create new problems for himself for the +duration of his stay on this planet. Since neither the mouse nor the chimp +knows what is, he is spared all the vexing problems that follow this +discovery. But as soon as the human animal who asked himself this question +emerged, he plunged himself and his descendants into an eternity of doubt +and brooding, speculation and truth-seeking that has goaded him through the +centuries as relentlessly as hunger or sexual longing. The chimp that does +not know that he exists is not driven to discover his origins and is spared +the tragic necessity of contemplating his own end. And even if the animal +experimenters succeed in teaching a chimp to count one hundred bananas or +to play chess, the chimp will develop no science and he will exhibit no +appreciation of beauty, for the greatest part of man's wisdom may be traced +back to the eternal questions of beginnings and endings, the quest to give +meaning to his existence, to life itself. + -- Selma Fraiberg, _The Magic Years_, pg. 193 +% +A comment on schedules: + Ok, how long will it take? + For each manager involved in initial meetings add one month. + For each manager who says "data flow analysis" add another month. + For each unique end-user type add one month. + For each unknown software package to be employed add two months. + For each unknown hardware device add two months. + For each 100 miles between developer and installation add one month. + For each type of communication channel add one month. + If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on a non-IBM + system add 6 months. + If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on an IBM + system add 9 months. +Round up to the nearest half-year. +--Brad Sherman +By the way, ALL software projects are done by iterative prototyping. +Some companies call their prototypes "releases", that's all. +% + UNIX Shell is the Best Fourth Generation Programming Language + + It is the UNIX shell that makes it possible to do applications in a small + fraction of the code and time it takes in third generation languages. In + the shell you process whole files at a time, instead of only a line at a + time. And, a line of code in the UNIX shell is one or more programs, + which do more than pages of instructions in a 3GL. Applications can be + developed in hours and days, rather than months and years with traditional + systems. Most of the other 4GLs available today look more like COBOL or + RPG, the most tedious of the third generation lanaguages. + +"UNIX Relational Database Management: Application Development in the UNIX + Environment" by Rod Manis, Evan Schaffer, and Robert Jorgensen. Prentice + Hall Software Series. Brian Kerrighan, Advisor. 1988. +% +"Laugh while you can, monkey-boy." + -- Dr. Emilio Lizardo +% +"Floggings will continue until morale improves." + -- anonymous flyer being distributed at Exxon USA +% +"Hey Ivan, check your six." + -- Sidewinder missile jacket patch, showing a Sidewinder driving up the tail + of a Russian Su-27 +% +"Free markets select for winning solutions." + -- Eric S. Raymond +% +"I dislike companies that have a we-are-the-high-priests-of-hardware-so-you'll- +like-what-we-give-you attitude. I like commodity markets in which iron-and- +silicon hawkers know that they exist to provide fast toys for software types +like me to play with..." + -- Eric S. Raymond +% +"The urge to destroy is also a creative urge." + -- Bakunin +[ed. note - I would say: The urge to destroy may sometimes be a creative urge.] +% +"A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the + last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security + or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discus- + sion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a + premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fal- + lacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more + than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew + a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among them- + selves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in what- + ever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto + been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know + this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to + apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to + give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too ear- + nestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better + for all parties." + -- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, + published around 1850 +% + In respect to lock-making, there can scarcely be such a thing as dishonesty + of intention: the inventor produces a lock which he honestly thinks will + possess such and such qualities; and he declares his belief to the world. + If others differ from him in opinion concerning those qualities, it is open + to them to say so; and the discussion, truthfully conducted, must lead to + public advantage: the discussion stimulates curiosity, and curiosity stimu- + lates invention. Nothing but a partial and limited view of the question + could lead to the opinion that harm can result: if there be harm, it will be + much more than counterbalanced by good." + -- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, + published around 1850. +% +"Wish not to seem, but to be, the best." + -- Aeschylus +% +"Survey says..." + -- Richard Dawson, weenie, on "Family Feud" +% +"Paul Lynde to block..." + -- a contestant on "Hollywood Squares" +% +"Little else matters than to write good code." + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +To write good code is a worthy challenge, and a source of civilized delight. + -- stolen and paraphrased from William Safire +% +"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" + -- William E. Davidsen +% +"If a computer can't directly address all the RAM you can use, it's just a toy." + -- anonymous comp.sys.amiga posting, non-sequitur +% +"Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" he said to himself, and it became +a favourite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb. "You aren't nearly +through this adventure yet," he added, and that was pretty true as well. + -- Bilbo Baggins, "The Hobbit" by J. R. R. Tolkien, Chapter XII +% +"A dirty mind is a joy forever." + -- Randy Kunkee +% +"You can't teach seven foot." + -- Frank Layton, Utah Jazz basketball coach, when asked why he had recruited + a seven-foot tall auto mechanic +% +"A car is just a big purse on wheels." + -- Johanna Reynolds +% +"History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions." + -- Ted Koppel +% +"Gozer the Gozerian: As the duly appointed representative of the city, +county and state of New York, I hereby order you to cease all supernatural +activities at once and proceed immediately to your place of origin or +the nearest parallel dimension, whichever is nearest." + -- Ray (Dan Akyroyd), _Ghostbusters_ +% +It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more +doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a +new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by +the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in +those who would gain by the new ones. + -- Machiavelli +% +God grant me the senility to accept the things I cannot change, +The frustration to try to change things I cannot affect, +and the wisdom to tell the difference. +% +First as to speech. That privilege rests upon the premise that +there is no proposition so uniformly acknowledged that it may not be +lawfully challenged, questioned, and debated. It need not rest upon +the further premise that there are no propositions that are not +open to doubt; it is enough, even if there are, that in the end it is +worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy. Hence it +has been again and again unconditionally proclaimed that there are +no limits to the privilege so far as words seek to affect only the hearers' +beliefs and not their conduct. The trouble is that conduct is almost +always based upon some belief, and that to change the hearer's belief +will generally to some extent change his conduct, and may even evoke +conduct that the law forbids. + +[cf. Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, University of Chicago Press, 1952; +The Art and Craft of Judging: The Decisions of Judge Learned Hand, +edited and annotated by Hershel Shanks, The MacMillian Company, 1968.] +% +The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it +should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in 13 states in the course +of 11 years, is but one for each state in a century and a half. No country +should be so long without one. + -- Thomas Jefferson in letter to James Madison, 20 December 1787 +% +"Nine years of ballet, asshole." + -- Shelly Long, to the bad guy after making a jump over a gorge that he + couldn't quite, in "Outrageous Fortune" +% +You are in a maze of UUCP connections, all alike. +% +"If that man in the PTL is such a healer, why can't he make his wife's + hairdo go down?" + -- Robin Williams +% +8) Use common sense in routing cable. Avoid wrapping coax around sources of + strong electric or magnetic fields. Do not wrap the cable around + fluorescent light ballasts or cyclotrons, for example. + -- Ethernet Headstart Product, Information and Installation Guide, + Bell Technologies, pg. 11 +% +"What a wonder is USENET; such wholesale production of conjecture from +such a trifling investment in fact." + -- Carl S. Gutekunst +% +VMS must die! +% +MS-DOS must die! +% +OS/2 must die! +% +Pournelle must die! +% +Garbage In, Gospel Out +% +"Being against torture ought to be sort of a multipartisan thing." + -- Karl Lehenbauer, as amended by Jeff Daiell, a Libertarian +% +"Facts are stupid things." + -- President Ronald Reagan + (a blooper from his speech at the '88 GOP convention) +% +"The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science +collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke +miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into +the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to +abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all +fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, +misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the +ideas of their opponents." + -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186 +% +"An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of code." + -- an anonymous programmer +% +"To IBM, 'open' means there is a modicum of interoperability among some of their +equipment." + -- Harv Masterson +% +"Just think of a computer as hardware you can program." + -- Nigel de la Tierre +% +"If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time + serving it..." + -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, _The Forbidden Tower_ +% +"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." + -- Albert Einstein +% +"Card readers? We don't need no stinking card readers." + -- Peter da Silva (at the National Academy of Sciences, 1965, in a + particularly vivid fantasy) +% +Your good nature will bring unbounded happiness. +% +Semper Fi, dude. +% +Excitement and danger await your induction to tracer duty! As a tracer, +you must rid the computer networks of slimy, criminal data thieves. +They are tricky and the action gets tough, so watch out! Utilizing all +your skills, you'll either get your man or you'll get burned! + -- advertising for the computer game "Tracers" +% +"An entire fraternity of strapping Wall-Street-bound youth. Hell - this +is going to be a blood bath!" + -- Post Bros. Comics +% +"Neighbors!! We got neighbors! We ain't supposed to have any neighbors, and +I just had to shoot one." + -- Post Bros. Comics +% +"Gotcha, you snot-necked weenies!" + -- Post Bros. Comics +% +interlard - vt., to intersperse; diversify + -- Webster's New World Dictionary Of The American Language +% +"Everybody is talking about the weather but nobody does anything about it." + -- Mark Twain +% +"How many teamsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?" + "FIFTEEN!! YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?" +% +"If you weren't my teacher, I'd think you just deleted all my files." + -- an anonymous UCB CS student, to an instructor who had typed + "rm -i *" to get rid of a file named "-f" on a Unix system. +% +"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral +crisis, preserved their neutrality." + -- Dante +% +"The medium is the message." + -- Marshall McLuhan +% +"The medium is the massage." + -- Crazy Nigel +% +"Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser." + -- Vince Lombardi, football coach +% +"It might help if we ran the MBA's out of Washington." + -- Admiral Grace Hopper +% +Refreshed by a brief blackout, I got to my feet and went next door. + -- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +The sprung doors parted and I staggered out into the lobby's teak and flicker. +Uniformed men stood by impassively like sentries in their trench. I slapped +my key on the desk and nodded gravely. I was loaded enough to be unable to +tell whether they could tell I was loaded. Would they mind? I was certainly +too loaded to care. I moved to the door with boxy, schlep-shouldered strides. + -- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +I ask only one thing. I'm understanding. I'm mature. And it isn't much to +ask. I want to get back to London, and track her down, and be alone with my +Selina -- or not even alone, damn it, merely close to her, close enough to +smell her skin, to see the flecked webbing of her lemony eyes, the moulding +of her artful lips. Just for a few precious seconds. Just long enough to +put in one good, clean punch. That's all I ask. + -- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +"Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail." + -- A Kurt Vonnegut fan +% +New York is a jungle, they tell you. You could go further, and say that +New York is a jungle. New York *is a jungle.* Beneath the columns of +the old rain forest, made of melting macadam, the mean Limpopo of swamped +Ninth Avenue bears an angry argosy of crocs and dragons, tiger fish, noise +machines, sweating rainmakers. On the corners stand witchdoctors and +headhunters, babbling voodoo-men -- the natives, the jungle-smart natives. +And at night, under the equatorial overgrowth and heat-holding cloud +cover, you hear the ragged parrot-hoot and monkeysqueak of the sirens, +and then fires flower to ward off monsters. Careful: the streets are +sprung with pits and nets and traps. Hire a guide. Pack your snakebite +gook and your blowdart serum. Take it seriously. You have to get a +bit jungle-wise. + -- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +Now I was heading, in my hot cage, down towards meat-market country on the +tip of the West Village. Here the redbrick warehouses double as carcass +galleries and rat hives, the Manhattan fauna seeking its necessary +level, living or dead. Here too you find the heavy faggot hangouts, +The Spike, the Water Closet, the Mother Load. Nobody knows what goes on +in these places. Only the heavy faggots know. Even Fielding seems somewhat +vague on the question. You get zapped and flogged and dumped on -- by +almost anybody's standards, you have a really terrible time. The average +patron arrives at the Spike in one taxi but needs to go back to his sock +in two. And then the next night he shows up for more. They shackle +themselves to racks, they bask in urinals. Their folks have a lot of +explaining to do, if you want my opinion, particularly the mums. Sorry +to single you ladies out like this but the story must start somewhere. +A craving for hourly murder -- it can't be willed. In the meantime, +Fielding tells me, Mother Nature looks on and taps her foot and clicks +her tongue. Always a champion of monogamy, she is cooking up some fancy +new diseases. She just isn't going to stand for it. + -- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +"You tried it just for once, found it alright for kicks, + but now you find out you have a habit that sticks, + you're an orgasm addict, + you're always at it, + and you're an orgasm addict." + -- The Buzzcocks +% +"There is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress." + -- Mark Twain +% +"You'll pay to know what you really think." + -- J. R. "Bob" Dobbs +% +"We live, in a very kooky time." + -- Herb Blashtfalt +% +"Pull the wool over your own eyes!" + -- J. R. "Bob" Dobbs +% +"Okay," Bobby said, getting the hang of it, "then what's the matrix? If +she's a deck, and Danbala's a program, what's cyberspace?" + "The world," Lucas said. + -- William Gibson, _Count Zero_ +% +"Our reruns are better than theirs." + -- Nick at Nite +% +Life is a game. Money is how we keep score. + -- Ted Turner +% +"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." + -- The Wizard Of Oz +% +"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." + -- Karl, as he stepped behind the computer to reboot it, during a FAT +% +"It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us in trouble. It's the +things we know that ain't so." + -- Artemus Ward aka Charles Farrar Brown +% +"Don't discount flying pigs before you have good air defense." + -- jvh@clinet.FI +% +"In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble." + -- Alan Perlis +% +"Pok pok pok, P'kok!" + -- Superchicken +% +Live Free or Live in Massachusettes. +% +"You can't get very far in this world without your dossier being there first." + -- Arthur Miller +% +"Flight Reservation systems decide whether or not you exist. If your information +isn't in their database, then you simply don't get to go anywhere." + -- Arthur Miller +% +"What people have been reduced to are mere 3-D representations of their own +data." + -- Arthur Miller +% +"The Avis WIZARD decides if you get to drive a car. Your head won't touch the +pillow of a Sheraton unless their computer says it's okay." + -- Arthur Miller +% +"They know your name, address, telephone number, credit card numbers, who ELSE +is driving the car "for insurance", ... your driver's license number. In the +state of Massachusetts, this is the same number as that used for Social +Security, unless you object to such use. In THAT case, you are ASSIGNED a +number and you reside forever more on the list of "weird people who don't give +out their Social Security Number in Massachusetts." + -- Arthur Miller +% +"Data is a lot like humans: It is born. Matures. Gets married to other data, +divorced. Gets old. One thing that it doesn't do is die. It has to be killed." + -- Arthur Miller +% +"People should have access to the data which you have about them. There should + be a process for them to challenge any inaccuracies." + -- Arthur Miller +% +"Although Poles suffer official censorship, a pervasive secret +police and laws similar to those in the USSR, there are +thousands of underground publications, a legal independent +Church, private agriculture, and the East bloc's first and only +independent trade union federation, NSZZ Solidarnosc, which is +an affiliate of both the International Confederation of Free +Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labor. There is +literally a world of difference between Poland - even in its +present state of collapse - and Soviet society at the peak of +its "glasnost." This difference has been maintained at great +cost by the Poles since 1944. + -- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a + gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network) + to Poland +% +"There is also a thriving independent student movement in +Poland, and thus there is a strong possibility (though no +guarantee) of making an EARN-Poland link, should it ever come +about, a genuine link - not a vacuum cleaner attachment for a +Bloc information gathering apparatus rationed to trusted +apparatchiks." + -- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a + gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network) + to Poland +% +"Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, +an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads." + -- John Galt, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_ +% +Don't panic. +% +The bug stops here. +% +The bug starts here. +% +"Why waste negative entropy on comments, when you could use the same +entropy to create bugs instead?" + -- Steve Elias +% +"The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of +course you never do." + -- Gregory Bateson +% +"Your butt is mine." + -- Michael Jackson, Bad +% +Ship it. +% +"Once they go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department." + -- Werner von Braun +% +"When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if +it were a nail." + -- Abraham Maslow +% +"Imitation is the sincerest form of television." + -- The New Mighty Mouse +% +"The lesser of two evils -- is evil." + -- Seymour (Sy) Leon +% +"It's no sweat, Henry. Russ made it back to Bugtown before he died. So he'll +regenerate in a couple of days. It's just awful sloppy of him to get killed in +the first place. Humph!" + -- Ron Post, Post Brothers Comics +% +"An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled his +creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably +found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with +sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine +perfume." + -- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"We are not endeavoring to chain the future but to free the present. ... We are +the advocates of inquiry, investigation, and thought. ... It is grander to think +and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. ... I look for the day +when *reason*, throned upon the world's brains, shall be the King of Kings and +the God of Gods. + -- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes +of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe +it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts... +I despise it, I defy it, and I hate it." + -- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"Is this foreplay?" + "No, this is Nuke Strike. Foreplay has lousy graphics. Beat me again." + -- Duckert, in "Bad Rubber," Albedo #0 (comics) +% +egrep patterns are full regular expressions; it uses a fast deterministic +algorithm that sometimes needs exponential space. + -- unix manuals +% +"A mind is a terrible thing to have leaking out your ears." + -- The League of Sadistic Telepaths +% +"Life sucks, but it's better than the alternative." + -- Peter da Silva +% +If this is a service economy, why is the service so bad? +% +"I shall expect a chemical cure for psychopathic behavior by 10 A.M. tomorrow, +or I'll have your guts for spaghetti." + -- a comic panel by Cotham +% +"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." + -- Will Rogers +% +"An open mind has but one disadvantage: it collects dirt." + -- a saying at RPI +% +"The geeks shall inherit the earth." + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +"Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers." + -- Chip Salzenberg +% +"Elvis is my copilot." + -- Cal Keegan +% +"The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the +sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment." + -- Richard P. Feynman +% +How many Unix hacks does it take to change a light bulb? + Let's see, can you use a shell script for that or does it need a C program? +% +"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because I'm beautiful, smart +and rich." + -- Calvin Keegan +% +"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so +certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Always look over your shoulder because everyone is watching and plotting +against you. +% +"Let us condemn to hellfire all those who disagree with us." + -- militant religionists everywhere +% +Baby On Board. +% +"The net result is a system that is not only binary compatible with 4.3 BSD, +but is even bug for bug compatible in almost all features." + -- Avadit Tevanian, Jr., "Architecture-Independent Virtual Memory Management + for Parallel and Distributed Environments: The Mach Approach" +% +"The number of Unix installations has grown to 10, with more expected." + -- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June, 1972 +% +"Engineering without management is art." + -- Jeff Johnson +% +"I'm not a god, I was misquoted." + -- Lister, Red Dwarf +% +Brain off-line, please wait. +% +-- +-- uunet!sugar!karl | "We've been following your progress with considerable +-- karl@sugar.uu.net | interest, not to say contempt." -- Zaphod Beeblebrox IV +-- Usenet BBS (713) 438-5018 + + + +th-th-th-th-That's all, folks! + +----------- cut here, don't forget to strip junk at the end, too ------------- +"Psychoanalysis?? I thought this was a nude rap session!!!" + -- Zippy +% +Are you having fun yet? +% +"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are +perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." + -- Lawrence Dalzell +% +"Perhaps I am flogging a straw herring in mid-stream, but in the light of +what is known about the ubiquity of security vulnerabilities, it seems vastly +too dangerous for university folks to run with their heads in the sand." + -- Peter G. Neumann, RISKS moderator, about the Internet virus +% +"Seed me, Seymour" + -- a random number generator meets the big green mother from outer space +% +"Buy land. They've stopped making it." + -- Mark Twain +% +"Open the pod bay doors, HAL." + -- Dave Bowman, 2001 +% +"There was no difference between the behavior of a god and the operations of +pure chance..." + -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ +% +...Saure really turns out to be an adept at the difficult art of papryomancy, +the ability to prophesy through contemplating the way people roll reefers - +the shape, the licking pattern, the wrinkles and folds or absence thereof +in the paper. "You will soon be in love," sez Saure, "see, this line here." +"It's long, isn't it? Does that mean --" "Length is usually intensity. +Not time." + -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ +% +Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it will make you feel +less responsible -- but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in with +the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless +hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they +are --" + -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ +% +...the prevailing Catholic odor - incense, wax, centuries of mild bleating +from the lips of the flock. + -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ +% +...At that time [the 1960s], Bell Laboratories scientists projected that +computer speeds as high as 30 million floating-point calculations per +second (megaflops) would be needed for the Army's ballistic missile +defense system. Many computer experts -- including a National Academy +of Sciences panel -- said achieving such speeds, even using multiple +processors, was impossible. Today, new generation supercomputers operate +at billions of operations per second (gigaflops). + -- Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 9, 1988, "Washington Roundup", pg 13 +% +backups: always in season, never out of style. +% +"There was a vague, unpleasant manginess about his appearance; he somehow +seemed dirty, though a close glance showed him as carefully shaven as an +actor, and clad in immaculate linen." + -- H. L. Mencken, on the death of William Jennings Bryan +% +Work was impossible. The geeks had broken my spirit. They had done too +many things wrong. It was never like this for Mencken. He lived like +a Prussian gambler -- sweating worse than Bryan on some nights and drunker +than Judas on others. It was all a dehumanized nightmare...and these +raddled cretins have the gall to complain about my deadlines. + -- Hunter Thompson, "Bad Nerves in Fat City", _Generation of Swine_ +% +"This generation may be the one that will face Armageddon." + -- Ronald Reagan, "People" magazine, December 26, 1985 +% +... The cable had passed us by; the dish was the only hope, and eventually +we were all forced to turn to it. By the summer of '85, the valley had more +satellite dishes per capita than an Eskimo village on the north slope of +Alaska. + +Mine was one of the last to go in. I had been nervous from the start about +the hazards of too much input, which is a very real problem with these +things. Watching TV becomes a full-time job when you can scan 200 channels +all day and all night and still have the option of punching Night Dreams +into the video machine, if the rest of the world seems dull. + -- Hunter Thompson, "Full-time scrambling", _Generation of Swine_ +% +"Call immediately. Time is running out. We both need to do something +monstrous before we die." + -- Message from Ralph Steadman to Hunter Thompson +% +"The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down." + -- H. L. Mencken +% +"You don't go out and kick a mad dog. If you have a mad dog with rabies, you +take a gun and shoot him." + -- Pat Robertson, TV Evangelist, about Muammar Kadhafy +% +David Brinkley: The daily astrological charts are precisely where, in my + judgment, they belong, and that is on the comic page. +George Will: I don't think astrology belongs even on the comic pages. + The comics are making no truth claim. +Brinkley: Where would you put it? +Will: I wouldn't put it in the newspaper. I think it's transparent rubbish. + It's a reflection of an idea that we expelled from Western thought in the + sixteenth century, that we are in the center of a caring universe. We are + not the center of the universe, and it doesn't care. The star's alignment + at the time of our birth -- that is absolute rubbish. It is not funny to + have it intruded among people who have nuclear weapons. +Sam Donaldson: This isn't something new. Governor Ronald Reagan was sworn + in just after midnight in his first term in Sacramento because the stars + said it was a propitious time. +Will: They [horoscopes] are utter crashing banalities. They could apply to + anyone and anything. +Brinkley: When is the exact moment [of birth]? I don't think the nurse is + standing there with a stopwatch and a notepad. +Donaldson: If we're making decisions based on the stars -- that's a cockamamie + thing. People want to know. + -- "This Week" with David Brinkley, ABC Television, Sunday, May 8, 1988, + excerpts from a discussion on Astrology and Reagan +% +The reported resort to astrology in the White House has occasioned much +merriment. It is not funny. Astrological gibberish, which means astrology +generally, has no place in a newspaper, let alone government. Unlike comics, +which are part of a newspaper's harmless pleasure and make no truth claims, +astrology is a fraud. The idea that it gets a hearing in government is +dismaying. + -- George Will, Washing Post Writers Group +% +Astrology is the sheerest hokum. This pseudoscience has been around since +the day of the Chaldeans and Babylonians. It is as phony as numerology, +phrenology, palmistry, alchemy, the reading of tea leaves, and the practice +of divination by the entrails of a goat. No serious person will buy the +notion that our lives are influenced individually by the movement of +distant planets. This is the sawdust blarney of the carnival midway. + -- James J. Kilpatrick, Universal Press Syndicate +% +A serious public debate about the validity of astrology? A serious believer +in the White House? Two of them? Give me a break. What stifled my laughter +is that the image fits. Reagan has always exhibited a fey indifference toward +science. Facts, like numbers, roll off his back. And we've all come to +accept it. This time it was stargazing that became a serious issue....Not +that long ago, it was Reagan's support of Creationism....Creationists actually +got equal time with evolutionists. The public was supposed to be open-minded +to the claims of paleontologists and fundamentalists, as if the two were +scientific colleagues....It has been clear for a long time that the president +is averse to science...In general, these attitudes fall onto friendly American +turf....But at the outer edges, this skepticism about science easily turns +into a kind of naive acceptance of nonscience, or even nonsense. The same +people who doubt experts can also believe any quackery, from the benefits of +laetrile to eye of newt to the movement of planets. We lose the capacity to +make rational -- scientific -- judgments. It's all the same. + -- Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company-Washington Post Writers + Group +% +The spectacle of astrology in the White House -- the governing center of +the world's greatest scientific and military power -- is so appalling that +it defies understanding and provides grounds for great fright. The easiest +response is to laugh it off, and to indulge in wisecracks about Civil +Service ratings for horoscope makers and palm readers and whether Reagan +asked Mikhail Gorbachev for his sign. A contagious good cheer is the +hallmark of this presidency, even when the most dismal matters are concerned. +But this time, it isn't funny. It's plain scary. + -- Daniel S. Greenberg, Editor, _Science and Government Report_, writing in + "Newsday", May 5, 1988 +% +[Astrology is] 100 percent hokum, Ted. As a matter of fact, the first edition +of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, written in 1771 -- 1771! -- said that this +belief system is a subject long ago ridiculed and reviled. We're dealing with +beliefs that go back to the ancient Babylonians. There's nothing there.... +It sounds a lot like science, it sounds like astronomy. It's got technical +terms. It's got jargon. It confuses the public....The astrologer is quite +glib, confuses the public, uses terms which come from science, come from +metaphysics, come from a host of fields, but they really mean nothing. The +fact is that astrological beliefs go back at least 2,500 years. Now that +should be a sufficiently long time for astrologers to prove their case. They +have not proved their case....It's just simply gibberish. The fact is, there's +no theory for it, there are no observational data for it. It's been tested +and tested over the centuries. Nobody's ever found any validity to it at +all. It is not even close to a science. A science has to be repeatable, it +has to have a logical foundation, and it has to be potentially vulnerable -- +you test it. And in that astrology is really quite something else. + -- Astronomer Richard Berendzen, President, American University, on ABC + News "Nightline," May 3, 1988 +% +Even if we put all these nagging thoughts [four embarrassing questions about +astrology] aside for a moment, one overriding question remains to be asked. +Why would the positions of celestial objects at the moment of birth have an +effect on our characters, lives, or destinies? What force or influence, +what sort of energy would travel from the planets and stars to all human +beings and affect our development or fate? No amount of scientific-sounding +jargon or computerized calculations by astrologers can disguise this central +problem with astrology -- we can find no evidence of a mechanism by which +celestial objects can influence us in so specific and personal a way. . . . +Some astrologers argue that there may be a still unknown force that represents +the astrological influence. . . .If so, astrological predictions -- like those +of any scientific field -- should be easily tested. . . . Astrologers always +claim to be just a little too busy to carry out such careful tests of their +efficacy, so in the last two decades scientists and statisticians have +generously done such testing for them. There have been dozens of well-designed +tests all around the world, and astrology has failed every one of them. . . . +I propose that we let those beckoning lights in the sky awaken our interest +in the real (and fascinating) universe beyond our planet, and not let them +keep us tied to an ancient fantasy left over from a time when we huddled by +the firelight, afraid of the night. + -- Andrew Fraknoi, Executive Officer, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, + "Why Astrology Believers Should Feel Embarrassed," San Jose Mercury + News, May 8, 1988 +% +With the news that Nancy Reagan has referred to an astrologer when planning +her husband's schedule, and reports of Californians evacuating Los Angeles +on the strength of a prediction from a sixteenth-century physician and +astrologer Michel de Notredame, the image of the U.S. as a scientific and +technological nation has taking a bit of a battering lately. Sadly, such +happenings cannot be dismissed as passing fancies. They are manifestations +of a well-established "anti-science" tendency in the U.S. which, ultimately, +could threaten the country's position as a technological power. . . . The +manifest widespread desire to reject rationality and substitute a series +of quasirandom beliefs in order to understand the universe does not augur +well for a nation deeply concerned about its ability to compete with its +industrial equals. To the degree that it reflects the thinking of a +significant section of the public, this point of view encourages ignorance +of and, indeed, contempt for science and for rational methods of approaching +truth. . . . It is becoming clear that if the U.S. does not pick itself up +soon and devote some effort to educating the young effectively, its hope of +maintaining a semblance of leadership in the world may rest, paradoxically, +with a new wave of technically interested and trained immigrants who do not +suffer from the anti-science disease rampant in an apparently decaying society. + -- Physicist Tony Feinberg, in "New Scientist," May 19, 1988 +% +miracle: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment. + -- Webster's Dictionary +% +"The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone + is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be + created in the form of computer programs." + -- Joseph Weizenbaum, _Computer Power and Human Reason_ +% +"If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong." + -- Norm Schryer +% +"May your future be limited only by your dreams." + -- Christa McAuliffe +% +"It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be +coming up it." + -- Henry Allen +% +"Life begins when you can spend your spare time programming instead of +watching television." + -- Cal Keegan +% +Eat shit -- billions of flies can't be wrong. +% +"We never make assertions, Miss Taggart," said Hugh Akston. "That is +the moral crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not tell -- we *show*. +We do not claim -- we *prove*." + -- Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_ +% +"I remember when I was a kid I used to come home from Sunday School and + my mother would get drunk and try to make pancakes." + -- George Carlin +% +"My father? My father left when I was quite young. Well actually, he + was asked to leave. He had trouble metabolizing alcohol." + -- George Carlin +% +"I turn on my television set. I see a young lady who goes under the guise +of being a Christian, known all over the nation, dressed in skin-tight +leather pants, shaking and wiggling her hips to the beat and rhythm of the +music as the strobe lights beat their patterns across the stage and the +band plays the contemporary rock sound which cannot be differentiated from +songs by the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, or anyone else. And you may try +to tell me this is of God and that it is leading people to Christ, but I +know better. + -- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocritical sexual pervert and TV preacher, self-described + pornography addict, "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.", + The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50. +% +"So-called Christian rock. . . . is a diabolical force undermining Christianity + from within." + -- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocrite and TV preacher, self-described + pornography addict, "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.", + The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50. +% +"Anyone attempting to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of +course, living in a state of sin." + -- John Von Neumann +% +"You must have an IQ of at least half a million." -- Popeye +% +"Freedom is still the most radical idea of all." + -- Nathaniel Branden +% +Aren't you glad you're not getting all the government you pay for now? +% +"I never let my schooling get in the way of my education." + -- Mark Twain +% +These screamingly hilarious gogs ensure owners of X Ray Gogs to be the life +of any party. + -- X-Ray Gogs Instructions +% +A student asked the master for help... does this program run from the +Workbench? The master grabbed the mouse and pointed to an icon. "What is +this?" he asked. The student replied "That's the mouse". The master pressed +control-Amiga-Amiga and hit the student on the head with the Amiga ROM Kernel +Manual. + -- Amiga Zen Master Peter da Silva +% +"Thank heaven for startups; without them we'd never have any advances." + -- Seymour Cray +% +"Out of register space (ugh)" + -- vi +% +"Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor +of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, +it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community." + - Oscar Wilde +% +"Ada is PL/I trying to be Smalltalk. + -- Codoso diBlini +% +"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, +well-meaning but without understanding." + -- Justice Louis O. Brandeis (Olmstead vs. United States) +% +"'Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true." + -- Poloniouius, in Willie the Shake's _Hamlet, Prince of Darkness_ +% +"All the people are so happy now, their heads are caving in. I'm glad they +are a snowman with protective rubber skin" + -- They Might Be Giants +% +"Indecision is the basis of flexibility" + -- button at a Science Fiction convention. +% +"Sometimes insanity is the only alternative" + -- button at a Science Fiction convention. +% +"Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time." + -- a coffee cup +% +"The most important thing in a man is not what he knows, but what he is." + -- Narciso Yepes +% +"All we are given is possibilities -- to make ourselves one thing or another." + -- Ortega y Gasset +% +"We will be better and braver if we engage and inquire than if we indulge in +the idle fancy that we already know -- or that it is of no use seeking to +know what we do not know." + -- Plato +% +"To undertake a project, as the word's derivation indicates, means to cast an +idea out ahead of oneself so that it gains autonomy and is fulfilled not only +by the efforts of its originator but, indeed, independently of him as well. + -- Czeslaw Milosz +% +"We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic +of life is its coerciveness; it is always urgent, "here and now," without any +possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank." + -- Ortega y Gasset +% +"From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere." + -- Dr. Seuss +% +"When it comes to humility, I'm the greatest." + -- Bullwinkle Moose +% +Remember, an int is not always 16 bits. I'm not sure, but if the 80386 is one +step closer to Intel's slugfest with the CPU curve that is asymptotically +approaching a real machine, perhaps an int has been implemented as 32 bits by +some Unix vendors...? + -- Derek Terveer +% +"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care +what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything +you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. +Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to +insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the +destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, +be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to +insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as +your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be +yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your +receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this +thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen." + +Madrak, in _Creatures of Light and Darkness_, by Roger Zelazny +% +"An Academic speculated whether a bather is beautiful +if there is none in the forest to admire her. He hid +in the bushes to find out, which vitiated his premise +but made him happy. +Moral: Empiricism is more fun than speculation." + -- Sam Weber +% +1 1 was a race-horse, 2 2 was 1 2. When 1 1 1 1 race, 2 2 1 1 2. +% +"I figured there was this holocaust, right, and the only ones left alive were + Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet, and the Cleavers." + -- Wil Wheaton explains why everyone in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" + is so nice +% +"Engineering meets art in the parking lot and things explode." + -- Garry Peterson, about Survival Research Labs +% +"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having +a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc +% + ...and before I knew what I was doing, I had kicked the + typewriter and threw it around the room and made it beg for + mercy. At this point the typewriter pleaded for me to dress + him in feminine attire but instead I pressed his margin release + over and over again until the typewriter lost consciousness. + Presently, I regained consciousness and realized with shame what + I had done. My shame is gone and now I am looking for a + submissive typewriter, any color, or model. No electric + typewriters please! + -- Rick Kleiner +% +Professional wrestling: ballet for the common man. +% +"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a +cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." + -- H. L. Mencken +% + "Are those cocktail-waitress fingernail marks?" I asked Colletti as he +showed us these scratches on his chest. "No, those are on my back," Colletti +answered. "This is where a case of cocktail shrimp fell on me. I told her +to slow down a little, but you know cocktail waitresses, they seem to have +a mind of their own." + -- The Incredibly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs + National Lampoon, October 1982 +% +"Never give in. Never give in. Never. Never. Never." + -- Winston Churchill +% +"Never ascribe to malice that which is caused by greed and ignorance." + -- Cal Keegan +% +"Despite its suffix, skepticism is not an "ism" in the sense of a belief +or dogma. It is simply an approach to the problem of telling what is +counterfeit and what is genuine. And a recognition of how costly it may +be to fail to do so. To be a skeptic is to cultivate "street smarts" in +the battle for control of one's own mind, one's own money, one's own +allegiances. To be a skeptic, in short, is to refuse to be a victim. + -- Robert S. DeBear, "An Agenda for Reason, Realism, and Responsibility," + New York Skeptic (newsletter of the New York Area Skeptics, Inc.), Spring 1988 +% +"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead +stuff." + -- Dave Enyeart +% +"After one week [visiting Austria] I couldn't wait to go back to the United +States. Everything was much more pleasant in the United States, because of +the mentality of being open-minded, always positive. Everything you want to +do in Europe is just, 'No way. No one has ever done it.' They haven't any +more the desire to go out to conquer and achieve -- I realized that I had much +more the American spirit." + -- Arnold Schwarzenegger +% +"I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest." + -- Alexandre Dumas (fils) +% + Well, punk is kind of anti-ethical, anyway. Its ethics, so to speak, +include a disdain for ethics in general. If you have to think about some- +thing so hard, then it's bullshit anyway; that's the idea. Punks are anti- +ismists, to coin a term. But nonetheless, they have a pretty clearly defined +stance and image, and THAT is what we hang the term `punk' on. + -- Jeff G. Bone +% + I think for the most part that the readership here uses the c-word in +a similar fashion. I don't think anybody really believes in a new, revolution- +ary literature --- I think they use `cyberpunk' as a term of convenience to +discuss the common stylistic elements in a small subset of recent sf books. + -- Jeff G. Bone +% + So we get to my point. Surely people around here read things that +aren't on the *Officially Sanctioned Cyberpunk Reading List*. Surely we +don't (any of us) really believe that there is some big, deep political and +philosophical message in all this, do we? So if this `cyberpunk' thing is +just a term of convenience, how can somebody sell out? If cyberpunk is just a +word we use to describe a particular style and imagery in sf, how can it be +dead? Where are the profound statements that the `Movement' is or was trying +to make? + I think most of us are interested in examining and discussing literary +(and musical) works that possess a certain stylistic excellence and perhaps a +rather extreme perspective; this is what CP is all about, no? Maybe there +should be a newsgroup like, say, alt.postmodern or something. Something less +restrictive in scope than alt.cyberpunk. + -- Jeff G. Bone +% +"Everyone's head is a cheap movie show." + -- Jeff G. Bone +% +Life is full of concepts that are poorly defined. In fact, there are very few +concepts that aren't. It's hard to think of any in non-technical fields. + -- Daniel Kimberg +% +...cyberpunk wants to see the mind as mechanistic & duplicable, +challenging basic assumptions about the nature of individuality & self. +That seems all the better reason to assume that cyberpunk art & music is +essentially mindless garbagio. Willy certainly addressed this idea in +"Count Zero," with Katatonenkunst, the automatic box-maker and the girl's +observation that the real art was the building of the machine itself, +rather than its output. + -- Eliot Handelman +% +It might be worth reflecting that this group was originally created +back in September of 1987 and has exchanged over 1200 messages. The +original announcement for the group called for an all inclusive +discussion ranging from the writings of Gibson and Vinge and movies +like Bladerunner to real world things like Brands' description of the +work being done at the MIT Media Lab. It was meant as a haven for +people with vision of this scope. If you want to create a haven for +people with narrower visions, feel free. But I feel sad for anyone +who thinks that alt.cyberpunk is such a monstrous group that it is in +dire need of being subdivided. Heaven help them if they ever start +reading comp.arch or rec.arts.sf-lovers. + -- Bob Webber +% +...I don't care for the term 'mechanistic'. The word 'cybernetic' is a lot +more apropos. The mechanistic world-view is falling further and further behind +the real world where even simple systems can produce the most marvelous +chaos. + -- Peter da Silva +% +As for the basic assumptions about individuality and self, this is the core +of what I like about cyberpunk. And it's the core of what I like about certain +pre-gibson neophile techie SF writers that certain folks here like to put +down. Not everyone makes the same assumptions. I haven't lost my mind... it's +backed up on tape. + -- Peter da Silva +% +Who are the artists in the Computer Graphics Show? Wavefront's latest box, or +the people who programmed it? Should Mandelbrot get all the credit for the +output of programs like MandelVroom? + -- Peter da Silva +% +Trailing Edge Technologies is pleased to announce the following +TETflame programme: + +1) For a negotiated price (no quatloos accepted) one of our flaming + representatives will flame the living shit out of the poster of + your choice. The price is inversly proportional to how much of + an asshole the target it. We cannot be convinced to flame Dennis + Ritchie. Matt Crawford flames are free. + +2) For a negotiated price (same arrangement) the TETflame programme + is offering ``flame insurence''. Under this arrangement, if + one of our policy holders is flamed, we will cancel the offending + article and flame the flamer, to a crisp. + +3) The TETflame flaming representatives include: Richard Sexton, Oleg + Kisalev, Diane Holt, Trish O'Tauma, Dave Hill, Greg Nowak and our most + recent acquisition, Keith Doyle. But all he will do is put you in his + kill file. Weemba by special arrangement. + + -- Richard Sexton +% +"As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of + Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity. I collected some of + their Proverbs..." - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 1 + +proof by example: + The author gives only the case n = 2 and suggests that it + contains most of the ideas of the general proof. + +proof by intimidation: + 'Trivial'. + +proof by vigorous handwaving: + Works well in a classroom or seminar setting. +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 2 + +proof by cumbersome notation: + Best done with access to at least four alphabets and special + symbols. + +proof by exhaustion: + An issue or two of a journal devoted to your proof is useful. + +proof by omission: + 'The reader may easily supply the details' + 'The other 253 cases are analogous' + '...' +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 3 + +proof by obfuscation: + A long plotless sequence of true and/or meaningless + syntactically related statements. + +proof by wishful citation: + The author cites the negation, converse, or generalization of + a theorem from the literature to support his claims. + +proof by funding: + How could three different government agencies be wrong? + +proof by eminent authority: + 'I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP- + complete.' +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 4 + +proof by personal communication: + 'Eight-dimensional colored cycle stripping is NP-complete + [Karp, personal communication].' + +proof by reduction to the wrong problem: + 'To see that infinite-dimensional colored cycle stripping is + decidable, we reduce it to the halting problem.' + +proof by reference to inaccessible literature: + The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found + in a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian + Philological Society, 1883. + +proof by importance: + A large body of useful consequences all follow from the + proposition in question. +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 5 + +proof by accumulated evidence: + Long and diligent search has not revealed a counterexample. + +proof by cosmology: + The negation of the proposition is unimaginable or + meaningless. Popular for proofs of the existence of God. + +proof by mutual reference: + In reference A, Theorem 5 is said to follow from Theorem 3 in + reference B, which is shown to follow from Corollary 6.2 in + reference C, which is an easy consequence of Theorem 5 in + reference A. + +proof by metaproof: + A method is given to construct the desired proof. The + correctness of the method is proved by any of these + techniques. +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 6 + +proof by picture: + A more convincing form of proof by example. Combines well + with proof by omission. + +proof by vehement assertion: + It is useful to have some kind of authority relation to the + audience. + +proof by ghost reference: + Nothing even remotely resembling the cited theorem appears in + the reference given. +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 7 +proof by forward reference: + Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author, + which is often not as forthcoming as at first. + +proof by semantic shift: + Some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed + for the statement of the result. + +proof by appeal to intuition: + Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here. +% + [May one] doubt whether, in cheese and timber, worms are generated, + or, if beetles and wasps, in cow-dung, or if butterflies, locusts, + shellfish, snails, eels, and such life be procreated of putrefied + matter, which is to receive the form of that creature to which it + is by formative power disposed[?] To question this is to question + reason, sense, and experience. If he doubts this, let him go to + Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice begot + of the mud of the Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants. + A seventeenth century opinion quoted by L. L. Woodruff, + in *The Evolution of Earth and Man*, 1929 +% +Seen on a button at an SF Convention: +Veteran of the Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force. 1990-1951. +% +"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, +then we are a sorry lot indeed." + -- Albert Einstein +% +"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is +the exact opposite." + -- Bertrand Russell, _Sceptical_Essays_, 1928 +% +"Were there no women, men might live like gods." + -- Thomas Dekker +% +"Intelligence without character is a dangerous thing." + -- G. Steinem +% +"It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then god is +dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side." + -- Frank Zappa +% +"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." + -- Cal Keegan +% +"Let me guess, Ed. Pentescostal, right?" + -- Starcap'n Ra, ra@asuvax.asu.edu + +"Nope. Charismatic (I think - I've given up on what all those pesky labels + mean)." + -- Ed Carp, erc@unisec.usi.com + +"Same difference - all zeal and feel, averaging less than one working brain +cell per congregation. Starcap'n Ra, you pegged him. Good work!" + -- Kenn Barry, barry@eos.UUCP +% +"BTW, does Jesus know you flame?" + -- Diane Holt, dianeh@binky.UUCP, to Ed Carp +% +"I've seen the forgeries I've sent out." + -- John F. Haugh II (jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US), about forging net news articles +% +"Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some + of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?" + -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US +% +"Bite off, dirtball." +Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM +% +"Oh my! An `inflammatory attitude' in alt.flame? Never heard of such +a thing..." + -- Allen Gwinn, allen@sulaco.Sigma.COM +% +(null cookie; hope that's ok) +% +"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality +at any point." + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"Who alone has reason to *lie himself out* of actuality? He who *suffers* + from it." + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"You who hate the Jews so, why did you adopt their religion?" + -- Friedrich Nietzsche, addressing anti-semitic Christians +% +"Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of +nature are constantly broken for their sakes." + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"Science makes godlike -- it is all over with priests and gods when man becomes + scientific. Moral: science is the forbidden as such -- it alone is + forbidden. Science is the *first* sin, the *original* sin. *This alone is + morality.* ``Thou shalt not know'' -- the rest follows." + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true." + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +>One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative. + +Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. +The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. + -- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@Apple.COM +% +"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one idiot. + Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's sometimes hard + to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all of the hassle and + pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, caustic twits." + -- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@apple.com, about Usenet +% +Backed up the system lately? +% +"It doesn't much signify whom one marries for one is sure to find out next +morning it was someone else." + -- Rogers +% +"If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry." + -- Chekhov +% +"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with +the ideal never goes unpunished." + -- Goethe +% +"In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved." + -- Butler +% +"The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, `What does +woman want?'" + -- Sigmund Freud +% +"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, + and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming + feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology." + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life. + -- Dave Butler +% +"The preeminence of a learned man over a worshiper is equal to the preeminence +of the moon, at the night of the full moon, over all the stars. Verily, the +learned men are the heirs of the Prophets." + -- A tradition attributed to Muhammad +% +"The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; +the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a +military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and +private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; +and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes +who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity." + -- Edward Gibbons, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ +% +"The question is rather: if we ever succeed in making a mind 'of nuts and +bolts', how will we know we have succeeded? + -- Fergal Toomey + +"It will tell us." + -- Barry Kort +% +"Inquiry is fatal to certainty." + -- Will Durant +% +"The Mets were great in 'sixty eight, + The Cards were fine in 'sixty nine, + But the Cubs will be heavenly in nineteen and seventy." + -- Ernie Banks +% +"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. +Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers +come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas +that could provoke such a question." + -- Charles Babbage +% +"I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic +depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient +is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* -- I call it +the *one* mortal blemish of mankind." + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to +safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster +the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. Suffer it not to become a source +of dissension and discord, of hate and enmity." + +"Religion is verily the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the + world and of tranquillity amongst it's peoples...The greater the decline of + religion, the more grievous the waywardness of the ungodly. This cannot but + lead in the end to chaos and confusion." + -- Baha'u'llah, a selection from the Baha'i scripture +% +"Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong." + -- Blair Houghton +% +"...one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, +lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of +their C programs." + -- Robert Firth +% +Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What +should I do? + +A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on believing +that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be the only one to +make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No time to lose, so +certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if somebody else has made the +correction. + +And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're the +only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have to inform +the whole net right away! + + -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ +% +Q: How can I choose what groups to post in? ... +Q: How about an example? + +A: Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the +Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey +would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a +big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy +as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try +news.admin. If not, use news.misc. + +The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is +a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also +interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to +soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to +news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of +interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as +well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles +there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) + +You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. +If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will +only show the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. + -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ +% +Q: I cant spell worth a dam. I hope your going too tell me what to do? + +A: Don't worry about how your articles look. Remember it's the message +that counts, not the way it's presented. Ignore the fact that sloppy +spelling in a purely written forum sends out the same silent messages that +soiled clothing would when addressing an audience. + + -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ +% +Q: They just announced on the radio that Dan Quayle was picked as the +Republican V.P. candidate. Should I post? + +A: Of course. The net can reach people in as few as 3 to 5 days. It's +the perfect way to inform people about such news events long after the +broadcast networks have covered them. As you are probably the only person +to have heard the news on the radio, be sure to post as soon as you can. + + -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ +% +What did Mickey Mouse get for Christmas? + +A Dan Quayle watch. + + -- heard from a Mike Dukakis field worker +% +Q: What's the difference between a car salesman and a computer + salesman? + +A: The car salesman can probably drive! + + -- Joan McGalliard (jem@latcs1.oz.au) +% +"Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par." + -- Dave Mack (mack@inco.UUCP) + +"Yours is." + -- Allen Gwinn (allen@sulaco.sigma.com), in alt.flame +% +A selection from the Taoist Writings: + +"Lao-Tan asked Confucius: `What do you mean by benevolence and righteousness?' + Confucius said: `To be in one's inmost heart in kindly sympathy with all + things; to love all men and allow no selfish thoughts: this is the nature + of benevolence and righteousness.'" + -- Kwang-tzu +% +"Jesus saves...but Gretzky gets the rebound!" + -- Daniel Hinojosa (hinojosa@hp-sdd) +% +"Anything created must necessarily be inferior to the essence of the creator." + -- Claude Shouse (shouse@macomw.ARPA) + +"Einstein's mother must have been one heck of a physicist." + -- Joseph C. Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu) +% +"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will +fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." + -- Bertrand Russell +% +"Lying lips are abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his + delight. + A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger. + He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto + him. + Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause; and deceive not with + thy lips. + Death and life are in the power of the tongue." + -- Proverbs, some selections from the Jewish Scripture +% +"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and +I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a scientist. +This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." + -- Matt Cartmill +% +Heisenberg might have been here. +% +"Any excuse will serve a tyrant." + -- Aesop +% +"Experience has proved that some people indeed know everything." + -- Russell Baker +% +How many Zen Buddhist does it take to change a light bulb? + +Two. One to change it and one not to change it. +% +"I prefer the blunted cudgels of the followers of the Serpent God." + -- Sean Doran the Younger +% +"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." + -- Phil Wayne +% +"my terminal is a lethal teaspoon." + -- Patricia O Tuama +% +"I am ... a woman ... and ... technically a parasitic uterine growth" + -- Sean Doran the Younger [allegedly] +% +"Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time +someone writes `bible thumpers?' + -- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu +% +"Money is the root of all money." + -- the moving finger +% +"...Greg Nowak: `Another flame from greg' - need I say more?" + -- Jonathan D. Trudel, trudel@caip.rutgers.edu + +"No. You need to say less." + -- Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM +% +"And it's my opinion, and that's only my opinion, you are a lunatic. Just +because there are a few hundred other people sharing your lunacy with you +does not make you any saner. Doomed, eh?" + -- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU +% +"Obedience. A religion of slaves. A religion of intellectual death. I like +it. Don't ask questions, don't think, obey the Word of the Lord -- as it +has been conveniently brought to you by a man in a Rolls with a heavy Rolex +on his wrist. I like that job! Where can I sign up?" + -- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU +% +"Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a +cockatoo." + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +"Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and +those inside desperate to get out." + -- Montaigne +% +"For a male and female to live continuously together is... biologically +speaking, an extremely unnatural condition." + -- Robert Briffault +% +"Marriage is low down, but you spend the rest of your life paying for it." + -- Baskins +% +A man is not complete until he is married -- then he is finished. +% +Marriage is the sole cause of divorce. +% +Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is +the triumph of hope over experience. +% +"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain." + -- G. Fitch +% +"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company." + -- Mark Twain +% +"I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder have + included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products. This + technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's reign. My + carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go by some more." + -- timw@zeb.USWest.COM, in alt.conspiracy +% +"If there isn't a population problem, why is the government putting cancer in +the cigarettes?" + -- the elder Steptoe, c. 1970 +% +"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little + Lavoris in the toilet." + -- Comedian Jay Leno +% +"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like + `Psychic Wins Lottery.'" + -- Comedian Jay Leno +% +"Well hello there Charlie Brown, you blockhead." + -- Lucy Van Pelt +% +"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." + -- Ford Prefect, _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ +% +"Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows." + -- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"Let every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable." + -- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"I have not the slightest confidence in 'spiritual manifestations.'" + -- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"It is hard to overstate the debt that we owe to men and women of genius." + -- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"Joy is wealth and love is the legal tender of the soul." + -- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray." + -- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"It is the creationists who blasphemously are claiming that God is cheating + us in a stupid way." + -- J. W. Nienhuys +% +"No, no, I don't mind being called the smartest man in the world. I just wish + it wasn't this one." + -- Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, WATCHMEN +% +"Be *excellent* to each other." + -- Bill, or Ted, in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure +% +The Seventh Edition licensing procedures are, I suppose, still in effect, +though I doubt that tapes are available from AT&T. At any rate, whatever +restrictions the license imposes still exist. These restrictions were and +are reasonable for places that just want to run the system, but don't allow +many of the things that Minix was written for, like study of the source in +classes, or by individuals not in a university or company. + +I've always thought that Minix was a fine idea, and competently done. + +As for the size of v7, wc -l /usr/sys/*/*.[chs] is 19271. + + -- Dennis Ritchie, 1989 +% +"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it." -- Alex Schure +% +"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips + over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." +--Matt Groening +% +"I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." + -- Woody Allen +% +"The Street finds its own uses for technology." + -- William Gibson +% +"I see little divinity about them or you. You talk to me of Christianity +when you are in the act of hanging your enemies. Was there ever such +blasphemous nonsense!" + -- Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple" +% +"You and I as individuals can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but +only for a limited period of time. Why should we think that collectively, +as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?" + -- Ronald Reagan +% +"He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental effort, +he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable perversion." + -- Mick Farren, _When Gravity Fails_ +% +"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts +most subtly on the human will." + -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway" +% +It's time to boot, do your boot ROMs know where your disk controllers are? +% +"What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying." + -- Nikita Khrushchev +% +"...a most excellent barbarian ... Genghis Kahn!" + -- _Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure_ +% +"Pull the trigger and you're garbage." + -- Lady Blue +% +"Oh what wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face..." + -- a prisoner in "Life of Brian" +% +"Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy +of him that brought her birth." + -- Milton +% +"If you can't debate me, then there is no way in hell you'll out-insult me." + -- Scott Legrand (Scott.Legrand@hogbbs.Fidonet.Org) + +"You may be wrong here, little one." + -- R. W. F. Clark (RWC102@PSUVM) +% + "Yes, I am a real piece of work. One thing we learn at Ulowell is + how to flame useless hacking non-EE's like you. I am superior to you in + every way by training and expertise in the technical field. Anyone can learn + how to hack, but Engineering doesn't come nearly as easily. Actually, I'm + not trying to offend all you CS majors out there, but I think EE is one of the + hardest majors/grad majors to pass. Fortunately, I am making it." + -- "Warrior Diagnostics" (wardiag@sky.COM) + +"Being both an EE and an asshole at the same time must be a terrible burden + for you. This isn't really a flame, just a casual observation. Makes me + glad I was a CS major, life is really pleasant for me. Have fun with your + chosen mode of existence!" + -- Jim Morrison (morrisj@mist.cs.orst.edu) +% +"BYTE editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then + print the chaff." + -- Lionel Hummel (uiucdcs!hummel), derived from a quote by + Adlai Stevenson, Sr. +% + THE "FUN WITH USENET" MANIFESTO +Very little happens on Usenet without some sort of response from some other +reader. Fun With Usenet postings are no exception. Since there are some who +might question the rationale of some of the excerpts included therein, I have +written up a list of guidelines that sum up the philosophy behind these +postings. + + One. I never cut out words in the middle of a quote without a VERY +good reason, and I never cut them out without including ellipses. For +instance, "I am not a goob" might become "I am ... a goob", but that's too +mundane to bother with. "I'm flame proof" might (and has) become +"I'm ...a... p...oof" but that's REALLY stretching it. + + Two. If I cut words off the beginning or end of a quote, I don't +put ellipses, but neither do I capitalize something that wasn't capitalized +before the cut. "I don't think that the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful +place" would turn into "the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place". Imagine +the posting as a tape-recording of the poster's thoughts. If I can set +up the quote via fast-forwarding and stopping the tape, and without splicing, +I don't put ellipses in. And by the way, I love using this mechanism for +turning things around. If you think something stinks, say so - don't say you +don't think it's wonderful. ... + -- D. J. McCarthy (dmccart@cadape.UUCP) +% +"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary +safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." + -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 +% +"I am, therefore I am." + -- Akira +% +"Stan and I thought that this experiment was so stupid, we decided to finance + it ourselves." + -- Martin Fleischmann, co-discoverer of room-temperature fusion (?) +% +"I have more information in one place than anybody in the world." + -- Jerry Pournelle, an absurd notion, apparently about the BIX BBS +% +"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." + -- John Wooden +% +#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255) +#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \ + - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \ + - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111)) + + -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word +% +"If you can write a nation's stories, you needn't worry about who makes its + laws. Today, television tells most of the stories to most of the people + most of the time." + -- George Gerbner +% +"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists + in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on + the unreasonable man." + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +"We want to create puppets that pull their own strings." + -- Ann Marion + +"Would this make them Marionettes?" + -- Jeff Daiell +% +On the subject of C program indentation: +"In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented + six feet downward and covered with dirt." + -- Blair P. Houghton +% +There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in +one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that +the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- +was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever +was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, +hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if +you had signed up too many times before). + -- Tracy Kidder, _The Soul of a New Machine_ +% +"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began +to suspect "Hungry." + -- a Larson cartoon +% +"But don't you see, the color of wine in a crystal glass can be spiritual. + The look in a face, the music of a violin. A Paris theater can be infused + with the spiritual for all its solidity." + -- Lestat, _The Vampire Lestat_, Anne Rice +% +"Love your country but never trust its government." + -- from a hand-painted road sign in central Pennsylvania +% + I bought the latest computer; + it came fully loaded. + It was guaranteed for 90 days, + but in 30 was outmoded! + - The Wall Street Journal passed along by Big Red Computer's SCARLETT +% +To update Voltaire, "I may kill all msgs from you, but I'll fight for +your right to post it, and I'll let it reside on my disks". + -- Doug Thompson (doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG) +% +"Though a program be but three lines long, +someday it will have to be maintained." + -- The Tao of Programming +% +"Turn on, tune up, rock out." + -- Billy Gibbons +% + EARTH + smog | bricks + AIR -- mud -- FIRE +soda water | tequila + WATER +% +"Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power tools aren't +soluble in alcohol..." + -- Crazy Nigel +% +"Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all...." + -- Thomas J. Kopp +% + n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa); + n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc); + n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0); + n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00); + n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000); + + -- Yet another mystical 'C' gem. This one reverses the bits in a word. +% +"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is +constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role +they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume." + -- Noam Chomsky +% +"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple +system that worked." + -- John Gall, _Systemantics_ +% +"In my opinion, Richard Stallman wouldn't recognise terrorism if it +came up and bit him on his Internet." + -- Ross M. Greenberg +% +I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of +others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use +of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, +such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I +conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it +appears to me at present". + +When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the +pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some +absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in +certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present +case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc. + +I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I +engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my +opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had +less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily +prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I +happened to be in the right. + -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin +% +"If I ever get around to writing that language depompisifier, it will change +almost all occurrences of the word "paradigm" into "example" or "model." + -- Herbie Blashtfalt +% +"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." + -- Marvin the paranoid android +% +Contemptuous lights flashed across the computer's console. + -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +"There must be some mistake," he said, "are you not a greater computer than +the Milliard Gargantubrain which can count all the atoms in a star in a +millisecond?" +"The Milliard Gargantubrain?" said Deep Thought with unconcealed contempt. +"A mere abacus. Mention it not." + -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +"But are you not," he said, "a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperlobic +Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve, the Magic and +Indefatigable?" + +"The Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler," said Deep Thought, +thoroughly rolling the r's, "could talk all four legs off an Arcturan +Mega-Donkey -- but only I could persuade it to go for a walk afterward." + -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, Jolt Cola +would be a Fortune-500 company. + +If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, you'd be +able to buy a nice little colonial split-level at Babbages for $34.95. + +If programmers wrote programs the way builders build buildings, we'd still +be using autocoder and running compile decks. + + -- Peter da Silva and Karl Lehenbauer, a different perspective +% +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +"America is a stronger nation for the ACLU's uncompromising effort." + -- President John F. Kennedy +% +"The simple rights, the civil liberties from generations of struggle must not +be just fine words for patriotic holidays, words we subvert on weekdays, but +living, honored rules of conduct amongst us...I'm glad the American Civil +Liberties Union gets indignant, and I hope this will always be so." + -- Senator Adlai E. Stevenson +% +"The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that +from time to time threaten freedoms everywhere... Indeed, it is difficult +to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the +Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights +of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised +by the majority they were at the time." + -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren +% +"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each +citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do +his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure." + -- Albert Einstein +% +"Well I don't see why I have to make one man miserable when I can make so many +men happy." + -- Ellyn Mustard, about marriage +% +"And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what +the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions." + -- David Jones @ Megatest Corporation +% +"Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser." + -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew" +% +"Let's not be too tough on our own ignorance. It's the thing that makes + America great. If America weren't incomparably ignorant, how could we + have tolerated the last eight years?" + -- Frank Zappa, Feb 1, 1989 +% +"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through +three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and +Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. +"For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can +we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by +the question 'Where shall we have lunch?'" + -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +"Don't think; let the machine do it for you!" + -- E. C. Berkeley +% +"It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan + which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, + insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather +than be the instrument of his army's downfall." + -- Napoleon, "Military Maxims and Thought" +% +"(The Chief Programmer) personally defines the functional and performance + specifications, designs the program, codes it, tests it, and writes its + documentation... He needs great talent, ten years experience and + considerable systems and applications knowledge, whether in applied + mathematics, business data handling, or whatever." + -- Fred P. Brooks, _The Mythical Man Month_ +% +"It ain't over until it's over." + -- Casey Stengel +% +"If anything can go wrong, it will." + -- Edsel Murphy +% +"Yo baby yo baby yo." + -- Eddie Murphy +% +"You must learn to run your kayak by a sort of ju-jitsu. You must learn to + tell what the river will do to you, and given those parameters see how you + can live with it. You must absorb its force and convert it to your users + as best you can. Even with the quickness and agility of a kayak, you are + not faster than the river, nor stronger, and you can beat it only by + understanding it." + -- Strung, Curtis and Perry, _Whitewater_ +% +Everyone who comes in here wants three things: + 1. They want it quick. + 2. They want it good. + 3. They want it cheap. +I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. + -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware +% +"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all + other causes combined." + -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_ +% +panic: kernel trap (ignored) +% +"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile." + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +"Remember, extremism in the nondefense of moderation is not a virtue." + -- Peter Neumann, about usenet +% +"We dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea -- organic law rather than naked + power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation." + -- Supreme Court Justice Potter Steart +% +"What man has done, man can aspire to do." + -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight +% +"Well, it don't make the sun shine, but at least it don't deepen the shit." + -- Straiter Empy, in _Riddley_Walker_ by Russell Hoban +% +"If you can, help others. If you can't, at least don't hurt others." + -- the Dalai Lama +% +To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a +test load. +% +"Just think, with VLSI we can have 100 ENIACS on a chip!" + -- Alan Perlis +% +"...Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military and commercial + technology... Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain + the world's democracies, not the world as a whole." + -- K. Eric Drexler +% +"The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between a five-dollar bill +and a whip deserves to learn the difference on his own back -- as, I think, he +will." + -- Francisco d'Anconia, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_ +% +"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and + the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will + lose that, too." + -- W. Somerset Maugham +% +"Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother + to say it, oh God, I'm so depressed. Here's another of those self-satisfied + doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life." + -- Marvin the Paranoid Android +% +One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with +Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just +to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't +be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending +to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't +understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was +renowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the +time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be +puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be +genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about. + -- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ +% +Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the +former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. + +Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and +reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days, spirits +were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women +and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures +from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty +deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before -- and thus +was the Empire forged. + -- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ +% +"Gort, klaatu nikto barada." + -- The Day the Earth Stood Still +% +> From MAILER-DAEMON@Think.COM Thu Mar 2 13:59:11 1989 +> Subject: Returned mail: unknown mailer error 255 + +"Dale, your address no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?" + -- Bill Wolfe (wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu) + +"Bill, Your brain no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?" + -- Karl A. Nyberg (nyberg@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu) +% +"Don't drop acid, take it pass-fail!" + -- Bryan Michael Wendt +% +"I got a question for ya. Ya got a minute?" + -- two programmers passing in the hall +% +I took a fish head to the movies and I didn't have to pay. + -- Fish Heads, Saturday Night Live, 1977. +% +What hath Bob wrought? +% +"I don't know where we come from, + Don't know where we're going to, + And if all this should have a reason, + We would be the last to know. + + So let's just hope there is a promised land, + And until then, + ...as best as you can." + -- Steppenwolf, "Rock Me Baby" +% +"Help Mr. Wizard!" + -- Tennessee Tuxedo +% +"The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. + He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him. + But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are + given to administer we presently imagine we own." + -- H. G. Wells +% +"Unlike most net.puritans, however, I feel that what OTHER consenting computers + do in the privacy of their own phone connections is their own business." + -- John Woods, jfw@eddie.mit.edu +% +"Don't talk to me about disclaimers! I invented disclaimers!" + -- The Censored Hacker +% +'On this point we want to be perfectly clear: socialism has nothing to do +with equalizing. Socialism cannot ensure conditions of life and +consumption in accordance with the principle "From each according to his +ability, to each according to his needs." This will be under communism. +Socialism has a different criterion for distributing social benefits: +"From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."' + -- Mikhail Gorbachev, _Perestroika_ +% +"Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception." + -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989 +[apparently, good TV reception is a basic necessity -- at least in Tucson -kl] +% +"All the system's paths must be topologically and circularly interrelated for + conceptually definitive, locally transformable, polyhedronal understanding to + be attained in our spontaneous -- ergo, most economical -- geodesiccally + structured thoughts." + -- R. Buckminster Fuller [...and a total nonsequitur as far as I can + tell. -kl] +% +"One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that + sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer + terror." + -- W. K. Hartmann +% +"It's when they say 2 + 2 = 5 that I begin to argue." + -- Eric Pepke +% +Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness of a +pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." + -- David Guaspari +% +"None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary +to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one +ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a +job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing +forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient +he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a +state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the +"expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible." + -- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work," p. 86 (1922): +% +"The NY Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post +is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer +is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country..." + -- Robert J Woodhead (trebor@biar.UUCP) +% + "...'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not +matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality +and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his +fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the +world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon +reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles +as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming." + -- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny +% +"Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. +It's called 'rain'." + -- Michael McClary, in alt.fusion +% +"The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by people + who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried anything." + -- Jim Joyce, former computer science lecturer at the University of California +% +"We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of +annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn +and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from +being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented." + -- Albert Einstein, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1948 +% +"You can have my Unix system when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers." + -- Cal Keegan +% +We'll be more than happy to do so once Jim shows the slightest sign +of interest in fixing his proposal to deal with the technical +arguments that have *already* been made. Most engineers have +learned there is little to be gained in fine-tuning the valve timing +on a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine when the pistons +and crankshaft are missing... + -- Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu on NANOG +% +It's always sad when the fleas leave, because that means your dog is dead. + -- Wesley T. Williams +% +It's always sad when the fleas leave, because that means your dog is dead. + -- Wesley T. Williams +% diff --git a/fortunes/debian b/fortunes/debian new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d4aaa1 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/debian @@ -0,0 +1,406 @@ +I think it's a little fantastic to try to form a picture in people's +minds of the Debian archive administration team huddled over their +terminals, their faces lit only by a CRT with a little root shell +prompt and the command +"/project/org/ftp.debian.org/cabal/s3kr1t/nuke-non-free.pl" all keyed +in and ready to go, their fingers poised over the enter key, a sweat of +lustful anticipated beading on their upper lips." + -- Branden Robinson in + <20031104211846.GK13131@deadbeast.net> discussing + his draft Social Contract amendment +% +If you are going to run a rinky-dink distro made by a couple of +volunteers, why not run a rinky-dink distro made by a lot of volunteers? + -- Jaldhar H. Vyas on debian-devel +% +Packages should build-depend on what they should build-depend. + -- Santiago Vila on debian-devel +% +There are 3 types of guys -- the ones who hate nerds (all nerds, that +is; girls aren't let off the hook); the ones who are scared off by girls +who are slightly more intelligent than average; and the guys who are +also somewhat more intelligent than average, but are so shy that they +can't put 2 words together when they're within 20 feet of a girl. + -- Vikki Roemer on debian-curiosa +% +Debian is the Jedi operating system: "Always two there are, a master and +an apprentice". + -- Simon Richter on debian-devel +% +This is Unix we're talking about, remember. It's not supposed to be +nice for the applications programmer. + -- Matthew Danish on debian-devel +% +... but hey, this is Linux, isn't it meant to do infinite loops in 5 +seconds? + -- Jonathan Oxer in the apt-cacher ChangeLog +% +I'm personally quite happy with one stable release every two years, and +am of the opinion that trying to release more will mean we'll have to +rename the distro from "stable" to "wobbly". + -- Scott James Remnant on debian-devel +% +< Keybuk> Perl 6 scares me +< doogie> you can name your operators anything. the name here is the + string '~|_|~' +* Lo-lan-2 runs away screaming +< Keybuk> it looks like a diagram of a canal lock :) +< jaybonci> japanese smiley operators? +< nickr> ^_^ + -- in #debian-devel +% +< sam> /.ing an issue is like asking an infinite number of monkeys for + advice + -- in #debian-devel +% +< DanielS> still, throne of blood sounds like a movie about overfiend + and virgins or some crap + -- in #debian-devel +% +< jaybonci> actually d-i stands for "divine intervention" ;) + -- in #debian-devel +% +< doogie> asuffield: how do you think dpkg was originally written? :| +< asuffield> by letting iwj get dangerously near a computer + -- in #debian-devel +% +< asuffield> a workstation is anything you can stick on somebodies desk + and con them into using + -- in #debian-devel +% + joshk@influx:/etc/logrotate.d> sh -n * + apache: line 14: syntax error near unexpected token `}' + apache: line 14: `}' + the plot thickens + those aren't shell scripts + this wasn't chicken. + -- in #debian-devel +% +I was attacked by dselect as a small child and have since avoided +debian. + -- Andrew Morton +% +* joeyh installs debian using only his big toe, for a change of pace + -- in #debian-boot +% +* liiwi takes the whip and eyes pasc +< pasc> ohh!!! kinky! +< pasc> how convenient, I was just about to call in sick at work ;-) + -- in #debian-devel +% + Turns out that grep returns error code 1 when there are no matches. + I KNEW that. Why did it take me half an hour? + -- Seen on #Debian +% +It's simply unbelievable how much energy and creativity people have +invested into creating contradictory, bogus and stupid licenses... + -- - Sven Rudolph about licences in debian/non-free. +% + partycle: I seriously do need a vacation from this + package. I actually had a DREAM about introducing a + stupid new bug into xbase-preinst last night. That's a + Bad Sign. + -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0 +% + Looks like the channel is back to normal :) + You mean it's not scrolling faster than anyone can read? :) + -- Seen on #Debian after the release of Debian 2.0 +% +Just to expand on what Ross said, it is undoubtedly too much to expect +of any distribution that it automatically detect whether or not the +person installing it can read simple English directions, and if he +can't, proceed without his input. That way lies madness. + -- Shawn McMahon on debian-curiosa@l.d.o +% + dackel: in general the *only* way to use a computer program + is to execute it. have you *ever* known a system utility whose + documentation recommended either deleting it, or throwing it + at a farm animal? + zedboy: Ummm... yes + dackel: install the manpages package. it should be there + already tho. + dackel: example of such a bovine utility? +* greycat wants a video of dackel throwing /usr/bin/file at a cow +% + Joy: thanks, joy + elmo: that's redundant, elmo + doogie: go play in traffic + ah, the elmo we know and love +% + joy/elmo: why can't the same ip be used? was this fire so + great that it burned the ip address? +% + Nothing says "I enjoy living with you" like the gift of + 3rd degree burns... + except, of course, turning his bed into a trebuchet. + That much effort must mean some sort of affection. +% + Anyone here knowledgable in matters of water fowl? If you + walk through a park, and a goose starts following you... and + ends up following you more than half a mile until you reach + your car... at 11pm. Is the goose rabid or something? +% + the problem with the 'go find a real girl' admonition is + that so few of them actually have naked transformation + sequences + Dude, my girlfriend changes like four times a day +% + If Unicron had a tech spec card, his motto would be "That + which does not become part of the One shall become Void." + which is sort of a grand-scale, apocalyptic version of "I + am what I eat." :) +% + udp - universal dropping of an pigeon +% + I've always wanted to have a web site with a big picture of a carrot on +it +% + Bdale is a contraction of Barksdale. + Hm. It's definItely not something I'll ever remember. + Mind if I call you Wensleydale instead? +% + and those that say: fibre cables have a minimum bend radius and + pull tension? bah! *yank* + IT'S FIBER YOU FREAKS :P + culus, you hoser, it's fibre. am I gonna have to come over the + mountains and give you a wedgie? +% + Joy: Lets fork cat! :) + Joy: imagine a big pitchfork and a dead kitten on top of + it.. with blood running down.. +% + Damnit. I've got a month to write a paper. This involves + actually writing the chunks of code I'm going to be talking + about. + find a bunch of students and give it to them as an exercise + asuffield: I'm surrounded by a bunch of students. Last time I + let them touch code, I came back and found they'd rewritten + all the C++ code in C and all the C code in C++ + mwahaha + AND BROKE THE BUILD +% + what I like about Manoj is his desire for simple and small + solutions. like EMACS. or dvt. + well, dvt was _supposed_ to be simple + it only took 2 weeks to write + Manoj: It requires a *diagram* to explain what each part does. +% + ok, I will not marry Jo-Con-El's cow. +% + penis jokes are okay in mixed company. VMS is NOT!!! +% + ltd: Fine, go through life just pointing and grunting at + what you mean. Works for Mac users. +% +revision 1.17.2.7 +date: 2001/05/31 21:32:44; author: branden; state: Exp; lines: +1 -1 +ARRRRGH!! GOT THE G** D*** SENSE OF A F******* TEST BACKWARDS! +% + Overfiend's First Law of Package Quality: If the + maintainer likes to spell part or all of his name in + CAPS, the package will suck. +% + Intel. Bringing you the cutting-edge technology of 1979 + for 22 years now. +% + the key to proper French pronunciation is to pull the + corners of your mouth down as far as they can possibly go, + and then groan like you're constipated + you'll really nail the vowel sounds that way +% +<-- Overfiend has quit ("venturing forth to destroy strange new + worlds, and eat life and new civilizations") +% + the kind of landscape that laughs at "AWD" vehicles and + sends them tumbling into ravines +% + Joy: Hey, I'm an asshole. Assholes emit odious gas. + That's what we do. +% + as aj would say, waiting always works + either what you want happens, or you die and cannot be + perturbed anymore + the trouble with this philosophy is that aj sincerely + believes it +% +* doogie is turning into manoj + doogie: eventually, we all turn into Manoj + Manoj is Debian's iron + ultimately, we all decay to Manoj +% + but look at the French. You could spell every word in + their language phonetically using only about 6 letters + 4 consonants and 2 vowels + c, f, r, l. And the vowels? Well, one is the sound you + make when you have constipation; the other when you have + diarrhea + what do you expect from that diet of snails and frogs? +% +X-Manoj-Position-Advisory: Please note that Manoj Srivastava likely doubts + any facts posited and opposes any conclusions reached in this message. + + -- Seen in the headers of a mail from Branden Robinson +% + home is where the highest bandwidth is +% + no more perl ... it's depressing ... + i think perl and i need some time from each other + we made beautiful music together about a year ago ... + but times have change, we changed .. +% + I can usually supress the feelings that tell me to crash + tackle a girl into the bushes +% + bwah, vodka in my mouse +% + in a stunning new move I actually tested this upload +% + 3990 N Apr 15 Cute Girlfriend ( 45) Erotic Amateur Girlfriends + I wasn't aware you had professional girlfriends as well +% +However, my enthusiasm for the modular tree is tempered by some parts of +it not existing. + -- Daniel Stone on debian-{x,devel}, commenting on the + future of X +% +Does she think we just want to sit around painting debian swirls on our +toenails? + -- Erinn Clark, referring to the Debian-women project +% +modconf (0.2.37) stable unstable; urgency=medium + [...] + * Eduard Bloch: + - fixed Makefile broken Marcin Owsiany a while ago. The default manpage + has been overwritten with the polish translation. I still wonder why + nobody noticed this before. Closes: #117474 + [...] + -- Eduard Bloch Sun, 28 Oct 2001 12:53:27 +0100 +% +<|ryan|> I don't use deb + u poor man + netgod: heh + apt-get install task-p0rn +% +(It is an old Debian tradition to leave at least twice a year ...) + -- Sven Rudolph +% + gorgo: *lol* + joey: what's so funny? :) + shh, joey is losing all sanity from lack of sleep + 'yes joey, very funny' + Humor him :> + -- Seen on #Debian +% +* SynrG notes that the number of configuration questions to answer in sendmail + is NON-TRIVIAL + -- Seen on #Debian +% +* JHM wonders what Joey did to earn "I'd just like to say, for the record, + that Joey rules." + -- Seen on #Debian +% +Do people like check the Debian website every 5 minutes to check it hasn't +morphed into another one? Not that I'm one to talk, but some people seriously +need to get a life. + -- james on #Debian +% +* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the + splits in the first place... +* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress + -- Seen on #Debian +% + * In anticipation of 2.10.02 release, updated to patchlevel + +ircu2.10.01+.config6-7.config7-8.lgline3.iwho.limit.glibc.motdcache2. + trace.whois1-2.config8-9.statsw.sprintf2-3.msgtree2.memleak1-2+. + msgtree2-3.gline8-9.gline9-10.invite2.rbr.stats.numclients. + whisper.whisper1-2.stats1-2.nokick1-2.chroot.config9-11.snomask7-8. + limi+t1-3.userip1-3.userip3-4.config11-12.config12-13.umode2-3. + akillsbt.who4-5.kn.kn1-2.freebsdcore2.msgtree3-5.y2k.glibc1-2. + rmfunc.msgf+lags2.who5-6.nickchange2.glibc2-3.modeless3 + -- From the annoucement of ircd 2.10.01-3 for Debian GNU/Linux +% +* Joey should not write changelog entries at 5:30am + * DFSC Free cgi library + What's that? DFSC? + Debian Free Software mroooooCows + -- Seen on #Debian +% + abuse me. I'm so lame I sent a bug report to debian-devel-changes + -- Seen on #Debian +% + eat Depends: cook | eat-out. + But eat-out is non-free so that's out. + And cook Recommends: clean-pans. + -- Seen on #Debian +% +You will not censor me through bug terrorism. + -- James Troup +% + Thinking is dangerous. It leads to ideas. + -- Seen on #Debian +% + Are we going to make an emacs out of apt? + APT - Debian in a program. It even does your laundry + -- Seen on #Debian +% +Debian is like Suse with yast turned off, just better. :) + -- Goswin Brederlow +% +Charles Briscoe-Smith : + After all, the gzip package is called `gzip', not `libz-bin'... + +James Troup : + Uh, probably because the gzip binary doesn't come from the + non-existent libz package or the existent zlib package. + -- debian-bugs-dist +% + Lemme make sure I'm not wasting time here... bcwhite will remove + pkgs that havent been fixed that have outstanding bugs of severity + "important". True or false? + jim: "important" or higher. True. + Then we're about to lose ftp.debian.org and dpkg :) +* netgod will miss dpkg -- it was occasionally useful + We still have rpm.... + -- Seen on #Debian +% +Being overloaded is the sign of a true Debian maintainer. + -- JHM on #Debian +% +I am amazed that no-one's based a commercial distribution on Debian +yet - it is by far the most solid UNIX-like OS I've ever installed, +and I've played with HP/UX, Solaris, FreeBSD, BSDi, and SCO (not to +mention OS/2, Novell, Win95/NT) + -- Nathan E. Norman +% +> + +The branden dodges your magical sigh. The branden attacks you with a +slew of words! The branden misses! + + -- Henning Makholm in +% +I don't think 'It's better than hurling yourself into a meat grinder' +is a good rationale for doing something. + -- Andrew Suffield in + <20030905221055.GA22354@doc.ic.ac.uk> on debian-devel +% +< Overfiend> whew. +< Overfiend> I really need to get some sleep. +< Overfiend> but it sure was fun talking guitars, politics, and lesbians. +% +Whoever asked if the debian organization was dead isn't reading +debian-devel. 66 messages in one day, and it's not over. I find it +difficult to keep up. + -- Bruce Perens +% +< asuffield> fibre in the US is such a joke. in the civilized parts of + the world, DSL *starts* at the speeds where US fibre lets off +< joshk> asuffield: australia is a nation full of savages? +< asuffield> joshk: they've got about one 9600 modem between the whole + damn country + -- in #debian-devel +% +< nobse> bleh... last night I had a dream... someone NMU'ed vim... + nightmare + -- in #debian-devel +% diff --git a/fortunes/definitions b/fortunes/definitions new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4fcac3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/definitions @@ -0,0 +1,5667 @@ +17th Rule of Friendship: + A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of + life insurance coverage you did for half the price when yours is + noncancellable. + -- Esquire, May 1977 +% +186,282 miles per second: + It isn't just a good idea, it's the law! +% +18th Rule of Friendship: + A friend will let you hold the ladder while he goes up on the roof + to install your new aerial, which is the biggest son-of-a-bitch you + ever saw. + -- Esquire, May 1977 +% +2180, U.S. History question: + What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what + office did he later hold? +% +3rd Law of Computing: + Anything that can go wr +fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped +% +667: + The neighbor of the beast. +% +A hypothetical paradox: + What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security team, + who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial + Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet? + -- Tom Galloway +% +A Law of Computer Programming: + Make it possible for programmers to write in English + and you will find that programmers cannot write in English. +% +A musician, an artist, an architect: + the man or woman who is not one of these is not a Christian. + -- William Blake +% +A new koan: + If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. + If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. +It is an ice cream koan. +% +Abbott's Admonitions: + (1) If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know. + (2) If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question. + -- Charles Abbot, dean, University of Virginia +% +Absent, adj.: + Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. +% +Absentee, n.: + A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove + himself from the sphere of exaction. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Abstainer, n.: + A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a + pleasure. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Absurdity, n.: + A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Academy: + A modern school where football is taught. +Institute: + An archaic school where football is not taught. +% +Acceptance testing: + An unsuccessful attempt to find bugs. +% +Accident, n.: + A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of + body is better. + -- Foolish Dictionary +% +Accordion, n.: + A bagpipe with pleats. +% +Accuracy, n.: + The vice of being right +% +Acquaintance, n: + A person whom we know well enough to borrow from but not well + enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when the + object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +ADA: + Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in + Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop + an ADA awareness. + -- "Datamation", January 15, 1984 +% +Adler's Distinction: + Language is all that separates us from the lower animals, + and from the bureaucrats. +% +Admiration, n.: + Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Adore, v.: + To venerate expectantly. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Adult, n.: + One old enough to know better. +% +Advertising Rule: + In writing a patent-medicine advertisement, first convince the + reader that he has the disease he is reading about; secondly, + that it is curable. +% +Afternoon, n.: + That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. +% +Age, n.: + That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we + still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise + to commit. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Agnes' Law: + Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of. +% +Air Force Inertia Axiom: + Consistency is always easier to defend than correctness. +% +air, n.: + A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the + fattening of the poor. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Alaska: + A prelude to "No." +% +Albrecht's Law: + Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being. +% +Alden's Laws: + (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause + of pregnancy. + (2) Always be backlit. + (3) Sit down whenever possible. +% +algorithm, n.: + Trendy dance for hip programmers. +% +alimony, n: + Having an ex you can bank on. +% +All new: + Parts not interchangeable with previous model. +% +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" +% +Alone, adj.: + In bad company. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ambidextrous, adj.: + Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ambiguity: + Telling the truth when you don't mean to. +% +Ambition, n: + An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while + living and made ridiculous by friends when dead. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Amoebit: + Amoeba/rabbit cross; it can multiply and divide at the same time. +% +Andrea's Admonition: + Never bestow profanity upon a driver who has wronged you. + If you think his window is closed and he can't hear you, + it isn't and he can. +% +Androphobia: + Fear of men. +% +Anoint, v.: + To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently + slippery. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Anthony's Law of Force: + Don't force it; get a larger hammer. +% +Anthony's Law of the Workshop: + Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible + corner of the workshop. + +Corollary: + On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike + your toes. +% +Antonym, n.: + The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. +% +Aphasia: + Loss of speech in social scientists when asked + at parties, "But of what use is your research?" +% +aphorism, n.: + A concise, clever statement. +afterism, n.: + A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. + -- James Alexander Thom +% +Appendix: + A portion of a book, for which nobody yet has discovered any use. +% +Applause, n: + The echo of a platitude from the mouth of a fool. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +aquadextrous, adj.: + Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off + with your toes. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Arbitrary systems, pl.n.: + Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing + general can be said." +% +Arithmetic: + An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries. +% +Armadillo: + To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle. +% +Armor's Axiom: + Virtue is the failure to achieve vice. +% +Armstrong's Collection Law: + If the check is truly in the mail, + it is surely made out to someone else. +% +Arnold's Addendum: + Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats. +% +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. +% +Arthur's Laws of Love: + (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you + remind them of someone else. + (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be + delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of + yourself in person. +% +ASCII: + The control code for all beginning programmers and those who would + become computer literate. Etymologically, the term has come down as + a contraction of the often-repeated phrase "ascii and you shall + receive." + -- Robb Russon +% +Atlanta: + An entire city surrounded by an airport. +% +Auction: + A gyp off the old block. +% +audiophile, n: + Someone who listens to the equipment instead of the music. +% +Authentic: + Indubitably true, in somebody's opinion. +% +Automobile, n.: + A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. +% +Bachelor: + A guy who is footloose and fiancee-free. +% +Bachelor: + A man who chases women and never Mrs. one. +% +Backward conditioning: + Putting saliva in a dog's mouth in an attempt to make a bell ring. +% +Bagbiter: + 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually intermittently. 2. +adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This bagbiting system won't let me get +out of spacewar." Usage: verges on obscenity. Grammatically separable; one +may speak of "biting the bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, +BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS, CHOMPER, CHOMPING. +% +Bagdikian's Observation: + Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper + is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele. +% +Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: + A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by + governors. +% +Ballistophobia: + Fear of bullets; +Otophobia: + Fear of opening one's eyes. +Peccatophobia: + Fear of sinning. +Taphephobia: + Fear of being buried alive. +Sitophobia: + Fear of food. +Trichophobia: + Fear of hair. +Vestiphobia: + Fear of clothing. +% +Banacek's Eighteenth Polish Proverb: + The hippo has no sting, but the wise man would rather be sat upon + by the bee. +% +Banectomy, n.: + The removal of bruises on a banana. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Barach's Rule: + An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician. +% +Barbara's Rules of Bitter Experience: + (1) When you empty a drawer for his clothes + and a shelf for his toiletries, the relationship ends. + (2) When you finally buy pretty stationary + to continue the correspondence, he stops writing. +% +Barker's Proof: + Proofreading is more effective after publication. +% +Barometer, n.: + An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we + are having. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Barth's Distinction: + There are two types of people: those who divide people into two + types, and those who don't. +% +Baruch's Observation: + If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. +% +Basic Definitions of Science: + If it's green or wiggles, it's biology. + If it stinks, it's chemistry. + If it doesn't work, it's physics. +% +BASIC, n.: + A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in + that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. +% +Bathquake, n.: + The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water + faucet is turned on to a certain point. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Battle, n.: + A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that + will not yield to the tongue. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Beauty, n.: + The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Beauty: + What's in your eye when you have a bee in your hand. +% +Begathon, n.: + A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money so + you won't have to watch commercials. +% +Beifeld's Principle: + The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive + young female increases by pyramidical progression when he + is already in the company of (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a + better-looking and richer male friend. + -- R. Beifeld +% +belief, n: + Something you do not believe. +% +Bennett's Laws of Horticulture: + (1) Houses are for people to live in. + (2) Gardens are for plants to live in. + (3) There is no such thing as a houseplant. +% +Benson's Dogma: + ASCII is our god, and Unix is his profit. +% +Bershere's Formula for Failure: + There are only two kinds of people who fail: those who + listen to nobody... and those who listen to everybody. +% +beta test, v: + To voluntarily entrust one's data, one's livelihood and one's + sanity to hardware or software intended to destroy all three. + In earlier days, virgins were often selected to beta test volcanos. +% +Bierman's Laws of Contracts: + (1) In any given document, you can't cover all the "what if's". + (2) Lawyers stay in business resolving all the unresolved "what if's". + (3) Every resolved "what if" creates two unresolved "what if's". +% +Bilbo's First Law: + You cannot count friends that are all packed up in barrels. +% +Binary, adj.: + Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes. +% +Bing's Rule: + Don't try to stem the tide -- move the beach. +% +Bipolar, adj.: + Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo, New York. +% +birth, n: + The first and direst of all disasters. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +bit, n: + A unit of measure applied to color. Twenty-four-bit color + refers to expensive $3 color as opposed to the cheaper 25 + cent, or two-bit, color that use to be available a few years ago. +% +Bizoos, n.: + The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up a basketball. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +blithwapping: + Using anything BUT a hammer to hammer a nail into the + wall, such as shoes, lamp bases, doorstops, etc. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Bloom's Seventh Law of Litigation: + The judge's jokes are always funny. +% +Blore's Razor: + Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier. +% +Blutarsky's Axiom: + Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason. +% +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. +% +Boob's Law: + You always find something in the last place you look. +% +Booker's Law: + An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction. +% +Bore, n.: + A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary. + -- Walter Winchell +% +Bore, n.: + A person who talks when you wish him to listen. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Boren's Laws: + (1) When in charge, ponder. + (2) When in trouble, delegate. + (3) When in doubt, mumble. +% +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." +% +Boucher's Observation: + He who blows his own horn always plays the music + several octaves higher than originally written. +% +Bower's Law: + Talent goes where the action is. +% +Bowie's Theorem: + If an experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment. +% +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. +% +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, 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" +% +brain-damaged, generalization of "Honeywell Brain Damage" (HBD), a +theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in +Multics, adj: + Obviously wrong; cretinous; demented. There is an implication + that the person responsible must have suffered brain damage, + because he/she should have known better. Calling something + brain-damaged is bad; it also implies it is unusable. +% +Bride, n.: + A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +briefcase, n: + A trial where the jury gets together and forms a lynching party. +% +broad-mindedness, n: + The result of flattening high-mindedness out. +% +Brogan's Constant: + People tend to congregate in the back of the church and the + front of the bus. +% +brokee, n: + Someone who buys stocks on the advice of a broker. +% +Brontosaurus Principle: + Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them + in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when + this occurs, they are an endangered species. + -- Thomas K. Connellan +% +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, n.: + An aspect of a computer program which exists because the + programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he + wrote the program. + +Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. + -- Ray Simard +% +bug, n: + A son of a glitch. +% +bug, n: + An elusive creature living in a program that makes it incorrect. + The activity of "debugging", or removing bugs from a program, ends + when people get tired of doing it, not when the bugs are removed. + -- "Datamation", January 15, 1984 +% +Bugs, pl. n.: + Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls. +% +Bumper sticker: + All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest + British manufacture. +% +Bunker's Admonition: + You cannot buy beer; you can only rent it. +% +Burbulation: + The obsessive act of opening and closing a refrigerator door in + an attempt to catch it before the automatic light comes on. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Bureau Termination, Law of: + When a government bureau is scheduled to be phased out, + the number of employees in that bureau will double within + 12 months after the decision is made. +% +bureaucracy, n: + A method for transforming energy into solid waste. +% +Bureaucrat, n.: + A person who cuts red tape sideways. + -- J. McCabe +% +bureaucrat, n: + A politician who has tenure. +% +Burke's Postulates: + Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about. + Don't create a problem for which you do not have the answer. +% +Burn's Hog Weighing Method: + (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse. + (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank. + (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly + balanced. + (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks. + -- Robert Burns +% +buzzword, n: + The fly in the ointment of computer literacy. +% +byob, v: + Believing Your Own Bull +% +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 +% +Cabbage, n.: + A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as + a man's head. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Cache: + A very expensive part of the memory system of a computer that no one + is supposed to know is there. +% +Cahn's Axiom: + When all else fails, read the instructions. +% +Campbell's Law: + Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter. +% +Canada Bill Jones's Motto: + It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. + +Canada Bill Jones's Supplement: + A Smith and Wesson beats four aces. +% +Canonical, adj.: + The usual or standard state or manner of something. A true story: +One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use +of jargon. Over his loud objections, we made a point of using jargon as +much as possible in his presence, and eventually it began to sink in. +Finally, in one conversation, he used the word "canonical" in jargon-like +fashion without thinking. + Steele: "Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!" + Stallman: "What did he say?" + Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way." +% +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. +% +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" +% +Carson's Consolation: + Nothing is ever a complete failure. + It can always be used as a bad example. +% +Carson's Observation on Footwear: + If the shoe fits, buy the other one too. +% +Carswell's Corollary: + Whenever man comes up with a better mousetrap, + nature invariably comes up with a better mouse. +% +Cat, n.: + Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer. +% +cerebral atrophy, n: + The phenomena which occurs as brain cells become weak and sick, and +impair the brain's performance. An abundance of these "bad" cells can cause +symptoms related to senility, apathy, depression, and overall poor academic +performance. A certain small number of brain cells will deteriorate due to +everday activity, but large amounts are weakened by intense mental effort +and the assimilation of difficult concepts. Many college students become +victims of this dread disorder due to poor habits such as overstudying. + +cerebral darwinism, n: + The theory that the effects of cerebral atrophy can be reversed +through the purging action of heavy alcohol consumption. Large amounts of +alcohol cause many brain cells to perish due to oxygen deprivation. Through +the process of natural selection, the weak and sick brain cells will die +first, leaving only the healthy cells. This wonderful process leaves the +imbiber with a healthier, more vibrant brain, and increases mental capacity. +Thus, the devastating effects of cerebral atrophy are reversed, and academic +performance actually increases beyond previous levels. +% +Chamberlain's Laws: + (1) The big guys always win. + (2) Everything tastes more or less like chicken. +% +character density, n.: + The number of very weird people in the office. +% +Charity, n.: + A thing that begins at home and usually stays there. +% +checkuary, n: + The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year's Day and ends + when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his checks. +% +Chef, n.: + Any cook who swears in French. +% +Cheit's Lament: + If you help a friend in need, he is sure to remember you-- + the next time he's in need. +% +Chemicals, n.: + Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. +% +Cheops' Law: + Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget. +% +Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #36: + Never ever ask the tough looking gentleman wearing El Rukn headgear + where he got his "pyramid powered pizza warmer". + -- Chicago Reader 3/27/81 +% +Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #84: + The CTA has complimentary pop-up timers available on request + for overheated passengers. When your timer pops up, the driver will + cheerfully baste you. + -- Chicago Reader 5/28/82 +% +Chicken Soup: + An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, + cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup + can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +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. +% +Christmas: + A day set apart by some as a time for turkey, presents, cranberry + salads, family get-togethers; for others, noted as having the best + response time of the entire year. +% +Churchill's Commentary on Man: + Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, + but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. +% +Cinemuck, n.: + The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which + covers the floors of movie theaters. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +clairvoyant, n.: + A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that + which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Clarke's Conclusion: + Never let your sense of morals interfere with doing the right thing. +% +Clay's Conclusion: + Creativity is great, but plagiarism is faster. +% +clone, n: + 1. An exact duplicate, as in "our product is a clone of their + product." 2. A shoddy, spurious copy, as in "their product + is a clone of our product." +% +Clovis' Consideration of an Atmospheric Anomaly: + The perversity of nature is nowhere better demonstrated + than by the fact that, when exposed to the same atmosphere, + bread becomes hard while crackers become soft. +% +COBOL: + An exercise in Artificial Inelegance. +% +COBOL: + Completely Over and Beyond reason Or Logic. +% +Cohen's Law: + There is no bottom to worse. +% +Cohn's Law: + The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less + time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend + all your time reporting on the nothing you are doing. +% +Cold, adj.: + When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own pockets. +% +Cole's Law: + Thinly sliced cabbage. +% +Collaboration, n.: + A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the + other fellow can spell. +% +College: + The fountains of knowledge, where everyone goes to drink. +% +Colvard's Logical Premises: + All probabilities are 50%. + Either a thing will happen or it won't. + +Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: + This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to. + +Grelb's Commentary: + Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. +% +Command, n.: + Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in + such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control. +% +comment: + A superfluous element of a source program included so the + programmer can remember what the hell it was he was doing + six months later. Only the weak-minded need them, according + to those who think they aren't. +% +Commitment, n.: + [The difference between involvement and] Commitment can be + illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was + involved, the pig was committed. +% +Committee Rules: + (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner. + (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this + stamps you as being wise. + (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the + others. + (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed. + (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you + popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for. +% +Committee, n.: + A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group + decide that nothing can be done. + -- Fred Allen +% +Commoner's three laws of ecology: + (1) No action is without side-effects. + (2) Nothing ever goes away. + (3) There is no free lunch. +% +Complex system: + One with real problems and imaginary profits. +% +Compliment, n.: + When you say something to another which everyone knows isn't true. +% +compuberty, n: + The uncomfortable period of emotional and hormonal changes a + computer experiences when the operating system is upgraded and + a sun4 is put online sharing files. +% +Computer science: + (1) A study akin to numerology and astrology, but lacking the + precision of the former and the success of the latter. + (2) The protracted value analysis of algorithms. + (3) The costly enumeration of the obvious. + (4) The boring art of coping with a large number of trivialities. + (5) Tautology harnessed in the service of Man at the speed of light. + (6) The Post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. +% +Computer, n.: + An electronic entity which performs sequences of useful steps in a + totally understandable, rigorously logical manner. If you believe + this, see me about a bridge I have for sale in Manhattan. +% +Concept, n.: + Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than + $25,000. +% +Conference, n.: + A special meeting in which the boss gathers subordinates to hear + what they have to say, so long as it doesn't conflict with what + he's already decided to do. +% +Confidant, confidante, n: + One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided to himself by C. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Confirmed bachelor: + A man who goes through life without a hitch. +% +Conjecture: All odd numbers are prime. + Mathematician's Proof: + 3 is prime. 5 is prime. 7 is prime. By induction, all + odd numbers are prime. + Physicist's Proof: + 3 is prime. 5 is prime. 7 is prime. 9 is experimental + error. 11 is prime. 13 is prime ... + Engineer's Proof: + 3 is prime. 5 is prime. 7 is prime. 9 is prime. + 11 is prime. 13 is prime ... + Computer Scientists's Proof: + 3 is prime. 3 is prime. 3 is prime. 3 is prime... +% +Connector Conspiracy, n: + [probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10, + none of whose connectors match anything else] The tendency of + manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) + to come up with new products which don't fit together with the old + stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive + interface devices. +% +Consent decree: + A document in which a hapless company consents never to commit + in the future whatever heinous violations of Federal law it + never admitted to in the first place. +% +Consultant, n.: + (1) Someone you pay to take the watch off your wrist and tell + you what time it is. (2) (For resume use) The working title + of anyone who doesn't currently hold a job. Motto: Have + Calculator, Will Travel. +% +Consultant, n.: + [From con "to defraud, dupe, swindle," or, possibly, French con + (vulgar) "a person of little merit" + sult elliptical form of + "insult."] A tipster disguised as an oracle, especially one who + has learned to decamp at high speed in spite of a large briefcase + and heavy wallet. +% +Consultant, n.: + An ordinary man a long way from home. +% +consultant, n.: + Someone who knowns 101 ways to make love, but can't get a date. +% +Consultant, n.: + Someone who'd rather climb a tree and tell a lie than stand on + the ground and tell the truth. +% +Consultation, n.: + Medical term meaning "to share the wealth." +% +Conversation, n.: + A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath + is called the listener. +% +Conway's Law: + In any organization there will always be one person who knows + what is going on. + + This person must be fired. +% +Copying machine, n.: + A device that shreds paper, flashes mysteriously coded messages, + and makes duplicates for everyone in the office who isn't + interested in reading them. +% +Coronation, n.: + The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible + signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Correspondence Corollary: + An experiment may be considered a success if no more than half + your data must be discarded to obtain correspondence with your theory. +% +Corry's Law: + Paper is always strongest at the perforations. +% +court, n.: + A place where they dispense with justice. + -- Arthur Train +% +Coward, n.: + One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Creditor, n.: + A man who has a better memory than a debtor. +% +Crenna's Law of Political Accountability: + If you are the first to know about something bad, you are going to be + held responsible for acting on it, regardless of your formal duties. +% +critic, n.: + A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries + to please him. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Croll's Query: + If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of? +% +Cropp's Law: + The amount of work done varies inversly with the time spent in the + office. +% +Cruickshank's Law of Committees: + If a committee is allowed to discuss a bad idea long enough, it + will inevitably decide to implement the idea simply because so + much work has already been done on it. +% +cursor address, n: + "Hello, cursor!" + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Cursor, n.: + One whose program will not run. + -- Robb Russon +% +curtation, n.: + The enforced compression of a string in the fixed-length field +environment. + The problem of fitting extremely variable-length strings such as names, +addresses, and item descriptions into fixed-length records is no trivial +matter. Neglect of the subtle art of curtation has probably alienated more +people than any other aspect of data processing. You order Mozart's "Don +Giovanni" from your record club, and they invoice you $24.95 for MOZ DONG. +The witless mapping of the sublime onto the ridiculous! Equally puzzling is +the curtation that produces the same eight characters, THE BEST, whether you +order "The Best of Wagner", "The Best of Schubert", or "The Best of the Turds". +Similarly, wine lovers buying from computerized wineries twirl their glasses, +check their delivery notes, and inform their friends, "A rather innocent, +possibly overtruncated CAB SAUV 69 TAL." The squeezing of fruit into 10 +columns has yielded such memorable obscenities as COX OR PIP. The examples +cited are real, and the curtational methodology which produced them is still +with us. + +MOZ DONG n. + Curtation of Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da +Ponte, as performed by the computerized billing ensemble of the Internat'l +Preview Society, Great Neck (sic), N.Y. + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Cutler Webster's Law: + There are two sides to every argument, unless a person + is personally involved, in which case there is only one. +% +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.: + Experienced. +% +Cynic, n.: + One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye. +% +Data, n.: + An accrual of straws on the backs of theories. +% +Data, n.: + Computerspeak for "information". Properly pronounced + the way Bostonians pronounce the word for a female child. +% +Davis' Law of Traffic Density: + The density of rush-hour traffic is directly proportional to + 1.5 times the amount of extra time you allow to arrive on time. +% +Davis's Dictum: + Problems that go away by themselves, come back by themselves. +% +Dawn, n.: + The time when men of reason go to bed. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Deadwood, n.: + Anyone in your company who is more senior than you are. +% +Death wish, n.: + The only wish that always comes true, whether or not one wishes it to. +% +Decision maker, n.: + The person in your office who was unable to form a task force + before the music stopped. +% +default, n.: + [Possibly from Black English "De fault wid dis system is you, + mon."] The vain attempt to avoid errors by inactivity. "Nothing will + come of nothing: speak again." -- King Lear. + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Default, n.: + The hardware's, of course. +% +Deja vu: + French., already seen; unoriginal; trite. + Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced + something actually being encountered for the first time. + Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced + something actually being encountered for the first time. +% +Deliberation, n.: + The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is + buttered on. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Dentist, n.: + A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls + coins out of one's pockets. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Denver, n.: + A smallish city located just below the `O' in Colorado. +% +design, v.: + What you regret not doing later on. +% +DeVries' Dilemma: + If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want + hits the paper. +% +Dibble's First Law of Sociology: + Some do, some don't. +% +Die, v.: + To stop sinning suddenly. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +Dinner suggestion #302 (Hacker's De-lite): + 1 tin imported Brisling sardines in tomato sauce + 1 pouch Chocolate Malt Carnation Instant Breakfast + 1 carton milk +% +diplomacy, n: + Lying in state. +% +Dirksen's Three Laws of Politics: + (1) Get elected. + (2) Get re-elected. + (3) Don't get mad, get even. + -- Sen. Everett Dirksen +% +disbar, n: + As distinguished from some other bar. +% +Distinctive, adj.: + A different color or shape than our competitors. +% +Distress, n.: + A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +divorce, n: + A change of wife. +% +Documentation: + Instructions translated from Swedish by Japanese for English + speaking persons. +% +double-blind experiment, n: + An experiment in which the chief researcher believes he is + fooling both the subject and the lab assistant. Often accompanied + by a strong belief in the tooth fairy. +% +Dow's Law: + In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, + the greater the confusion. +% +Drakenberg's Discovery: + If you can't seem to find your glasses, + it's probably because you don't have them on. +% +Drew's Law of Highway Biology: + The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front + of your eyes. +% +drug, n: + A substance that, injected into a rat, produces a scientific paper. +% +Ducharme's Precept: + Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment. + +Ducharme's Axiom: + If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize + yourself as part of the problem. +% +Duty, n: + What one expects from others. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Eagleson's Law: + Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more + months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson + is an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.) +% +economics, n.: + Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K. Galbraith. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Economies of scale: + The notion that bigger is better. In particular, that if you want + a certain amount of computer power, it is much better to buy one + biggie than a bunch of smallies. Accepted as an article of faith + by people who love big machines and all that complexity. Rejected + as an article of faith by those who love small machines and all + those limitations. +% +economist, n: + Someone who's good with figures, but doesn't have enough + personality to become an accountant. +% +Egotism, n: + Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen. + +Egotist, n: + A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ehrman's Commentary: + (1) Things will get worse before they get better. + (2) Who said things would get better? +% +Elbonics, n.: + The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie + theatre. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Electrocution, n.: + Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. +% +Elephant, n.: + A mouse built to government specifications. +% +Eleventh Law of Acoustics: + In a minimum-phase system there is an inextricable link between + frequency response, phase response and transient response, as they + are all merely transforms of one another. This combined with + minimalization of open-loop errors in output amplifiers and correct + compensation for non-linear passive crossover network loading can + lead to a significant decrease in system resolution lost. However, + of course, this all means jack when you listen to Pink Floyd. +% +Emacs, n.: + A slow-moving parody of a text editor. +% +Emerson's Law of Contrariness: + Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we + can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. +% +Encyclopedia Salesmen: + Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police + and tell them your house is being burgled. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Endless Loop, n.: + see Loop, Endless. +Loop, Endless, n.: + see Endless Loop. + -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary +% +Engram, n.: + 1. The physical manifestation of human memory -- "the engram." +2. A particular memory in physical form. [Usage note: this term is no longer +in common use. Prior to Wilson and Magruder's historic discovery, the nature +of the engram was a topic of intense speculation among neuroscientists, +psychologists, and even computer scientists. In 1994 Professors M. R. Wilson +and W. V. Magruder, both of Mount St. Coax University in Palo Alto, proved +conclusively that the mammalian brain is hardwired to interpret a set of +thirty seven genetically transmitted cooperating TECO macros. Human memory +was shown to reside in 1 million Q-registers as Huffman coded uppercase-only +ASCII strings. Interest in the engram has declined substantially since that +time.] + -- New Century Unabridged English Dictionary, + 3rd edition, 2007 A.D. +% +enhance, v.: + To tamper with an image, usually to its detriment. +% +Entreprenuer, n.: + A high-rolling risk taker who would rather + be a spectacular failure than a dismal success. +% +Envy, n.: + Wishing you'd been born with an unfair advantage, + instead of having to try and acquire one. +% +Epperson's law: + When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably + something his wife can beat him at. +% +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 +% +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 lemma ["All horses are the same color"], +that does not exist. +% +Every program has (at least) two purposes: + the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't. +% +Expense Accounts, n.: + Corporate food stamps. +% +Experience, n.: + Something you don't get until just after you need it. + -- Olivier +% +Expert, n.: + Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides. +% +Extract from Official Sweepstakes Rules: + + NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE + +To claim your prize without purchase, do the following: (a) Carefully +cut out your computer-printed name and address from upper right hand +corner of the Prize Claim Form. (b) Affix computer-printed name and +address -- with glue or cellophane tape (no staples or paper clips) -- +to a 3x5 inch index card. (c) Also cut out the "No" paragraph (lower +left hand corner of Prize Claim Form) and affix it to the 3x5 card +below your address label. (d) Then print on your 3x5 card, above your +computer-printed name and address the words "CARTER & VAN PEEL +SWEEPSTAKES" (Use all capital letters.) (e) Finally place 3x5 card +(without bending) into a plain envelope [NOTE: do NOT use the +Official Prize Claim and CVP Perfume Reply Envelope or you may be +disqualified], and mail to: CVP, Box 1320, Westbury, NY 11595. Print +this address correctly. Comply with above instructions carefully and +completely or you may be disqualified from receiving your prize. +% +Fairy Tale, n.: + A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers. +% +Fakir, n: + A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost + religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources + seem to have shinnied up a rope and vanished. +% +falsie salesman, n: + Fuller bust man. +% +Famous last words: +% +Famous last words: + (1) "Don't worry, I can handle it." + (2) "You and what army?" + (3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be + a cop." +% +Famous last words: + (1) Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix. + (2) Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there. + (3) What happens if you touch these two wires tog-- + (4) We won't need reservations. + (5) It's always sunny there this time of the year. + (6) Don't worry, it's not loaded. + (7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager. + (8) Don't worry! Women love it! +% +Famous quotations: + " " + -- Charlie Chaplin + + " " + -- Harpo Marx + + " " + -- Marcel Marceau +% +Famous, adj.: + Conspicuously miserable. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +feature, n: + A surprising property of a program. Occasionaly documented. To + call a property a feature sometimes means the author did not + consider that case, and the program makes an unexpected, though + not necessarily wrong response. See BUG. "That's not a bug, it's + a feature!" A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it. +% +fenderberg, n.: + The large glacial deposits that form on the insides + of car fenders during snowstorms. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Ferguson's Precept: + A crisis is when you can't say "let's forget the whole thing." +% +Fidelity, n.: + A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. +% +Fifth Law of Applied Terror: + If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book. + +Corollary: + If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live. +% +Fifth Law of Procrastination: + Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that + there is nothing important to do. +% +File cabinet: + A four drawer, manually activated trash compactor. +% +filibuster, n.: + Throwing your wait around. +% +Finagle's Creed: + Science is true. Don't be misled by facts. +% +Finagle's Eighth Law: + If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. + +Finagle's Ninth Law: + No matter what results are expected, someone is always willing to + fake it. + +Finagle's Tenth Law: + No matter what the result someone is always eager to misinterpret it. + +Finagle's Eleventh Law: + No matter what occurs, someone believes it happened according to + his pet theory. +% +Finagle's First Law: + If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. +% +Finagle's First Law: + To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start. + +Finagle's Second Law: + Always keep a record of data -- it indicates you've been working. + +Finagle's Fourth Law: + Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes + it worse. + +Finagle's Fifth Law: + Always draw your curves, then plot your readings. + +Finagle's Sixth Law: + Don't believe in miracles -- rely on them. +% +Finagle's Second Law: + No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be + someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it + happened according to his own pet theory. +% +Finagle's Seventh Law: + The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. +% +Finagle's Third Law: + In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, + beyond all need of checking, is the mistake + +Corollaries: + (1) Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. + (2) The first person who stops by, whose advice you really + don't want to hear, will see it immediately. +% +Fine's Corollary: + Functionality breeds Contempt. +% +Finster's Law: + A closed mouth gathers no feet. +% +First Law of Bicycling: + No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind. +% +First law of debate: + Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference. +% +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). + +Fifth Law of Procrastination: + Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that + there is nothing important to do. +% +First Law of Socio-Genetics: + Celibacy is not hereditary. +% +First Rule of History: + History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other. +% +Fishbowl, n.: + A glass-enclosed isolation cell where newly promoted managers are + kept for observation. +% +Five rules for eternal misery: + (1) Always try to exhort others to look upon you favorably. + (2) Make lots of assumptions about situations and be sure to + treat these assumptions as though they are reality. + (3) Then treat each new situation as though it's a crisis. + (4) Live in the past and future only (become obsessed with + how much better things might have been or how much worse + things might become). + (5) Occasionally stomp on yourself for being so stupid as to + follow the first four rules. +% +flannister, n.: + The plastic yoke that holds a six-pack of beer together. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +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. +% +flowchart, n. & v.: + [From flow "to ripple down in rich profusion, as hair" + chart +"a cryptic hidden-treasure map designed to mislead the uninitiated."] +1. n. The solution, if any, to a class of Mascheroni construction +problems in which given algorithms require geometrical representation +using only the 35 basic ideograms of the ANSI template. 2. n. Neronic +doodling while the system burns. 3. n. A low-cost substitute for +wallpaper. 4. n. The innumerate misleading the illiterate. "A +thousand pictures is worth ten lines of code." -- The Programmer's +Little Red Vade Mecum, Mao Tse T'umps. 5. v.intrans. To produce +flowcharts with no particular object in mind. 6. v.trans. To obfuscate +(a problem) with esoteric cartoons. + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Flugg's Law: + When you need to knock on wood is when you realize + that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum. +% +Fog Lamps, n.: + Excessively (often obnoxiously) bright lamps mounted on the fronts + of automobiles; used on dry, clear nights to indicate that the + driver's brain is in a fog. See also "Idiot Lights". +% +Foolproof Operation: + No provision for adjustment. +% +Forecast, n.: + A prediction of the future, based on the past, for + which the forecaster demands payment in the present. +% +Forgetfulness, n.: + A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for + their destitution of conscience. +% +FORTUNE EXPLAINS WHAT JOB REVIEW CATCH PHRASES MEAN: #1 +skilled oral communicator: + Mumbles inaudibly when attempting to speak. Talks to self. + Argues with self. Loses these arguments. + +skilled written communicator: + Scribbles well. Memos are invariable illegible, except for + the portions that attribute recent failures to someone else. + +growth potential: + With proper guidance, periodic counselling, and remedial training, + the reviewee may, given enough time and close supervision, meet + the minimum requirements expected of him by the company. + +key company figure: + Serves as the perfect counter example. +% +FORTUNE EXPLAINS WHAT JOB REVIEW CATCH PHRASES MEAN: #4 +consistent: + Reviewee hasn't gotten anything right yet, and it is anticipated + that this pattern will continue throughout the coming year. + +an excellent sounding board: + Present reviewee with any number of alternatives, and implement + them in the order precisely opposite of his/her specification. + +a planner and organizer: + Usually manages to put on socks before shoes. Can match the + animal tags on his clothing. +% +FORTUNE EXPLAINS WHAT JOB REVIEW CATCH PHRASES MEAN: #9 +has management potential: + Because of his intimate relationship with inanimate objects, the + reviewee has been appointed to the critical position of department + pencil monitor. + +inspirational: + A true inspiration to others. ("There, but for the grace of God, + go I.") + +adapts to stress: + Passes wind, water, or out depending upon the severity of the + situation. + +goal oriented: + Continually sets low goals for himself, and usually fails + to meet them. +% +Fortune's Rules for Memo Wars: #2 + +Given the incredible advances in sociocybernetics and telepsychology over +the last few years, we are now able to completely understand everything that +the author of an memo is trying to say. Thanks to modern developments +in electrocommunications like notes, vnews, and electricity, we have an +incredible level of interunderstanding the likes of which civilization has +never known. Thus, the possibility of your misinterpreting someone else's +memo is practically nil. Knowing this, anyone who accuses you of having +done so is a liar, and should be treated accordingly. If you *do* understand +the memo in question, but have absolutely nothing of substance to say, then +you have an excellent opportunity for a vicious ad hominem attack. In fact, +the only *inappropriate* times for an ad hominem attack are as follows: + + 1: When you agree completely with the author of an memo. + 2: When the author of the original memo is much bigger than you are. + 3: When replying to one of your own memos. +% +Fourth Law of Applied Terror: + The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology + instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria. + +Corollary: + Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except + study for that instructor's course. +% +Fourth Law of Revision: + It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about + interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you. +% +Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: + If the probability of success is not almost one, it is damn near zero. + -- David Ellis +% +Fresco's Discovery: + If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored. +% +Fried's 1st Rule: + Increased automation of clerical function + invariably results in increased operational costs. +% +Friends, n.: + People who borrow your books and set wet glasses on them. + + People who know you well, but like you anyway. +% +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. +% +Frobnitz, pl. Frobnitzem (frob'nitsm) n.: + An unspecified physical object, a widget. Also refers to electronic +black boxes. This rare form is usually abbreviated to FROTZ, or more +commonly to FROB. Also used are FROBNULE, FROBULE, and FROBNODULE. +Starting perhaps in 1979, FROBBOZ (fruh-bahz'), pl. FROBBOTZIM, has also +become very popular, largely due to its exposure via the Adventure spin-off +called Zork (Dungeon). These can also be applied to non-physical objects, +such as data structures. +% +Fuch's Warning: + If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well + enough to travel. +% +Fudd's First Law of Opposition: + Push something hard enough and it will fall over. +% +Fun experiments: + Get a can of shaving cream, throw it in a freezer for about a week. + Then take it out, peel the metal off and put it where you want... + bedroom, car, etc. As it thaws, it expands an unbelievable amount. +% +Fun Facts, #14: + In table tennis, whoever gets 21 points first wins. That's how + it once was in baseball -- whoever got 21 runs first won. +% +Fun Facts, #63: + The name California was given to the state by Spanish conquistadores. + It was the name of an imaginary island, a paradise on earth, in the + Spanish romance, "Les Serges de Esplandian", written by Montalvo in + 1510. +% +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" +% +Galbraith's Law of Human Nature: + Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that + there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof. +% +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" +% +genealogy, n.: + An account of one's descent from an ancestor + who did not particularly care to trace his own. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Genius, n.: + A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with "bright." +% +genius, n.: + Person clever enough to be born in the right place at the right + time of the right sex and to follow up this advantage by saying + all the right things to all the right people. +% +genlock, n.: + Why he stays in the bottle. +% +Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: + (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. + (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. + (3) The energy required to change either one of these states + will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so + much as to make the task totally impossible. +% +Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules. + +Corollary: + Following the rules will not get the job done. +% +Gilbert's Discovery: + Any attempt to use the new super glues results in the two pieces + sticking to your thumb and index finger rather than to each other. +% +Ginsberg's Theorem: + (1) You can't win. + (2) You can't break even. + (3) You can't even quit the game. + +Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem: + Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem + meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's + Theorem. To wit: + + (1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win. + (2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even. + (3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game. +% +Ginsburg's Law: + At the precise moment you take off your shoe in a shoe store, your + big toe will pop out of your sock to see what's going on. +% +gleemites, n.: + Petrified deposits of toothpaste found in sinks. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability: + Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the + probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting + some useful work done. +% +Gnagloot, n.: + A person who leaves all his ski passes on his jacket just to + impress people. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Goda's Truism: + By the time you get to the point where you can make ends meet, + somebody moves the ends. +% +Godwin's Law (prov. [Usenet]): + As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a + comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a + tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is + over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost + whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus guarantees + the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. +% +Gold's Law: + If the shoe fits, it's ugly. +% +Gold, n.: + A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It + is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich + men who immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, + although gold hasn't done anything to them. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Goldenstern's Rules: + (1) Always hire a rich attorney + (2) Never buy from a rich salesman. +% +Gomme's Laws: + (1) A backscratcher will always find new itches. + (2) Time accelerates. + (3) The weather at home improves as soon as you go away. +% +Gordon's first law: + If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well. +% +Gordon's Law: + If you think you have the solution, the question was poorly phrased. +% +gossip, n.: + Hearing something you like about someone you don't. + -- Earl Wilson +% +Goto, n.: + A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers + to complain about unstructured programmers. + -- Ray Simard +% +Government's Law: + There is an exception to all laws. +% +Grabel's Law: + 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2. +% +Grandpa Charnock's Law: + You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. + + [I thought it was when your kids learned to drive. Ed.] +% +grasshopotomaus: + A creature that can leap to tremendous heights... once. +% +Gravity: + What you get when you eat too much and too fast. +% +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 American Axiom: + Some is good, more is better, too much is just right. +% +Green's Law of Debate: + Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about. +% +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. +% +Griffin's Thought: + When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last. +% +Grinnell's Law of Labor Laxity: + At all times, for any task, you have not got enough done today. +% +Guillotine, n.: + A French chopping center. +% +Gumperson's Law: + The probability of a given event occurring is inversely + proportional to its desirability. +% +Gunter's Airborne Discoveries: + (1) When you are served a meal aboard an aircraft, + the aircraft will encounter turbulence. + (2) The strength of the turbulence + is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee. +% +gurmlish, n.: + The red warning flag at the top of a club sandwich which + prevents the person from biting into it and puncturing the roof + of his mouth. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +guru, n.: + A person in T-shirt and sandals who took an elevator ride with + a senior vice-president and is ultimately responsible for the + phone call you are about to receive from your boss. +% +guru, n: + A computer owner who can read the manual. +% +gyroscope, n.: + A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also + free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to + each other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the + two mutually perpendicular axes results from application of + torque to the other when the wheel is spinning and so that the + entire apparatus offers considerable opposition depending on + the angular momentum to any torque that would change the direction + of the axis of spin. + -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary +% +G. B. Shaw's Law: + Those who can -- do. + Those who can't -- teach. + +Martin's Extension: + Those who cannot teach -- administrate. +% +Hacker's Law: + The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir + a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions. +% +Hacker's Quicky #313: + Sour Cream -n- Onion Potato Chips + Microwave Egg Roll + Chocolate Milk +% +hacker, n.: + A master byter. +% +hacker, n.: + Originally, any person with a knack for coercing stubborn inanimate + things; hence, a person with a happy knack, later contracted by the + mythical philosopher Frisbee Frobenius to the common usage, 'hack'. + In olden times, upon completion of some particularly atrocious body + of coding that happened to work well, culpable programmers would gather + in a small circle around a first edition of Knuth's Best Volume I by + candlelight, and proceed to get very drunk while sporadically rending + the following ditty: + + Hacker's Fight Song + + He's a Hack! He's a Hack! + He's a guy with the happy knack! + Never bungles, never shirks, + Always gets his stuff to work! + +All take a drink (important!) +% +Hale Mail Rule, The: + When you are ready to reply to a letter, you will lack at least + one of the following: + (a) A pen or pencil or typewriter. + (b) Stationery. + (c) Postage stamp. + (d) The letter you are answering. +% +half-done, n.: + This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still crunchy, + light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference between this + and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the + difference between life and death. + + You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there + in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport, + fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall, + transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on + Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk + about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the + man, "Let me have a nice half-done." Worth the trouble, wasn't it? + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +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" +% +handshaking protocol, n: + A process employed by hostile hardware devices to initate a + terse but civil dialogue, which, in turn, is characterized by + occasional misunderstanding, sulking, and name-calling. +% +Hangover, n.: + The burden of proof. +% +hangover, n.: + The wrath of grapes. +% +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, n.: + An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +hard, adj.: + The quality of your own data; also how it is to believe those + of other people. +% +Hardware, n.: + The parts of a computer system that can be kicked. +% +Harriet's Dining Observation: + In every restaurant, the hardness of the butter pats + increases in direct proportion to the softness of the bread. +% +Harris's Lament: + All the good ones are taken. +% +Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: + Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined. +% +Harrison's Postulate: + For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. +% +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. +% +Hatred, n.: + A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Hawkeye's Conclusion: + It's not easy to play the clown when you've got to run the whole + circus. +% +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. +% +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. +% +Hempstone's Question: + If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class? +% +Herth's Law: + He who turns the other cheek too far gets it in the neck. +% +Hewett's Observation: + The rudeness of a bureaucrat is inversely proportional to his or + her position in the governmental hierarchy and to the number of + peers similarly engaged. +% +Hildebrant's Principle: + If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. +% +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" +% +History, n.: + Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we + learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from + what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view. + -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab" +% +Hitchcock's Staple Principle: + The stapler runs out of staples only while you are trying to + staple something. +% +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. +% +Hoffer's Discovery: + The grand act of a dying institution is to issue a newly + revised, enlarged edition of the policies and procedures manual. +% +Hofstadter's Law: + It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take + Hofstadter's Law into account. +% +Hollerith, v.: + What thou doest when thy phone is on the fritzeth. +% +honeymoon, n.: + A short period of doting between dating and debting. + -- Ray C. Bandy +% +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" +% +Horner's Five Thumb Postulate: + Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. +% +Horngren's Observation: + Among economists, the real world is often a special case. +% +Household hint: + If you are out of cream for your coffee, mayonnaise makes a + dandy substitute. +% +HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: + #1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces. +% +HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: + #15 Your pet rock snaps at you. +% +HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: + #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of you. +% +Howe's Law: + Everyone has a scheme that will not work. +% +Hubbard's Law: + Don't take life too seriously; you won't get out of it alive. +% +Hurewitz's Memory Principle: + The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional + to... to... uh..... +% +IBM Pollyanna Principle: + Machines should work. People should think. +% +IBM's original motto: + Cogito ergo vendo; vendo ergo sum. +% +IBM: + [International Business Machines Corp.] Also known as Itty Bitty + Machines or The Lawyer's Friend. The dominant force in computer + marketing, having supplied worldwide some 75% of all known hardware + and 10% of all software. To protect itself from the litigious envy + of less successful organizations, such as the US government, IBM + employs 68% of all known ex-Attorneys' General. +% +IBM: + I've Been Moved + Idiots Become Managers + Idiots Buy More + Impossible to Buy Machine + Incredibly Big Machine + Industry's Biggest Mistake + International Brotherhood of Mercenaries + It Boggles the Mind + It's Better Manually + Itty-Bitty Machines +% +IBM: + It may be slow, but it's hard to use. +% +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" +% +idleness, n.: + Leisure gone to seed. +% +ignisecond, n: + The overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car + door even as the brain is saying, "my keys are in there!" + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +ignorance, n.: + When you don't know anything, and someone else finds out. +% +Iles's Law: + There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directly + at the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it. + Neither will Iles. +% +Imbesi's Law with Freeman's Extension: + In order for something to become clean, something else must + become dirty; but you can get everything dirty without getting + anything clean. +% +Immutability, Three Rules of: + (1) If a tarpaulin can flap, it will. + (2) If a small boy can get dirty, he will. + (3) If a teenager can go out, he will. +% +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" +% +inbox, n.: + A catch basin for everything you don't want to deal with, but + are afraid to throw away. +% +incentive program, n.: + The system of long and short-term rewards that a corporation uses + to motivate its people. Still, despite all the experimentation with + profit sharing, stock options, and the like, the most effective + incentive program to date seems to be "Do a good job and you get to + keep it." +% +Incumbent, n.: + Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +index, n.: + Alphabetical list of words of no possible interest where an + alphabetical list of subjects with references ought to be. +% +Infancy, n.: + The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven lies + about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +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. +% +Information Processing: + What you call data processing when people are so disgusted with + it they won't let it be discussed in their presence. +% +Ingrate, n.: + A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of + indigestion. +% +ink, n.: + A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, + and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of + idiocy and promote intellectual crime. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +innovate, v.: + To annoy people. +% +insecurity, n.: + Finding out that you've mispronounced for years one of your + favorite words. + + Realizing halfway through a joke that you're telling it to + the person who told it to you. +% +interest, n.: + What borrowers pay, lenders receive, stockholders own, and + burned out employees must feign. +% +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" +% +intoxicated, adj.: + When you feel sophisticated without being able to pronounce it. +% +Iron Law of Distribution: + Them that has, gets. +% +ISO applications: + A solution in search of a problem! +% +Issawi's Laws of Progress: + The Course of Progress: + Most things get steadily worse. + The Path of Progress: + A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. +% +It is fruitless: + to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lactate fluid. + + to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with + innovative maneuvers. +% +"It's in process": + So wrapped up in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless. +% +italic, adj: + Slanted to the right to emphasize key phrases. Unique to + Western alphabets; in Eastern languages, the same phrases + are often slanted to the left. +% +Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government: + No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the + legislature is in session. +% +Jenkinson's Law: + It won't work. +% +Jim Nasium's Law: + In a large locker room with hundreds of lockers, the few people + using the facility at any one time will all have lockers next to + each other so that everybody is cramped. +% +job interview, n.: + The excruciating process during which personnel officers + separate the wheat from the chaff -- then hire the chaff. +% +job Placement, n.: + Telling your boss what he can do with your job. +% +jogger, n.: + An odd sort of person with a thing for pain. +% +Johnny Carson's Definition: + The smallest interval of time known to man is that which occurs + in Manhattan between the traffic signal turning green and the + taxi driver behind you blowing his horn. +% +Johnson's First Law: + When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the + most inconvenient possible time. +% +Johnson's law: + Systems resemble the organizations that create them. +% +Jones' First Law: + Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of + endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an + obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the + importance of their original contribution. +% +Jones' Motto: + Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. +% +Jones' Second Law: + The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone + to blame it on. +% +Juall's Law on Nice Guys: + Nice guys don't always finish last; sometimes they don't finish. + Sometimes they don't even get a chance to start! +% +Justice, n.: + A decision in your favor. +% +Kafka's Law: + In the fight between you and the world, back the world. + -- Franz Kafka, "RS's 1974 Expectation of Days" +% +Karlson's Theorem of Snack Food Packages: + For all P, where P is a package of snack food, P is a SINGLE-SERVING + package of snack food. + +Gibson the Cat's Corrolary: + For all L, where L is a package of lunch meat, L is Gibson's package + of lunch meat. +% +Katz' Law: + Men and nations will act rationally when + all other possibilities have been exhausted. + +History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have +exhausted all other alternatives. + -- Abba Eban +% +Kaufman's First Law of Party Physics: + Population density is inversely proportional + to the square of the distance from the keg. +% +Kaufman's Law: + A policy is a restrictive document to prevent a recurrence + of a single incident, in which that incident is never mentioned. +% +Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee: + (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc + straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this + force is technically termed "car suck"). + (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive + than "Watch this!" + (3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly + proportional to the cost of hitting it. For instance, a + Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or + a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy. + (4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the + cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the + Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you + in the head and knock you silly. +% +Kennedy's Market Theorem: + Given enough inside information and unlimited credit, + you've got to go broke. +% +Kent's Heuristic: + Look for it first where you'd most like to find it. +% +kern, v.: + 1. To pack type together as tightly as the kernels on an ear + of corn. 2. In parts of Brooklyn and Queens, N.Y., a small, + metal object used as part of the monetary system. +% +kernel, n.: + A part of an operating system that preserves the medieval + traditions of sorcery and black art. +% +Kettering's Observation: + Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence. +% +Kime's Law for the Reward of Meekness: + Turning the other cheek merely ensures two bruised cheeks. +% +Kin, n.: + An affliction of the blood. +% +Kington's Law of Perforation: + If a straight line of holes is made in a piece of paper, such + as a sheet of stamps or a check, that line becomes the strongest + part of the paper. +% +Kinkler's First Law: + Responsibility always exceeds authority. + +Kinkler's Second Law: + All the easy problems have been solved. +% +Kliban's First Law of Dining: + Never eat anything bigger than your head. +% +Kludge, n.: + An ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a + distressing whole. + -- Jackson Granholm, "Datamation" +% +Knebel's Law: + It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the leading + causes of statistics. +% +knowledge, n.: + Things you believe. +% +Kramer's Law: + You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks. +% +Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr): + The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Labor, n.: + One of the processes by which A acquires property for B. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Lackland's Laws: + (1) Never be first. + (2) Never be last. + (3) Never volunteer for anything +% +Lactomangulation, n.: + Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly + that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Langsam's Laws: + (1) Everything depends. + (2) Nothing is always. + (3) Everything is sometimes. +% +Larkinson's Law: + All laws are basically false. +% +laser, n.: + Failed death ray. +% +Laura's Law: + No child throws up in the bathroom. +% +Law of Communications: + The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications + between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased + area of misunderstanding. +% +Law of Continuity: + Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail the same way. +% +Law of Procrastination: + Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has + the feeling that there is nothing important to do. +% +Law of Selective Gravity: + An object will fall so as to do the most damage. + +Jenning's Corollary: + The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side + down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. + +Law of the Perversity of Nature: + You cannot determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. +% +Law of the Jungle: + He who hesitates is lunch. +% +Laws of Computer Programming: + (1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. + (2) Any given program costs more and takes longer. + (3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. + (4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. + (5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. + (6) The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. + (7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of + the programmer who must maintain it. +% +Laws of Serendipity: + (1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something. + (2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already + be engaged in making an inferior one. +% +lawsuit, n.: + A machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Lawyer's Rule: + When the law is against you, argue the facts. + When the facts are against you, argue the law. + When both are against you, call the other lawyer names. +% +Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: + No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- + approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. +% +learning curve, n.: + An astonishing new theory, discovered by management consultants + in the 1970's, asserting that the more you do something the + quicker you can do it. +% +Lee's Law: + Mother said there would be days like this, + but she never said that there'd be so many! +% +Leibowitz's Rule: + When hammering a nail, you will never hit your + finger if you hold the hammer with both hands. +% +Lemma: All horses are the same color. +Proof (by induction): + Case n = 1: In a set with only one horse, it is obvious that all + horses in that set are the same color. + Case n = k: Suppose you have a set of k+1 horses. Pull one of these + horses out of the set, so that you have k horses. Suppose that all + of these horses are the same color. Now put back the horse that you + took out, and pull out a different one. Suppose that all of the k + horses now in the set are the same color. Then the set of k+1 horses + are all the same color. We have k true => k+1 true; therefore all + horses are the same color. +Theorem: All horses have an infinite number of legs. +Proof (by intimidation): + Everyone would agree that all horses have an even number of legs. It + is also well-known that horses have forelegs in front and two legs in + back. 4 + 2 = 6 legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a + horse to have! Now the only number that is both even and odd is + infinity; therefore all horses have an infinite number of legs. + However, suppose that there is a horse somewhere that does not have an + infinite number of legs. Well, that would be a horse of a different + color; and by the Lemma, it doesn't exist. +% +leverage, n.: + Even if someone doesn't care what the world thinks + about them, they always hope their mother doesn't find out. +% +Lewis's Law of Travel: + The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, + ever. +% +Liar, n.: + A lawyer with a roving commission. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Liar: + one who tells an unpleasant truth. + -- Oliver Herford +% +Lie, n.: + A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one + discovered to date. +% +Lieberman's Law: + Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. +% +life, n.: + A whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. +% +life, n.: + Learning about people the hard way -- by being one. +% +life, n.: + That brief interlude between nothingness and eternity. +% +lighthouse, n.: + A tall building on the seashore in which the government + maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician. +% +like: + When being alive at the same time is a wonderful coincidence. +% +Linus' Law: + There is no heavier burden than a great potential. +% +lisp, v.: + To call a spade a thpade. +% +Lockwood's Long Shot: + The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street + aren't one in a million, but once would be enough. +% +love, n.: + Love ties in a knot in the end of the rope. +% +love, n.: + When it's growing, you don't mind watering it with a few tears. +% +love, n.: + When you don't want someone too close--because you're very sensitive + to pleasure. +% +love, n.: + When you like to think of someone on days that begin with a morning. +% +love, n.: + When, if asked to choose between your lover + and happiness, you'd skip happiness in a heartbeat. +% +love, v.: + I'll let you play with my life if you'll let me play with yours. +% +Lowery's Law: + If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. +% +Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: + There's always one more bug. +% +Lunatic Asylum, n.: + The place where optimism most flourishes. +% +Machine-Independent, adj.: + Does not run on any existing machine. +% +Mad, adj.: + Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ... + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Madison's Inquiry: + If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class? +% +MAFIA, n: + [Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced Insurance +Accounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshore +subsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS. MAFIA documentation is +rather scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testy +reluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DP +operations. From the little that has seeped out, it would appear that +MAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lipped +variant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complex +security functions. The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to a +more than usually autocratic operating system. Screen prompts carry an +imperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YES +options, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay. +Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using a +powerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, and +entire nodal aggravations. + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Magary's Principle: + When there is a public outcry to cut deadwood and fat from any + government bureaucracy, it is the deadwood and the fat that do + the cutting, and the public's services are cut. +% +Magnet, n.: + Something acted upon by magnetism. + +Magnetism, n.: + Something acting upon a magnet. + +The two definition immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of +one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with +a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Magnocartic, adj.: + Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping carts. + -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" +% +Magpie, n.: + A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it + might be taught to talk. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Maier's Law: + If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. + -- N. R. Maier, "American Psychologist", March 1960 + +Corollaries: + (1) The bigger the theory, the better. + (2) The experiment may be considered a success if no more than + 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to + obtain a correspondence with the theory. +% +Main's Law: + For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. +% +Maintainer's Motto: + If we can't fix it, it ain't broke. +% +Major premise: + Sixty men can do sixty times as much work as one man. +Minor premise: + A man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds. +Conclusion: + Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" + +Secondary Conclusion: + Do you realize how many holes there would be if people + would just take the time to take the dirt out of them? +% +Majority, n.: + That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law. +% +Male, n.: + A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the + human race is commonly known to the female as Mere Man. The genus + has two varieties: good providers and bad providers. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Malek's Law: + Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way. +% +malpractice, n.: + The reason surgeons wear masks. +% +management, n.: + The art of getting other people to do all the work. +% +manic-depressive, adj.: + Easy glum, easy glow. +% +Manly's Maxim: + Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion + with confidence. +% +manual, n.: + A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given + item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information + you need is in the others. + -- Ray Simard +% +Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery: + Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a + simple yes or no answer. +% +marriage, n.: + An old, established institution, entered into by two people deeply + in love and desiring to make a commitment to each other expressing + that love. In short, commitment to an institution. +% +marriage, n.: + Convertible bonds. +% +Marriage, n.: + The evil aye. +% +Marxist Law of Distribution of Wealth: + Shortages will be divided equally among the peasants. +% +Maryann's Law: + You can always find what you're not looking for. +% +Maslow's Maxim: + If the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like + a nail. +% +Mason's First Law of Synergism: + The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut. +% +mathematician, n.: + Some one who believes imaginary things appear right before your _i's. +% +Matz's Law: + A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking. +% +May's Law: + The quality of correlation is inversly proportional to the density + of control. (The fewer the data points, the smoother the curves.) +% +McEwan's Rule of Relative Importance: + When traveling with a herd of elephants, don't be the first to + lie down and rest. +% +McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: + If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95. +% +Meade's Maxim: + Always remember that you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else. +% +Meader's Law: + Whatever happens to you, it will previously + have happened to everyone you know, only more so. +% +meeting, n.: + An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or + department not represented in the room must solve a problem. +% +meetings, n.: + A place where minutes are kept and hours are lost. +% +memo, n.: + An interoffice communication too often written more for the benefit + of the person who sends it than the person who receives it. +% +Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: + The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. +% +Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: + The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the + cork makes when it is popped. +% +Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: + All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. +% +Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: + Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent which + is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can + ever hope to acquire it. +% +Menu, n.: + A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of. +% +Meskimen's Law: + There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to + do it over. +% +meteorologist, n.: + One who doubts the established fact that it is + bound to rain if you forget your umbrella. +% +methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutamin- +ylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolyl- +phenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglu- +taminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanyl- +glycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylala- +nylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylgluta- +minylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylgly- +cylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionyl- +leucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleu- +cylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylva- +lylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyro- +sylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleu- +cylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphe- +nylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylala- +nylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylas- +partylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosyl- +glycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycyl- +valylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleu- +cylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagi- +nylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylse- +rylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl- +glycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalylly- +sylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpro- +lylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalyl- +glutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine, n.: + The chemical name for tryptophan synthetase A protein, a + 1,913-letter enzyme with 267 amino acids. + -- Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and + Preposterous Words +% +Micro Credo: + Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift. +% +micro: + Thinker toys. +% +Miksch's Law: + If a string has one end, then it has another end. +% +Miller's Slogan: + Lose a few, lose a few. +% +millihelen, n.: + The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. +% +Minicomputer: + A computer that can be afforded on the budget of a middle-level manager. +% +MIPS: + Meaningless Indicator of Processor Speed +% +Misfortune, n.: + The kind of fortune that never misses. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +MIT: + The Georgia Tech of the North +% +Mitchell's Law of Committees: + Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are + held to discuss it. +% +mittsquinter, adj.: + A ballplayer who looks into his glove after missing the ball, as + if, somehow, the cause of the error lies there. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Mix's Law: + There is nothing more permanent than a temporary building. + There is nothing more permanent than a temporary tax. +% +mixed emotions: + Watching a bus-load of lawyers plunge off a cliff. + With five empty seats. +% +mixed emotions: + Watching your mother-in-law back off a cliff... + in your brand new Mercedes. +% +modem, adj.: + Up-to-date, new-fangled, as in "Thoroughly Modem Millie." An + unfortunate byproduct of kerning. + + [That's sic!] +% +modesty, n.: + Being comfortable that others will discover your greatness. +% +Modesty: + The gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be + aware of it. + -- Oliver Herford +% +Molecule, n.: + The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished + from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a + closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of + matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the + atom in that it is an ion ... + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: + If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented + it wasn't worth doing. +% +momentum, n.: + What you give a person when they are going away. +% +Moon, n.: + 1. A celestial object whose phase is very important to hackers. See + PHASE OF THE MOON. 2. Dave Moon (MOON@MC). +% +Moore's Constant: + Everybody sets out to do something, and everybody + does something, but no one does what he sets out to do. +% +mophobia, n.: + Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian. +% +Morton's Law: + If rats are experimented upon, they will develop cancer. +% +Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: + Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd + be out of a job. +% +Mr. Cole's Axiom: + The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the + population is growing. +% +mummy, n.: + An Egyptian who was pressed for time. +% +Murphy's Law of Research: + Enough research will tend to support your theory. +% +Murphy's Laws: + (1) If anything can go wrong, it will. + (2) Nothing is as easy as it looks. + (3) Everything takes longer than you think it will. +% +Murray's Rule: + Any country with "democratic" in the title isn't. +% +Mustgo, n.: + Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so + long it has become a science project. + -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" +% +My father taught me three things: + (1) Never mix whiskey with anything but water. + (2) Never try to draw to an inside straight. + (3) Never discuss business with anyone who refuses to give his name. +% +Nachman's Rule: + When it comes to foreign food, the less authentic the better. + -- Gerald Nachman +% +narcolepulacyi, n.: + The contagious action of yawning, causing everyone in sight + to also yawn. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +nerd pack, n.: + Plastic pouch worn in breast pocket to keep pens from soiling + clothes. Nerd's position in engineering hierarchy can be measured + by number of pens, grease pencils, and rulers bristling in his pack. +% +neutron bomb, n.: + An explosive device of limited military value because, as + it only destroys people without destroying property, it + must be used in conjunction with bombs that destroy property. +% +new, adj.: + Different color from previous model. +% +Newlan's Truism: + An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the + government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. +% +Newman's Discovery: + Your best dreams may not come true; fortunately, neither will + your worst dreams. +% +Newton's Law of Gravitation: + What goes up must come down. But don't expect it to come down where + you can find it. Murphy's Law applies to Newton's. +% +Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law: + A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead. +% +Nick the Greek's Law of Life: + All things considered, life is 9 to 5 against. +% +Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules: + The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of + the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent. +% +no brainer: + A decision which, viewed through the retrospectoscope, + is "obvious" to those who failed to make it originally. +% +no maintenance: + Impossible to fix. +% +nolo contendere: + A legal term meaning: "I didn't do it, judge, and I'll never do + it again." +% +nominal egg: + New Yorkerese for expensive. +% +Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations: + Negative expectations yield negative results. + Positive expectations yield negative results. +% +Nouvelle cuisine, n.: + French for "not enough food". + +Continental breakfast, n.: + English for "not enough food". + +Tapas, n.: + Spanish for "not enough food". + +Dim Sum, n.: + Chinese for more food than you've ever seen in your entire life. +% +November, n.: + The eleventh twelfth of a weariness. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Novinson's Revolutionary Discovery: + When comes the revolution, things will be different -- + not better, just different. +% +Nowlan's Theory: + He who hesitates is not only lost, but several miles from + the next freeway exit. +% +Nusbaum's Rule: + The more pretentious the corporate name, the smaller the + organization. (For instance, the Murphy Center for the + Codification of Human and Organizational Law, contrasted + to IBM, GM, and AT&T.) +% +O'Brian's Law: + Everything is always done for the wrong reasons. +% +O'Reilly's Law of the Kitchen: + Cleanliness is next to impossible +% +O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law: + Murphy was an optimist. +% +Occam's eraser: + The philosophical principle that even the simplest + solution is bound to have something wrong with it. +% +Office Automation: + The use of computers to improve efficiency in the office + by removing anyone you would want to talk with over coffee. +% +Official Project Stages: + (1) Uncritical Acceptance + (2) Wild Enthusiasm + (3) Dejected Disillusionment + (4) Total Confusion + (5) Search for the Guilty + (6) Punishment of the Innocent + (7) Promotion of the Non-participants +% +Ogden's Law: + The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up. +% +Old Japanese proverb: + There are two kinds of fools -- those who never climb Mt. Fuji, + and those who climb it twice. +% +Old timer, n.: + One who remembers when charity was a virtue and not an organization. +% +Oliver's Law: + Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. +% +Olmstead's Law: + After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done. +% +omnibiblious, adj.: + Indifferent to type of drink. Ex: "Oh, you can get me anything. + I'm omnibiblious." +% +On ability: + A dwarf is small, even if he stands on a mountain top; + a colossus keeps his height, even if he stands in a well. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4BC - 65AD +% +On the subject of C program indentation: + "In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be + indented six feet downward and covered with dirt." + -- Blair P. Houghton +% +On-line, adj.: + The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer. +% +Once, adv.: + Enough. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +One Page Principle: + A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch + paper cannot be understood. + -- Mark Ardis +% +"One size fits all": + Doesn't fit anyone. +% +One-Shot Case Study, n.: + The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which it is + concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes green. +% +Optimism, n.: + The belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, good, + bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest + tenacity by those accustomed to falling into adversity, and most + acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind + faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an intellectual + disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but + not contagious. +% +optimist, n.: + A proponent of the belief that black is white. + + A pessimist asked God for relief. + "Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God. + "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that +would justify them." + "The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked +something -- the mortality of the optimist." + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +optimist, n: + A bagpiper with a beeper. +% +Oregano, n.: + The ancient Italian art of pizza folding. +% +Osborn's Law: + Variables won't; constants aren't. +% +Ozman's Laws: + (1) If someone says he will do something "without fail," he won't. + (2) The more people talk on the phone, the less money they make. + (3) People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't. + (4) Pizza always burns the roof of your mouth. +% +pain, n.: + One thing, at least it proves that you're alive! +% +Painting, n.: + The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and + exposing them to the critic. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Pandora's Rule: + Never open a box you didn't close. +% +Paprika Measure: + 2 dashes == 1 smidgen + 2 smidgens == 1 pinch + 3 pinches == 1 soupcon + 2 soupcons == 2 much paprika +% +paranoia, n.: + A healthy understanding of the way the universe works. +% +Pardo's First Postulate: + Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. + +Arnold's Addendum: + Everything else causes cancer in rats. +% +Parkinson's Fifth Law: + If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good + bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. +% +Parkinson's Fourth Law: + The number of people in any working group tends to increase + regardless of the amount of work to be done. +% +party, n.: + A gathering where you meet people who drink + so much you can't even remember their names. +% +Pascal Users: + The Pascal system will be replaced next Tuesday by Cobol. + Please modify your programs accordingly. +% +Pascal Users: + To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the + death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half speed. +% +Pascal: + A programming language named after a man who would turn over + in his grave if he knew about it. + -- Datamation, January 15, 1984 +% +Password: +% +Patageometry, n.: + The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant + under brain transplants. +% +patent: + A method of publicizing inventions so others can copy them. +% +Paul's Law: + In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save. +% +Paul's Law: + You can't fall off the floor. +% +paycheck: + The weekly $5.27 that remains after deductions for federal + withholding, state withholding, city withholding, FICA, + medical/dental, long-term disability, unemployment insurance, + Christmas Club, and payroll savings plan contributions. +% +Peace, n.: + In international affairs, a period of cheating between two + periods of fighting. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Pecor's Health-Food Principle: + Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in it. +% +Pedaeration, n.: + The perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under the + sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +pediddel: + A car with only one working headlight. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Peers's Law: + The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem. +% +Penguin Trivia #46: + Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were. + -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82 +% +pension: + A federally insured chain letter. +% +People's Action Rules: + (1) Some people who can, shouldn't. + (2) Some people who should, won't. + (3) Some people who shouldn't, will. + (4) Some people who can't, will try, regardless. + (5) Some people who shouldn't, but try, will then blame others. +% +perfect guest: + One who makes his host feel at home. +% +Performance: + A statement of the speed at which a computer system works. Or + rather, might work under certain circumstances. Or was rumored + to be working over in Jersey about a month ago. +% +pessimist: + A man who spends all his time worrying about how he can keep the + wolf from the door. + +optimist: + A man who refuses to see the wolf until he seizes the seat of + his pants. + +opportunist: + A man who invites the wolf in and appears the next day in a fur coat. +% +Peter's Law of Substitution: + Look after the molehills, and the + mountains will look after themselves. + +Peter's Principle of Success: + Get up one time more than you're knocked down. +% +Peterson's Admonition: + When you think you're going down for the third time -- + just remember that you may have counted wrong. +% +Peterson's Rules: + (1) Trucks that overturn on freeways are filled with something sticky. + (2) No cute baby in a carriage is ever a girl when called one. + (3) Things that tick are not always clocks. + (4) Suicide only works when you're bluffing. +% +petribar: + Any sun-bleached prehistoric candy that has been sitting in + the window of a vending machine too long. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% + Phases of a Project: +(1) Exultation. +(2) Disenchantment. +(3) Confusion. +(4) Search for the Guilty. +(5) Punishment for the Innocent. +(6) Distinction for the Uninvolved. +% +philosophy: + The ability to bear with calmness the misfortunes of our friends. +% +philosophy: + Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems. +% +phosflink: + To flick a bulb on and off when it burns out (as if, somehow, that + will bring it back to life). + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Pickle's Law: + If Congress must do a painful thing, + the thing must be done in an odd-number year. +% +pixel, n.: + A mischievous, magical spirit associated with screen displays. + The computer industry has frequently borrowed from mythology: + Witness the sprites in computer graphics, the demons in artificial + intelligence, and the trolls in the marketing department. +% +Please take note: +% +Pohl's law: + Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. +% +poisoned coffee, n.: + Grounds for divorce. +% +politics, n.: + A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. + The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Pollyanna's Educational Constant: + The hyperactive child is never absent. +% +polygon: + Dead parrot. +% +Poorman's Rule: + When you pull a plastic garbage bag from its handy dispenser package, + you always get hold of the closed end and try to pull it open. +% +Portable, adj.: + Survives system reboot. +% +Positive, adj.: + Mistaken at the top of one's voice. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +poverty, n.: + An unfortunate state that persists as long + as anyone lacks anything he would like to have. +% +Power, n.: + The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA. +% +prairies, n.: + Vast plains covered by treeless forests. +% +Prejudice: + A vagrant opinion without visible means of support. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: + It's on the other side. +% +Price's Advice: + It's all a game -- play it to have fun. +% +Priority: + A statement of the importance of a user or a program. Often + expressed as a relative priority, indicating that the user doesn't + care when the work is completed so long as he is treated less + badly than someone else. +% +problem drinker, n.: + A man who never buys. +% +program, n.: + A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input + into error messages. tr.v. To engage in a pastime similar to banging + one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. +% +program, n.: + Any task that can't be completed in one telephone call or one + day. Once a task is defined as a program ("training program," + "sales program," or "marketing program"), its implementation + always justifies hiring at least three more people. +% +Programming Department: + Mistakes made while you wait. +% +progress, n.: + Medieval man thought disease was caused by invisible demons + invading the body and taking possession of it. + + Modern man knows disease is caused by microscopic bacteria + and viruses invading the body and causing it to malfunction. +% +Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity. + SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs. +(1) Horses have an even number of legs. +(2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front. +(3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of + legs for a horse. +(4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity. +(5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs. + +Topics is be covered in future issues include proof by: + Intimidation + Gesticulation (handwaving) + "Try it; it works" + Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...) + Blatant assertion + Changing all the 2's to _n's + Mutual consent + Lack of a counterexample, and + "It stands to reason" +% +prototype, n.: + First stage in the life cycle of a computer product, followed by + pre-alpha, alpha, beta, release version, corrected release version, + upgrade, corrected upgrade, etc. Unlike its successors, the + prototype is not expected to work. +% +Pryor's Observation: + How long you live has nothing to do + with how long you are going to be dead. +% +Pudder's Law: + Anything that begins well will end badly. + (Note: The converse of Pudder's law is not true.) +% +purpitation, n.: + To take something off the grocery shelf, decide you + don't want it, and then put it in another section. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Putt's Law: + Technology is dominated by two types of people: + Those who understand what they do not manage. + Those who manage what they do not understand. +% +QOTD: + "It's not the despair... I can stand the despair. It's the hope." +% +QOTD: + "A child of 5 could understand this! Fetch me a child of 5." +% +QOTD: + "A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem." +% +QOTD: + "Do you smell something burning or is it me?" + -- Joan of Arc +% +QOTD: + "Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone." +% +QOTD: + "East is east... and let's keep it that way." +% +QOTD: + "Even the Statue of Liberty shaves her pits." +% +QOTD: + "Every morning I read the obituaries; if my name's not there, + I go to work." +% +QOTD: + "Everything I am today I owe to people, whom it is now + to late to punish." +% +QOTD: + "He eats like a bird... five times his own weight each day." +% +QOTD: + "He's on the same bus, but he's sure as hell got a different + ticket." +% +QOTD: + "I ain't broke, but I'm badly bent." +% +QOTD: + "I am not sure what this is, but an 'F' would only dignify it." +% +QOTD: + "I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the + other hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out." +% +QOTD: + "I drive my car quietly, for it goes without saying." +% +QOTD: + "I haven't come far enough, and don't call me baby." +% +QOTD: + "I may not be able to walk, but I drive from the sitting position." +% +QOTD: + "I never met a man I couldn't drink handsome." +% +QOTD: + "I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!" +% +QOTD: + "I sprinkled some baking powder over a couple of potatoes, but it + didn't work." +% +QOTD: + "I thought I saw a unicorn on the way over, but it was just a + horse with one of the horns broken off." +% +QOTD: + "I tried buying a goat instead of a lawn tractor; had to return + it though. Couldn't figure out a way to connect the snow blower." +% +QOTD: + "I used to be an idealist, but I got mugged by reality." +% +QOTD: + "I used to be lost in the shuffle, now I just shuffle along with + the lost." +% +QOTD: + "I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance." +% +QOTD: + "I used to go to UCLA, but then my Dad got a job." +% +QOTD: + "I used to jog, but the ice kept bouncing out of my glass." +% +QOTD: + "I won't say he's untruthful, but his wife has to call the + dog for dinner." +% +QOTD: + "I'd never marry a woman who didn't like pizza... I might play + golf with her, but I wouldn't marry her!" +% +QOTD: + "I'll listen to reason when it comes out on CD." +% +QOTD: + "I'm just a boy named 'su'..." +% +QOTD: + "I'm not really for apathy, but I'm not against it either..." +% +QOTD: + "I'm on a seafood diet -- I see food and I eat it." +% +QOTD: + "I've always wanted to work in the Federal Mint. And then go on + strike. To make less money." +% +QOTD: + "I've got one last thing to say before I go; give me back + all of my stuff." +% +QOTD: + "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing + trivial." +% +QOTD: + "If he learns from his mistakes, pretty soon he'll know everything." +% +QOTD: + "If I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the cologne, now would I?" +% +QOTD: + "If I'm what I eat, I'm a chocolate chip cookie." +% +QOTD: + "If you keep an open mind people will throw a lot of garbage in it." +% +QOTD: + "In the shopping mall of the mind, he's in the toy department." +% +QOTD: + "It seems to me that your antenna doesn't bring in too many + stations anymore." +% +QOTD: + "It was so cold last winter that I saw a lawyer with his + hands in his own pockets." +% +QOTD: + "It wouldn't have been anything, even if it were gonna be a thing." +% +QOTD: + "It's a cold bowl of chili, when love don't work out." +% +QOTD: + "It's been Monday all week today." +% +QOTD: + "It's been real and it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun." +% +QOTD: + "It's hard to tell whether he has an ace up his sleeve or if + the ace is missing from his deck altogether." +% +QOTD: + "It's sort of a threat, you see. I've never been very good at + them myself, but I'm told they can be very effective." +% +QOTD: + "Just how much can I get away with and still go to heaven?" +% +QOTD: + "Lack of planning on your part doesn't consitute an emergency + on my part." +% +QOTD: + "Like this rose, our love will wilt and die." +% +QOTD: + "My life is a soap opera, but who gets the movie rights?" +% +QOTD: + "My shampoo lasts longer than my relationships." +% +QOTD: + "Of course it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with + a fake?" +% +QOTD: + "Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy." +% +QOTD: + "Oh, no, no... I'm not beautiful. Just very, very pretty." +% +QOTD: + "Our parents were never our age." +% +QOTD: + "Overweight is when you step on your dog's tail and it dies." +% +QOTD: + "Say, you look pretty athletic. What say we put a pair of tennis + shoes on you and run you into the wall?" +% +QOTD: + "She's about as smart as bait." +% +QOTD: + "Sure, I turned down a drink once. Didn't understand the question." +% +QOTD: + "The baby was so ugly they had to hang a pork chop around its + neck to get the dog to play with it." +% +QOTD: + "The elder gods went to Suggoth and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." +% +QOTD: + "There may be no excuse for laziness, but I'm sure looking." +% +QOTD: + "This is a one line proof... if we start sufficiently far to the + left." +% +QOTD: + "Unlucky? If I bought a pumpkin farm, they'd cancel Halloween." +% +QOTD: + "What do you mean, you had the dog fixed? Just what made you + think he was broken!" +% +QOTD: + "What I like most about myself is that I'm so understanding + when I mess things up." +% +QOTD: + "What women and psychologists call `dropping your armor', we call + "baring your neck." +% +QOTD: + "When she hauled ass, it took three trips." +% +QOTD: + "Who? Me? No, no, NO!! But I do sell rugs." +% +QOTD: + "Wouldn't it be wonderful if real life supported control-Z?" +% +QOTD: + "You want me to put *holes* in my ears and hang things from them? + How... tribal." +% +QOTD: + "You're so dumb you don't even have wisdom teeth." +% +QOTD: + All I want is a little more than I'll ever get. +% +QOTD: + All I want is more than my fair share. +% +QOTD: + Flash! Flash! I love you! ...but we only have fourteen hours to + save the earth! +% +QOTD: + How can I miss you if you won't go away? +% +QOTD: + I looked out my window, and saw Kyle Pettys' car upside down, + then I thought 'One of us is in real trouble'. + -- Davey Allison, on a 150 m.p.h. crash +% +QOTD: + I love your outfit, does it come in your size? +% +QOTD: + I opened Pandora's box, let the cat out of the bag and put the + ball in their court. + -- Hon. J. Hacker (The Ministry of Administrative Affairs) +% +QOTD: + I'm not a nerd -- I'm "socially challenged". +% +QOTD: + I'm not bald -- I'm "hair challenged". + + [I thought that was "differently haired". Ed.] +% +QOTD: + I've heard about civil Engineers, but I've never met one. +% +QOTD: + If it's too loud, you're too old. +% +QOTD: + If you're looking for trouble, I can offer you a wide selection. +% +QOTD: + Ludwig Boltzmann, who spend much of his life studying statistical + mechanics died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying + on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn. + -- Goodstein, States of Matter +% +QOTD: + Money isn't everything, but at least it keeps the kids in touch. +% +QOTD: + My mother was the travel agent for guilt trips. +% +QOTD: + On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say... oh, somewhere in there. +% +QOTD: + Sacred cows make great hamburgers. +% +QOTD: + Silence is the only virtue he has left. +% +QOTD: + Some people have one of those days. I've had one of those lives. +% +QOTD: + Talent does what it can, genius what it must. + I do what I get paid to do. +% +QOTD: + Talk about willing people... over half of them are willing to work + and the others are more than willing to watch them. +% +QOTD: + The forest may be quiet, but that doesn't mean + the snakes have gone away. +% +QOTD: + The only easy way to tell a hamster from a gerbil is that the + gerbil has more dark meat. +% +QOTD: + Y'know how s'm people treat th'r body like a TEMPLE? + Well, I treat mine like 'n AMUSEMENT PARK... S'great... +% +Quality control, n.: + Assuring that the quality of a product does not get out of hand + and add to the cost of its manufacture or design. +% +Quality Control, n.: + The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off + a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100 works. +% +quark: + The sound made by a well bred duck. +% +Quigley's Law: + Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will + atttempt to use it. +% +QWERT (kwirt) n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth] 1. a unit of weight +equal to 13 poiuyt avoirdupois (or 1.69 kiloliks), commonly used in +structural engineering 2. [Colloq.] one thirteenth the load that a fully +grown sligo can carry. 3. [Anat.] a painful irritation of the dermis +in the region of the anus 4. [Slang] person who excites in others the +symptoms of a qwert. + -- Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed. +% +Ralph's Observation: + It is a mistake to let any mechanical object realise that you + are in a hurry. +% +Random, n.: + As in number, predictable. As in memory access, unpredictable. +% +Ray's Rule of Precision: + Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. +% +Re: Graphics: + A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe + the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately + described with pictures. +% +Real Time, adj.: + Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there and then. +% +Real World, The, n.: + 1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may +be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. To +programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related +to programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and +tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5. 4. +The location of the status quo. 5. Anywhere outside a university. +"Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world." Used +pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking +of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a +deceased person. +% +Reappraisal, n.: + An abrupt change of mind after being found out. +% +Reception area, n.: + The purgatory where office visitors are condemned to spend + innumerable hours reading dog-eared back issues of trade + magazines like Modern Plastics, Chain Saw Age, and Chicken World, + while the receptionist blithely reads her own trade magazine -- + Cosmopolitan. +% +Recursion n.: + See Recursion. + -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary +% +Reformed, n.: + A synagogue that closes for the Jewish holidays. +% +Regression analysis: + Mathematical techniques for trying to understand why things are + getting worse. +% +Reichel's Law: + A body on vacation tends to remain on vacation unless acted upon by + an outside force. +% +Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia: + If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it. +% +Reliable source, n.: + The guy you just met. +% +Renning's Maxim: + Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying. +% +Reporter, n.: + A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a + tempest of words. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Reputation, adj.: + What others are not thinking about you. +% +Research, n.: + Consider Columbus: + He didn't know where he was going. + When he got there he didn't know where he was. + When he got back he didn't know where he had been. + And he did it all on someone else's money. +% +Responsibility: + Everyone says that having power is a great responsibility. This is +a lot of bunk. Responsibility is when someone can blame you if something +goes wrong. When you have power you are surrounded by people whose job it +is to take the blame for your mistakes. If they're smart, that is. + -- Cerebus, "On Governing" +% +Revolution, n.: + A form of government abroad. +% +Revolution, n.: + In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +revolutionary, adj.: + Repackaged. +% +Rhode's Law: + When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening, circumstance, + or result can in no way be directly, indirectly, empirically, or + circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred, induced, deducted, + estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always for the purpose + of convenience, expediency, political advantage, material gain, or + personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or none of the + above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed, proclaimed, and + adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably, universally, immutably, + and infinitely so, until such time as it becomes advantageous to + assume otherwise, maybe. +% +Ritchie's Rule: + (1) Everything has some value -- if you use the right currency. + (2) Paint splashes last longer than the paint job. + (3) Search and ye shall find -- but make sure it was lost. +% +Robot, n.: + University administrator. +% +Robustness, adj.: + Never having to say you're sorry. +% +Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention: + Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will + reject the proposal. +% +Rudd's Discovery: + You know that any senator or congressman could go home and make + $300,000 to $400,000, but they don't. Why? Because they can + stay in Washington and make it there. +% +Rudin's Law: + If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will + do it every time. + +Rudin's Second Law: + In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative + courses of action, people tend to choose the worst possible + course. +% +rugged, adj.: + Too heavy to lift. +% +Rule #1: + The Boss is always right. + +Rule #2: + If the Boss is wrong, see Rule #1. +% +Rule of Creative Research: + (1) Never draw what you can copy. + (2) Never copy what you can trace. + (3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down. +% +Rule of Defactualization: + Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies. +% +Rule of Feline Frustration: + When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly + content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the + bathroom. +% +Rule of the Great: + When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep + thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch. +% +Rules for Academic Deans: + (1) HIDE!!!! + (2) If they find you, LIE!!!! + -- Father Damian C. Fandal +% +Rules for driving in New York: + (1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal. + (2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers on. + (3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the + intersection. +% +Rules for Writers: + Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. Don't use no double +negatives. Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; +and never where it isn't. Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and +omit it when its not needed. No sentence fragments. Avoid commas, that are +unnecessary. Eschew dialect, irregardless. And don't start a sentence with +a conjunction. Hyphenate between sy-llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens. +Write all adverbial forms correct. Don't use contractions in formal writing. +Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. It is incumbent on +us to avoid archaisms. Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have +snuck in the language. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. If I've +told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole. Also, +avoid awkward or affected alliteration. Don't string too many prepositional +phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of +death. "Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'" +% +Rune's Rule: + If you don't care where you are, you ain't lost. +% +Ryan's Law: + Make three correct guesses consecutively + and you will establish yourself as an expert. +% +Sacher's Observation: + Some people grow with responsibility -- others merely swell. +% +Satellite Safety Tip #14: + If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck. +% +Sattinger's Law: + It works better if you plug it in. +% +Savage's Law of Expediency: + You want it bad, you'll get it bad. +% +scenario, n.: + An imagined sequence of events that provides the context in + which a business decision is made. Scenarios always come in + sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. +% +Schapiro's Explanation: + The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's + because they use more manure. +% +Schlattwhapper, n.: + The window shade that allows itself to be pulled down, + hesitates for a second, then snaps up in your face. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Schmidt's Observation: + All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap + than a thin person. +% +Scott's First Law: + No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right. + +Scott's Second Law: + When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found + to have been wrong in the first place. +Corollary: + After the correction has been found in error, it will be + impossible to fit the original quantity back into the + equation. +% +scribline, n.: + The blank area on the back of credit cards where one's signature goes. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Second Law of Business Meetings: + If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you + will pick the wrong one. + +Corollary: + If there is only one way to spell a name, + you will spell it wrong, anyway. +% +Second Law of Final Exams: + In your toughest final -- for the first time all year -- the most + distractingly attractive student in the class will sit next to you. +% +Secretary's Revenge: + Filing almost everything under "the". +% +Seleznick's Theory of Holistic Medicine: + Ice Cream cures all ills. Temporarily. +% +Self Test for Paranoia: + You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's + your own fault. +% +Senate, n.: + A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +senility, n.: + The state of mind of elderly persons with whom one happens to disagree. +% +serendipity, n.: + The process by which human knowledge is advanced. +% +Serocki's Stricture: + Marriage is always a bachelor's last option. +% +Shannon's Observation: + Nothing is so frustrating as a bad situation that is beginning to + improve. +% +share, n.: + To give in, endure humiliation. +% +Shaw's Principle: + Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will + want to use it. +% +Shedenhelm's Law: + All trails have more uphill sections than they have downhill sections. +% +Shick's Law: + There is no problem a good miracle can't solve. +% +Silverman's Law: + If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. +% +Simon's Law: + Everything put together falls apart sooner or later. +% +Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): + That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, + or subtracted from the answer you got, gives you the answer you + should have gotten. +% +Slick's Three Laws of the Universe: + (1) Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check. + (2) A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat. + (3) There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is + attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is + attracted to dark objects. +% +Slous' Contention: + If you do a job too well, you'll get stuck with it. +% +Slurm, n.: + The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when + it sits in the dish too long. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Snacktrek, n.: + The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly + returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have + materialized. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +snappy repartee: + What you'd say if you had another chance. +% +Sodd's Second Law: + Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is + bound to occur. +% +Software, n.: + Formal evening attire for female computer analysts. +% +Some points to remember [about animals]: + (1) Don't go to sleep under big animals, e.g., elephants, rhinoceri, + hippopotamuses; + (2) Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the + front of your clothes; + (3) Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or dogs + you have just kicked. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +spagmumps, n.: + Any of the millions of Styrofoam wads that accompany mail-order items. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading: + The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the + number of times you have looked at it. +% +Spence's Admonition: + Never stow away on a kamikaze plane. +% +Spirtle, n.: + The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in your eye. + -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" +% +Spouse, n.: + Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you + wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single. +% +squatcho, n.: + The button at the top of a baseball cap. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +standards, n.: + The principles we use to reject other people's code. +% +statistics, n.: + A system for expressing your political prejudices in convincing + scientific guise. +% +Steckel's Rule to Success: + Good enough is never good enough. +% +Steele's Law: + There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than ten men + or fewer than one hundred. +% +Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy: + Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have + another drink. +% +Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming: + Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. +% +Stenderup's Law: + The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up. +% +Stock's Observation: + You no sooner get your head above water but what someone pulls + your flippers off. +% +Stone's Law: + One man's "simple" is another man's "huh?" +% +strategy, n.: + A comprehensive plan of inaction. +% +Strategy: + A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime + after those creating it have left the organization. +% +Stult's Report: + Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is + fight the solutions. +% +Stupid, n.: + Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay. +% +Sturgeon's Law: + 90% of everything is crud. +% +sugar daddy, n.: + A man who can afford to raise cain. +% +SUN Microsystems: + The Network IS the Load Average. +% +sunset, n.: + Pronounced atmospheric scattering of shorter wavelengths, + resulting in selective transmission below 650 nanometers with + progressively reducing solar elevation. +% +sushi, n.: + When that-which-may-still-be-alive is put on top of rice and + strapped on with electrical tape. +% +Sushido, n.: + The way of the tuna. +% +Swahili, n.: + The language used by the National Enquirer to print their retractions. + -- Johnny Hart +% +Sweater, n.: + A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly. +% +Swipple's Rule of Order: + He who shouts the loudest has the floor. +% +system-independent, adj.: + Works equally poorly on all systems. +% +T-shirt of the Day: + Head for the Mountains + -- courtesy Anheuser-Busch beer + +Followup T-shirt of the Day (on the same scenic background): + If you liked the mountains, head for the Busch! + -- courtesy someone else +% +T-shirt Of The Day: + I'm the person your mother warned you about. +% +T-shirt: + Life is *not* a Cabaret, and stop calling me chum! +% +Tact, n.: + The unsaid part of what you're thinking. +% +take forceful action: + Do something that should have been done a long time ago. +% +tax office, n.: + Den of inequity. +% +Taxes, n.: + Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get + an extension. +% +taxidermist, n.: + A man who mounts animals. +% +TCP/IP Slang Glossary, #1: + +Gong, n: Medieval term for privy, or what passed for them in that era. +Today used whimsically to describe the aftermath of a bogon attack. Think +of our community as the Galapagos of the English language. + +"Vogons may read you bad poetry, but bogons make you study obsolete RFCs." + -- Dave Mills +% +teamwork, n.: + Having someone to blame. +% +Technicality, n.: + In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having + accused a neighbor of murder. His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt + hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one + side of his head fell on one shoulder and the other side upon the + other shoulder." The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the + court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder, + for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an + inference. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Telephone, n.: + An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages + of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +telepression, n.: + The deep-seated guilt which stems from knowing that you did not try + hard enough to look up the number on your own and instead put the + burden on the directory assistant. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Teutonic: + Not enough gin. +% +The 357.73 Theory: + Auditors always reject expense accounts + with a bottom line divisible by 5. +% +The Abrams' Principle: + The shortest distance between two points is off the wall. +% +The Ancient Doctrine of Mind Over Matter: + I don't mind... and you don't matter. + -- As revealed to reporter G. Rivera by Swami Havabanana +% +The Beatles: + Paul McCartney's old back-up band. +% +The Briggs-Chase Law of Program Development: + To determine how long it will take to write and debug a + program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add + one, and convert to the next higher units. +% +The Consultant's Curse: + When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him + what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong + medicine, and is normally only required once. +% +The distinction between Jewish and goyish can be quite subtle, as the +following quote from Lenny Bruce illustrates: + + "I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. +Eddie Cantor's goyish. The B'nai Brith is goyish. The Hadassah is +Jewish. Marine Corps -- heavy goyish, dangerous. + + "Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish. +Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. +Instant potatoes -- goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish. +Macaroons are ____very Jewish. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is +goyish. Lime soda is ____very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that +Jews won't go near them ..." + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +The Fifth Rule: + You have taken yourself too seriously. +% +The First Rule of Program Optimization: + Don't do it. + +The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): + Don't do it yet. + -- Michael Jackson +% +The five rules of Socialism: + (1) Don't think. + (2) If you do think, don't speak. + (3) If you think and speak, don't write. + (4) If you think, speak and write, don't sign. + (5) If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +The Following Subsume All Physical and Human Laws: + (1) You can't push on a string. + (2) Ain't no free lunches. + (3) Them as has, gets. + (4) You can't win them all, but you sure as hell can lose them all. +% +The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences: + He who has the gold makes the rules. +% +The Gordian Maxim: + If a string has one end, it has another. +% +The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog: + The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in courtship, + his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk clerks. + Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods of + time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp + Hedgehog Eater. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: + You can never be sure how many beers you had last night. +% +The history of warfare is similarly subdivided, although here the phases +are Retribution, Anticipation, and Diplomacy. Thus: + +Retribution: + I'm going to kill you because you killed my brother. +Anticipation: + I'm going to kill you because I killed your brother. +Diplomacy: + I'm going to kill my brother and then kill you on the + pretext that your brother did it. +% +The Illiterati Programus Canto 1: + A program is a lot like a nose: Sometimes it runs, and + sometimes it blows. +% +The Kennedy Constant: + Don't get mad -- get even. +% +The Law of the Letter: + The best way to inspire fresh thoughts is to seal the envelope. +% +The Marines: + The few, the proud, the dead on the beach. +% +The Marines: + The few, the proud, the not very bright. +% +The Modelski Chain Rule: +(1) Look intently at the problem for several minutes. Scratch your + head at 20-30 second intervals. Try solving the problem on your + Hewlett-Packard. +(2) Failing this, look around at the class. Select a particularly + bright-looking individual. +(3) Procure a large chain. +(4) Walk over to the selected student and threaten to beat him severely + with the chain unless he gives you the answer to the problem. + Generally, he will. It may also be a good idea to give him a sound + thrashing anyway, just to show you mean business. +% +The most dangerous organization in America today is: + (a) The KKK + (b) The American Nazi Party + (c) The Delta Frequent Flyer Club +% +The Official MBA Handbook on business cards: + Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm, + Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate + Planning." +% +The Official MBA Handbook on doing company business on an airplane: + Do not work openly on top-secret company cost documents unless + you have previously ascertained that the passenger next to you + is blind, a rock musician on mood-ameliorating drugs, or the + unfortunate possessor of a forty-seventh chromosome. +% +The Official MBA Handbook on the use of sunlamps: + Use a sunlamp only on weekends. That way, if the office wise guy + remarks on the sudden appearance of your tan, you can fabricate + some story about a sun-stroked weekend at some island Shangri-La + like Caneel Bay. Nothing is more transparent than leaving the + office at 11:45 on a Tuesday night, only to return an Aztec sun + god at 8:15 the next morning. +% +The Phone Booth Rule: + A lone dime always gets the number nearly right. +% +The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's: + "My brain is paged out to my liver." +% +The real man's Bloody Mary: + Ingredients: vodka, tomato juice, Tobasco, Worcestershire + sauce, A-1 steak sauce, ice, salt, pepper, celery. + + Fill a large tumbler with vodka. + Throw all the other ingredients away. +% +The Roman Rule: + The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the + one who is doing it. +% +The rules: + (1) Thou shalt not worship other computer systems. + (2) Thou shalt not impersonate Liberace or eat watermelon while + sitting at the console keyboard. + (3) Thou shalt not slap users on the face, nor staple their silly + little card decks together. + (4) Thou shalt not get physically involved with the computer system, + especially if you're already married. + (5) Thou shalt not use magnetic tapes as frisbees, nor use a disk + pack as a stool to reach another disk pack. + (6) Thou shalt not stare at the blinking lights for more than one + eight hour shift. + (7) Thou shalt not tell users that you accidentally destroyed their + files/backup just to see the look on their little faces. + (8) Thou shalt not enjoy cancelling a job. + (9) Thou shalt not display firearms in the computer room. + (10) Thou shalt not push buttons "just to see what happens". +% +The Second Law of Thermodynamics: + If you think things are in a mess now, just wait! + -- Jim Warner +% +The Seventh Commandments for Technicians: + Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy fellow + workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in other + ways. +% +The Sixth Commandment of Frisbee: + The greatest single aid to distance is for the disc to be going in a + direction you did not want. (Goes the wrong way = Goes a long way.) + -- Dan Roddick +% +The Third Law of Photography: + If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined + when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of + the dark leaks out. +% +The three biggest software lies: + (1) *Of course* we'll give you a copy of the source. + (2) *Of course* the third party vendor we bought that from + will fix the microcode. + (3) Beta test site? No, *of course* you're not a beta test site. +% +The three laws of thermodynamics: + (1) You can't get anything without working for it. + (2) The most you can accomplish by working is to break even. + (3) You can only break even at absolute zero. +% +Theorem: a cat has nine tails. +Proof: + No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. + Therefore, a cat has nine tails. +% +Theorem: All positive integers are equal. +Proof: Sufficient to show that for any two positive integers, A and B, A = B. + Further, it is sufficient to show that for all N > 0, if A and B + (positive integers) satisfy (MAX(A, B) = N) then A = B. + +Proceed by induction: + If N = 1, then A and B, being positive integers, must both be 1. + So A = B. + +Assume that the theorem is true for some value k. Take A and B with + MAX(A, B) = k+1. Then MAX((A-1), (B-1)) = k. And hence + (A-1) = (B-1). Consequently, A = B. +% +Theory of Selective Supervision: + The one time in the day that you lean back and relax is + the one time the boss walks through the office. +% +theory, n.: + System of ideas meant to explain something, chosen with a view to + originality, controversialism, incomprehensibility, and how good + it will look in print. +% +There are three ways to get something done: + (1) Do it yourself. + (2) Hire someone to do it for you. + (3) Forbid your kids to do it. +% +Those lovable Brits department: + They also have trouble pronouncing `vitamin'. +% +Three rules for sounding like an expert: + (1) Oversimplify your explanations to the point of uselessness. + (2) Always point out second-order effects, but never point out + when they can be ignored. + (3) Come up with three rules of your own. +% +Thyme's Law: + Everything goes wrong at once. +% +timesharing, n: + An access method whereby one computer abuses many people. +% +Tip of the Day: + Never fry bacon in the nude. + + [Correction: always fry bacon in the nude; you'll learn not to burn it] +% +TIPS FOR PERFORMERS: + Playing cards have the top half upside-down to help cheaters. + There are a finite number of jokes in the universe. + Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music longer than + they would ordinarily. + There is no music in space. + People will pay to watch people make sounds. + Everything on stage should be larger than in real life. +% +today, n.: + A nice place to visit, but you can't stay here for long. +% +toilet toup'ee, n.: + Any shag carpet that causes the lid to become top-heavy, thus + creating endless annoyance to male users. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Toni's Solution to a Guilt-Free Life: + If you have to lie to someone, it's their fault. +% +transfer, n.: + A promotion you receive on the condition that you leave town. +% +transparent, adj.: + Being or pertaining to an existing, nontangible object. + "It's there, but you can't see it" + -- IBM System/360 announcement, 1964. + +virtual, adj.: + Being or pertaining to a tangible, nonexistent object. + "I can see it, but it's not there." + -- Lady Macbeth. +% +travel, n.: + Something that makes you feel like you're getting somewhere. +% +"Trust me": + Translation of the Latin "caveat emptor." +% +Truthful, adj.: + Dumb and illiterate. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Tsort's Constant: + 1.67563, or precisely 1,237.98712567 times the difference between +the distance to the sun and the weight of a small orange. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" (slightly modified) +% +Turnaucka's Law: + The attention span of a computer is only as long as its + electrical cord. +% +Tussman's Law: + Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come. +% +U.S. of A.: + "Don't speak to the bus driver." +Germany: + "It is strictly forbidden for passengers to speak to the driver." +England: + "You are requested to refrain from speaking to the driver." +Scotland: + "What have you got to gain by speaking to the driver?" +Italy: + "Don't answer the driver." +% +Udall's Fourth Law: + Any change or reform you make is going to have consequences you + don't like. +% +Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: + Never use your thumb for a rule. + You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it. +% +Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics: + Superiority is recessive. +% +understand, v.: + To reach a point, in your investigation of some subject, at which + you cease to examine what is really present, and operate on the + basis of your own internal model instead. +% +Unfair animal names: + +-- tsetse fly -- bullhead +-- booby -- duck-billed platypus +-- sapsucker -- Clarence + -- Gary Larson +% +unfair competition, n.: + Selling cheaper than we do. +% +union, n.: + A dues-paying club workers wield to strike management. +% +Universe, n.: + The problem. +% +University, n.: + Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's usable, + and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to fix + it, and ... + + [Okay, okay, I'll leave it in, but I think you're destroying + the credibility of the entire fortune program. Ed.] +% +Unnamed Law: + If it happens, it must be possible. +% +untold wealth, n.: + What you left out on April 15th. +% +User n.: + A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. +% +user, n.: + The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot." + -- Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top" + +[I always thought "computer professional" was the phrase hackers used + when they meant "idiot." Ed.] +% +vacation, n.: + A two-week binge of rest and relaxation so intense that + it takes another 50 weeks of your restrained workaday + life-style to recuperate. +% +Vail's Second Axiom: + The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the + amount of work already completed. +% +Van Roy's Law: + An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. +% +Van Roy's Law: + Honesty is the best policy - there's less competition. + +Van Roy's Truism: + Life is a whole series of circumstances beyond your control. +% +Vanilla, adj.: + Ordinary flavor, standard. See FLAVOR. When used of food, + very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla + extract! For example, "vanilla-flavored won ton soup" (or simply + "vanilla won ton soup") means ordinary won ton soup, as opposed to hot + and sour won ton soup. +% +Velilind's Laws of Experimentation: + (1) If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once. + (2) If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points. +% +Viking, n.: + 1. Daring Scandinavian seafarers, explorers, adventurers, + entrepreneurs world-famous for their aggressive, nautical import + business, highly leveraged takeovers and blue eyes. + 2. Bloodthirsty sea pirates who ravaged northern Europe beginning + in the 9th century. + +Hagar's note: The first definition is much preferred; the second is used +only by malcontents, the envious, and disgruntled owners of waterfront +property. +% +VMS, n.: + The world's foremost multi-user adventure game. +% +volcano, n.: + A mountain with hiccups. +% +Volley Theory: + It is better to have lobbed and lost than never to have lobbed at all. +% +vuja de: + The feeling that you've *never*, *ever* been in this situation before. +% +Walters' Rule: + All airline flights depart from the gates most distant from + the center of the terminal. Nobody ever had a reservation + on a plane that left Gate 1. +% +Watson's Law: + The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the + number and significance of any persons watching it. +% +"We'll look into it": + By the time the wheels make a full turn, we + assume you will have forgotten about it, too. +% +we: + The single most important word in the world. +% +weapon, n.: + An index of the lack of development of a culture. +% +Wedding, n: + A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes + to become nothing and nothing undertakes to become supportable. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Weed's Axiom: + Never ask two questions in a business letter. + The reply will discuss the one in which you are + least interested and say nothing about the other. +% +Weiler's Law: + Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. +% +Weinberg's First Law: + Progress is only made on alternate Fridays. +% +Weinberg's Principle: + An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while + sweeping on to the grand fallacy. +% +Weinberg's Second Law: + If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, + then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. +% +Weiner's Law of Libraries: + There are no answers, only cross references. +% +well-adjusted, adj.: + The ability to play bridge or golf as if they were games. +% +Westheimer's Discovery: + A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a + couple of hours in the library. +% +When asked the definition of "pi": +The Mathematician: + Pi is the number expressing the relationship between the + circumference of a circle and its diameter. +The Physicist: + Pi is 3.1415927, plus or minus 0.000000005. +The Engineer: + Pi is about 3. +% +Whistler's Law: + You never know who is right, but you always know who is in charge. +% +White's Statement: + Don't lose heart! + +Owen's Commentary on White's Statement: + ...they might want to cut it out... + +Byrd's Addition to Owen's Commentary: + ...and they want to avoid a lengthy search. +% +Whitehead's Law: + The obvious answer is always overlooked. +% +Wiker's Law: + Government expands to absorb revenue and then some. +% +Wilcox's Law: + A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants. +% + William Safire's Rules for Writers: + +Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be +used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with +their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread +your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be +avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of +view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a +preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse +exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long +sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, +dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of +a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing +metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be +careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. +Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last +but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives. +% +Williams and Holland's Law: + If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical + methods. +% +Wilner's Observation: + All conversations with a potato should be conducted in private. +% +Wit, n.: + The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery + ... by leaving it out. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +wok, n.: + Something to thwow at a wabbit. +% +wolf, n.: + A man who knows all the ankles. +% +Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection: + (1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it. + (2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete. + (3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2) + (4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a + VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator. + (5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless. + -- Rich Kulawiec +% +Woodward's Law: + A theory is better than its explanation. +% +Woolsey-Swanson Rule: + People would rather live with a problem they cannot + solve rather than accept a solution they cannot understand. +% +Work Rule: Leave of Absence (for an Operation): + We are no longer allowing this practice. We wish to discourage any +thoughts that you may not need all of whatever you have, and you should not +consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are, and to have +anything removed would certainly make you less than we bargained for. +% +work, n.: + The blessed respite from screaming kids and + soap operas for which you actually get paid. +% +Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing: + August. The lift lines are the shortest, though. + -- Steve Rubenstein +% +Worst Month of the Year: + February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if + you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you + don't get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible. + -- Steve Rubenstein +% +Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985: + From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved + in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs + damage my videotapes?" +% +Worst Vegetable of the Year: + The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year. + -- Steve Rubenstein +% +write-protect tab, n.: + A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly left + by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error message + once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the momentary + inconvenience. + -- Robb Russon +% +WYSIWYG: + What You See Is What You Get. +% +XIIdigitation, n.: + The practice of trying to determine the year a movie was made + by deciphering the Roman numerals at the end of the credits. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Year, n.: + A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Yinkel, n.: + A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one + will notice. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +yo-yo, n.: + Something that is occasionally up but normally down. + (see also Computer). +% +Zall's Laws: + (1) Any time you get a mouthful of hot soup, the next thing you do + will be wrong. + (2) How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom + door you're on. +% +zeal, n.: + Quality seen in new graduates -- if you're quick. +% +Zero Defects, n.: + The result of shutting down a production line. +% +Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor: + People are always available for work in the past tense. +% +Obscurism: + The practice of peppering daily life with obscure +references as a subliminal means of showcasing both one's education +and one's wish to disassociate from the world of mass culture. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +McJob: + A low-pay, low-prestige, low-benefit, no-future job in the +service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by +those who have never held one. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Poverty Jet Set: + A group of people given to chronic traveling at the expense of +long-term job stability or a permanent residence. Tend to have doomed +and extremely expensive phone-call relationships with people named +Serge or Ilyana. Tend to discuss frequent-flyer programs at parties. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Historic Underdosing: + To live in a period of time when nothing seems to happen. +Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news +broadcasts. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Historic Overdosing: + To live in a period of time when too much seems to happen. +Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news +broadcasts. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Historical Slumming: + The act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack +industrial sites, rural villages -- locations where time appears to +have been frozen many years back -- so as to experience relief when +one returns back to "the present." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Brazilification: + The widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the +accompanying disappearance of the middle classes. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Vaccinated Time Travel: + To fantasize about traveling backward in time, but only +with proper vaccinations. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Decade Blending: + In clothing: the indiscriminate combination of two or more +items from various decades to create a personal mood: Sheila = +Mary Quant earrings (1960s) + cork wedgie platform shows (1970s) + +black leather jacket (1950s and 1980s). + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Veal-Fattening Pen: + Small, cramped office workstations built of +fabric-covered disassemblable wall partitions and inhabited by junior +staff members. Named after the small preslaughter cubicles used by +the cattle industry. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Emotional Ketchup Burst: + The bottling up of opinions and emotions inside oneself so +that they explosively burst forth all at once, shocking and confusing +employers and friends -- most of whom thought things were fine. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Bleeding Ponytail: + An elderly, sold-out baby boomer who pines for hippie or +presellout days. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Boomer Envy: + Envy of material wealth and long-range material security +accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of +fortunate births. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Clique Maintenance: + The need of one generation to see the generation following it +as deficient so as to bolster its own collective ego: "Kids today do +nothing. They're so apathetic. We used to go out and protest. All +they do is shop and complain." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Consensus Terrorism: + The process that decides in-office attitudes and behavior. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Sick Building Migration: + The tendency of younger workers to leave or avoid jobs in +unhealthy office environments or workplaces affected by the Sick +Building Syndrome. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Recurving: + Leaving one job to take another that pays less but places one +back on the learning curve. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Ozmosis: + The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Power Mist: + The tendency of hierarchies in office environments to be diffuse +and preclude crisp articulation. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Overboarding: + Overcompensating for fears about the future by plunging +headlong into a job or life-style seemingly unrelated to one's +previous life interests: i.e., Amway sales, aerobics, the Republican +party, a career in law, cults, McJobs.... + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Earth Tones: + A youthful subgroup interested in vegetarianism, tie-dyed +outfits, mild recreational drugs, and good stereo equipment. Earnest, +frequently lacking in humor. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Ethnomagnetism: + The tendency of young people to live in emotionally +demonstrative, more unrestrained ethnic neighborhoods: "You wouldn't +understand it there, mother -- they *hug* where I live now." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Mid-Twenties Breakdown: + A period of mental collapse occurring in one's twenties, +often caused by an inability to function outside of school or +structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential +aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of +pharmaceutical usage. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Successophobia: + The fear that if one is successful, then one's personal needs +will be forgotten and one will no longer have one's childish needs +catered to. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Safety Net-ism: + The belief that there will always be a financial and emotional +safety net to buffer life's hurts. Usually parents. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Divorce Assumption: + A form of Safety Net-ism, the belief that if a marriage +doesn't work out, then there is no problem because partners can simply +seek a divorce. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Anti-Sabbatical: + A job taken with the sole intention of staying only for a +limited period of time (often one year). The intention is usually to +raise enough funds to partake in another, more meaningful activity +such as watercolor sketching in Crete, or designing computer knit +sweaters in Hong Kong. Employers are rarely informed of intentions. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Legislated Nostalgia: + To force a body of people to have memories they do not +actually possess: "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I +don't even remember any of it?" + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Now Denial: + To tell oneself that the only time worth living in is the past and +that the only time that may ever be interesting again is the future. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Bambification: + The mental conversion of flesh and blood living creatures into +cartoon characters possessing bourgeois Judeo-Christian attitudes and +morals. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Diseases for Kisses (Hyperkarma): + A deeply rooted belief that punishment will somehow always be +far greater than the crime: ozone holes for littering. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Spectacularism: + A fascination with extreme situations. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Lessness: + A philosophy whereby one reconciles oneself with diminishing +expectations of material wealth: "I've given up wanting to make a +killing or be a bigshot. I just want to find happiness and maybe open +up a little roadside cafe in Idaho." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Status Substitution: + Using an object with intellectual or fashionable cachet to +substitute for an object that is merely pricey: "Brian, you left your +copy of Camus in your brother's BMW." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Survivulousness: + The tendency to visualize oneself enjoying being the last +person on Earth. "I'd take a helicopter up and throw microwave ovens +down on the Taco Bell." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Platonic Shadow: + A nonsexual friendship with a member of the opposite sex. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Mental Ground Zero: + The location where one visualizes oneself during the dropping +of the atomic bomb; frequently, a shopping mall. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Cult of Aloneness: + The need for autonomy at all costs, usually at the expense of +long-term relationships. Often brought about by overly high +expectations of others. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Celebrity Schadenfreude: + Lurid thrills derived from talking about celebrity deaths. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +The Emperor's New Mall: + The popular notion that shopping malls exist on the insides only +and have no exterior. The suspension of visual disbelief engendered +by this notion allows shoppers to pretend that the large, cement +blocks thrust into their environment do not, in fact, exist. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Poorochrondria: + Hypochrondria derived from not having medical insurance. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Personal Tabu: + A small rule for living, bordering on a superstition, that +allows one to cope with everyday life in the absence of cultural or +religious dictums. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Architectural Indigestion: + The almost obsessive need to live in a "cool" +architectural environment. Frequently related objects of fetish +include framed black-and-white art photography (Diane Arbus a +favorite); simplistic pine furniture; matte black high-tech items such +as TVs, stereos, and telephones; low-wattage ambient lighting; a lamp, +chair, or table that alludes to the 1950s; cut flowers with complex +names. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Japanese Minimalism: + The most frequently offered interior design aesthetic used by +rootless career-hopping young people. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Bread and Circuits: + The electronic era tendency to view party politics as corny -- +no longer relevant of meaningful or useful to modern societal issues, +and in many cases dangerous. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Voter's Block: + The attempt, however futile, to register dissent with the +current political system by simply not voting. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Armanism: + After Giorgio Armani; an obsession with mimicking the seamless +and (more importantly) *controlled* ethos of Italian couture. Like +Japanese Minimalism, Armanism reflects a profound inner need for +control. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Poor Buoyancy: + The realization that one was a better person when one had less +money. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Musical Hairsplitting: + The act of classifying music and musicians into pathologically +picayune categories: "The Vienna Franks are a good example of urban +white acid fold revivalism crossed with ska." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +101-ism: + The tendency to pick apart, often in minute detail, all +aspects of life using half-understood pop psychology as a tool. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Yuppie Wannabes: + An X generation subgroup that believes the myth of a yuppie +life-style being both satisfying and viable. Tend to be highly in +debt, involved in some form of substance abuse, and show a willingness +to talk about Armageddon after three drinks. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Ultra Short Term Nostalgia: + Homesickness for the extremely recent past: "God, things seemed +so much better in the world last week." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Rebellion Postponement: + The tendency in one's youth to avoid traditionally youthful +activities and artistic experiences in order to obtain serious career +experience. Sometimes results in the mourning for lost youth at about +age thirty, followed by silly haircuts and expensive joke-inducing +wardrobes. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Conspicuous Minimalism: + A life-style tactic similar to Status Substitution. The +nonownership of material goods flaunted as a token of moral and +intellectual superiority. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Caf'e Minimalism: + To espouse a philosophy of minimalism without actually putting +into practice any of its tenets. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +O'Propriation: + The inclusion of advertising, packaging, and entertainment +jargon from earlier eras in everyday speech for ironic and/or comic +effect: "Kathleen's Favorite Dead Celebrity party was tons o'fun" or +"Dave really thinks of himself as a zany, nutty, wacky, and madcap +guy, doesn't he?" + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Air Family: + Describes the false sense of community experienced among coworkers +in an office environment. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Squirming: + Discomfort inflicted on young people by old people who see no +irony in their gestures. "Karen died a thousand deaths as her father +made a big show of tasting a recently manufactured bottle of wine +before allowing it to be poured as the family sat in Steak Hut. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Recreational Slumming: + The practice of participating in recreational activities +of a class one perceives as lower than one's own: "Karen! Donald! +Let's go bowling tonight! And don't worry about shoes ... apparently +you can rent them." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Conversational Slumming: + The self-conscious enjoyment of a given conversation +precisely for its lack of intellectual rigor. A major spin-off +activity of Recreational Slumming. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Occupational Slumming: + Taking a job well beneath one's skill or education level +as a means of retreat from adult responsibilities and/or avoiding +failure in one's true occupation. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Anti-Victim Device: + A small fashion accessory worn on an otherwise +conservative outfit which announces to the world that one still has a +spark of individuality burning inside: 1940s retro ties and earrings +(on men), feminist buttons, noserings (women), and the now almost +completely extinct teeny weeny "rattail" haircut (both sexes). + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Nutritional Slumming: + Food whose enjoyment stems not from flavor but from a +complex mixture of class connotations, nostalgia signals, and +packaging semiotics: Katie and I bought this tub of Multi-Whip instead +of real whip cream because we thought petroleum distillate whip +topping seemed like the sort of food that air force wives stationed in +Pensacola back in the early sixties would feed their husbands to +celebrate a career promotion. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Tele-Parabilizing: + Morals used in everyday life that derive from TV sitcom plots: +"That's just like the episode where Jan loses her glasses!" + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +QFM: + Quelle fashion mistake. "It was really QFM. I mean painter +pants? That's 1979 beyond belief." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Me-ism: + A search by an individual, in the absence of training in +traditional religious tenets, to formulate a personally tailored +religion by himself. Most frequently a mishmash of reincarnation, +personal dialogue with a nebulously defined god figure, naturalism, +and karmic eye-for-eye attitudes. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Paper Rabies: + Hypersensitivity to littering. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Bradyism: + A multisibling sensibility derived from having grown up in +large families. A rarity in those born after approximately 1965, +symptoms of Bradyism include a facility for mind games, emotional +withdrawal in situations of overcrowding, and a deeply felt need for a +well-defined personal space. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Black Holes: + An X generation subgroup best known for their possession of +almost entirely black wardrobes. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Black Dens: + Where Black Holes live; often unheated warehouses with Day-Glo +spray painting, mutilated mannequins, Elvis references, dozens of +overflowing ashtrays, mirror sculptures, and Velvet Underground music +playing in background. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Strangelove Reproduction: + Having children to make up for the fact that one no longer +believes in the future. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Squires: + The most common X generation subgroup and the only subgroup +given to breeding. Squires exist almost exclusively in couples and +are recognizable by their frantic attempts to create a semblance of +Eisenhower-era plenitude in their daily lives in the face of +exorbitant housing prices and two-job life-styles. Squires tend to be +continually exhausted from their voraciously acquisitive pursuit of +furniture and knickknacks. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Poverty Lurks: + Financial paranoia instilled in offspring by depression-era +parents. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Pull-the-Plug, Slice the Pie: + A fantasy in which an offspring mentally tallies up the +net worth of his parents. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Underdogging: + The tendency to almost invariably side with the underdog in a +given situation. The consumer expression of this trait is the +purchasing of less successful, "sad," or failing products: "I know +these Vienna franks are heart failure on a stick, but they were so sad +looking up against all the other yuppie food items that I just had to +buy them." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +2 + 2 = 5-ism: + Caving in to a target marketing strategy aimed at oneself after +holding out for a long period of time. "Oh, all right, I'll buy your +stupid cola. Now leave me alone." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Option Paralysis: + The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Personality Tithe: + A price paid for becoming a couple; previously amusing +human beings become boring: "Thanks for inviting us, but Noreen and I +are going to look at flatware catalogs tonight. Afterward we're going +to watch the shopping channel." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Jack-and-Jill Party: + A Squire tradition; baby showers to which both men and +women friends are invited as opposed to only women. Doubled +purchasing power of bisexual attendance brings gift values up to +Eisenhower-era standards. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Down-Nesting: + The tendency of parents to move to smaller, guest-room-free +houses after the children have moved away so as to avoid children aged +20 to 30 who have boomeranged home. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated +% +greenrd's law + Evey post disparaging someone else's spelling or grammar, or lauding + one's own spelling or grammar, will inevitably contain a spelling or + grammatical error. + -- greenrd in http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2002/4/16/61744/5230?pid=5#6 +% +intaxication: + Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize +it was your money to start with. +% +reintarnation: + Coming back to life as a hillbilly. +% +bozone, n.: + The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas +from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign +of breaking down in the near future. +% +cashtration, n.: + The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially +impotent for an indefinite period. +% +giraffiti: + Vandalism spray-painted very, very high. +% +sarchasm: + The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who +doesn't get it. +% +inoculatte: + To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. +% +hipatitis: + Terminal coolness. +% +osteopornosis: + A degenerate disease. +% +Karmageddon: + It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad +vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a +serious bummer. +% +decafalon, n.: + The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things +that are good for you. +% +glibido: + All talk and no action. +% +Dopeler effect: + The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you +rapidly. +% +arachnoleptic fit, n.: + The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked +through a spider web. +% +Beelzebug, n.: + Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at +three in the morning and cannot be cast out. +% +caterpallor, n.: + The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're +eating. +% +The Arrogant Worms describe Canada: + Our mountains are very pointy; + our prairies are not. + The rest is kinda bumpy, + but man, do we have a lot! + -- From "Canada's Really Big" +% diff --git a/fortunes/disclaimer b/fortunes/disclaimer new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9640126 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/disclaimer @@ -0,0 +1,580 @@ +15% gratuity added for parties over 8. +% +If you suspect that this message may have been intercepted or amended, +please call the sender. +% +30 day money back guarantee minus shipping, 10% restocking charge, and 7% +cancellation charge. +% +98% lean. +% +All rights reserved. +% +All celebrity voices impersonated. +% +All international orders must be accompanied by payment in U. 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no discounts, passes or coupons accepted. +% +Specifications subject to change without notice. +% +Stay on the trail. +% +Stay seated until bus comes to a complete stop. +% +Stop ahead. +% +Store in a cool place. +% +Subject to change without notice. +% +Holiday and other blackout periods apply. +% +Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. +% +Swim at your own risk. +% +Tax and title extra. +% +Tax, title, tag, and dealer handling not included. +% +The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement of the site. +% +The Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking is hazardous to your +health. +% +This bag is recyclable. +% +This end up. +% +This is not an offer to sell securities. +% +This space intentionally left blank. +% +This supersedes all previous notices. +% +Times approximate. +% +To avoid suffocation, keep away from children. +% +To order, call toll-free. +% +To reduce printing costs, we have sent you only the forms you may need based on +what you filed last year. +% +Touch tone phones only. +% +Truckers welcome. +% +Turn off engine while fueling. +% +Use at own risk. +% +Used with permission. +% +Use extra care when cleaning on stairs. +% +Use in well-ventilated area. +% +Use of software is governed by the terms of the end user license agreement. +% +Use only as directed. +% +Use only in a well-ventilated area. +% +Not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. +% +Do not use if printed inner seal is broken or missing. +% +Use other side for additional listings. +% +Views expressed may not be those of the sponsor. +% +Void where prohibited by law. +% +We make our mailing list available to selected organizations. +% +While supplies last. +% +You must be present to win. +% +You need not be present to win. +% +Your canceled check is your receipt. +% +Your compliance with all terms and conditions, expressed and implied, is +automatic upon viewing. +% +Your daily dietary values may be higher or lower depending on your caloric +needs. +% +Your financial institution may impose additional fees and charges. +% +Your mileage may vary. +% diff --git a/fortunes/drugs b/fortunes/drugs new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9656c82 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/drugs @@ -0,0 +1,1155 @@ +1/2 oz. gin +1/2 oz. vodka +1/2 oz. rum (preferably dark) +3/4 oz. tequila +1/2 oz. triple sec +1/2 oz. orange juice +3/4 oz. sour mix +1/2 oz. cola +shake with ice and strain into frosted glass. + Long Island Iced Tea +% +6 oz. orange juice +1 oz. vodka +1/2 oz. Galliano + Harvey Wallbangers +% +A beer delayed is a beer denied. +% +A couple more shots of whiskey, women 'round here start looking good. + + [something about a 10 being a 4 after a six-pack? Ed.] +% +A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer, carries it to the bathroom and dumps it +into a urinal. Over the course of the next few hours, he goes back to the bar +and repeats this sequence -- several times. Finally the bartender got so +curious that he leaned over the bar and asked him what he was doing. + +Replied the customer, "Avoiding the middleman." +% +A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with +-- even if he drank. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder. +% +Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are weak dilutions. The surest +poison is time. + -- Emerson, "Society and Solitude" +% +Alcoholics Anonymous is when you get to drink under someone else's name. +% +Always store beer in a dark place. + -- Lazarus Long +% +An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do. + -- Dylan Thomas +% +And you can't get any Watney's Red Barrel, +because the bars close every time you're thirsty... +% +... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. + -- J. B. White +% +Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +Because the wine remembers. +% +Beer & Pretzels -- Breakfast of Champions. +% +Beer -- it's not just for breakfast anymore. +% +Beggar to well-dressed businessman: + "Could you spare $20.95 for a fifth of Chivas?" +% +Best Beer: A panel of tasters assembled by the Consumer's Union in 1969 +judged Coors and Miller's High Life to be among the very best. Those who +doubt that beer is a serious subject might ponder its effect on American +history. For example, New England's first colonists decided to drop anchor +at Plymouth Rock instead of continuing on to Virginia because, as one of +them put it, "We could not now take time for further consideration, our +victuals being spent and especially our beer." + -- Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst & Most Unusual +% +Booze is the answer. I don't remember the question. +% +Brandy-and-water spoils two good things. + -- Charles Lamb +% +But, officer, he's not drunk, I just saw his fingers twitch! +% +Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel. +Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something +Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy out of it? +Jaka: Ugh! +Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy? + -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret" +% +Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero +... must drink brandy. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +Climbing onto a bar stool, a piece of string asked for a beer. + "Wait a minute. Aren't you a string?" + "Well, yes, I am." + "Sorry. We don't serve strings here." + The determined string left the bar and stopped a passer-by. "Excuse, +me," it said, "would you shred my ends and tie me up like a pretzel?" The +passer-by obliged, and the string re-entered the bar. "May I have a beer, +please?" it asked the bartender. + The barkeep set a beer in front of the string, then suddenly stopped. +"Hey, aren't you the string I just threw out of here?" + "No, I'm a frayed knot." +% +Coach: Can I draw you a beer, Norm? +Norm: No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one. + -- Cheers, No Help Wanted + +Coach: How about a beer, Norm? +Norm: Hey I'm high on life, Coach. Of course, beer is my life. + -- Cheers, No Help Wanted + +Coach: How's a beer sound, Norm? +Norm: I dunno. I usually finish them before they get a word in. + -- Cheers, Fortune and Men's Weights +% +Coach: How's it going, Norm? +Norm: Daddy's rich and Momma's good lookin'. + -- Cheers, Truce or Consequences + +Sam: What's up, Norm? +Norm: My nipples. It's freezing out there. + -- Cheers, Coach Returns to Action + +Coach: What's the story, Norm? +Norm: Thirsty guy walks into a bar. You finish it. + -- Cheers, Endless Slumper +% +Coach: What would you say to a beer, Normie? +Norm: Daddy wuvs you. + -- Cheers, The Mail Goes to Jail + +Sam: What'd you like, Normie? +Norm: A reason to live. Gimme another beer. + -- Cheers, Behind Every Great Man + +Sam: What will you have, Norm? +Norm: Well, I'm in a gambling mood, Sammy. I'll take a glass of whatever + comes out of that tap. +Sam: Oh, looks like beer, Norm. +Norm: Call me Mister Lucky. + -- Cheers, The Executive's Executioner +% +Coach: What's up, Norm? +Norm: Corners of my mouth, Coach. + -- Cheers, Fortune and Men's Weights + +Coach: What's shaking, Norm? +Norm: All four cheeks and a couple of chins, Coach. + -- Cheers, Snow Job + +Coach: Beer, Normie? +Norm: Uh, Coach, I dunno, I had one this week. Eh, why not, I'm still young. + -- Cheers, Snow Job +% +Come quickly, I am tasting stars! + -- Dom Perignon, upon discovering champagne. +% +Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it does run over, +Tonight we will all merry be -- tomorrow we'll get sober. + -- John Fletcher, "The Bloody Brother", II, 2 +% +Don't drink when you drive -- you might hit a bump and spill it. +% +Don't smoke the next cigarette. Repeat. +% +Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *__is* fun trying. +% +Drinking coffee for instant relaxation? That's like drinking alcohol for +instant motor skills. + -- Marc Price +% +Drinking is not a spectator sport. + -- Jim Brosnan +% +Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin +with, that it's compounding a felony. + -- Robert Benchley +% +Drunks are rarely amusing unless they know some good songs and lose a +lot a poker. + -- Karyl Roosevelt +% +Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many +people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable +comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where +the "nog" comes from. + +To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in +season, eggs... +% +ELECTRIC JELL-O + +2 boxes JELL-O brand gelatin 2 packages Knox brand unflavored gelatin +2 cups fruit (any variety) 2+ cups water +1/2 bottle Everclear brand grain alcohol + +Mix JELL-O and Knox gelatin into 2 cups of boiling water. Stir 'til + fully dissolved. +Pour hot mixture into a flat pan. (JELL-O molds won't work.) +Stir in grain alcohol instead of usual cold water. Remove any congealing + glops of slime. (Alcohol has an unusual effect on excess JELL-O.) +Pour in fruit to desired taste, and to absorb any excess alcohol. +Mix in some cold water to dilute the alcohol and make it easier to eat for + the faint of heart. +Refrigerate overnight to allow mixture to fully harden. (About 8-12 hours.) +Cut into squares and enjoy! + +WARNING: + Keep ingredients away from open flame. Not recommended for + children under eight years of age. +% +Every morning is a Smirnoff morning. +% +Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike the office water cooler. +% + Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each +other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around +the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres. + + Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes +to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your +Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright +piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres. + + Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with +inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down +other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and +placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when +the little hammers strike. + + Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over +their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning +Christmas tree. The piano is missing. + + You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless +you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level +4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog. +% +Fishing, with me, has always been an excuse to drink in the daytime. + -- Jimmy Cannon +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #17 + + "This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, + May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet." + Juliet, this bud's for you. +% +FORTUNE'S FAVORITE RECIPES: #8 + Christmas Rum Cake + +1 or 2 quarts rum 1 tbsp. baking powder +1 cup butter 1 tsp. soda +1 tsp. sugar 1 tbsp. lemon juice +2 large eggs 2 cups brown sugar +2 cups dried assorted fruit 3 cups chopped English walnuts + +Before you start, sample the rum to check for quality. Good, isn't it? Now +select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the rum again. It +must be just right. Be sure the rum is of the highest quality. Pour one cup +of rum into a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat. With an electric +mixer, beat one cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 seaspoon of tugar +and beat again. Meanwhile, make sure the rum is the absolutely highest quality. +Sample another cup. Open second quart as necessary. Add 2 orge laggs, 2 cups +of fried druit and beat until high. If the fried druit gets stuck in the +beaters, just pry it loose with a screwdriver. Sample the rum again, checking +for toncisticity. Next sift 3 cups of baking powder, a pinch of rum, a +seaspoon of toda and a cup of pepper or salt (it really doesn't matter). +Sample some more. Sift 912 pint of lemon juice. Fold in schopped butter and +strained chups. Add bablespoon of brown gugar, or whatever color you have. +Mix mell. Grease oven and turn cake pan to 350 gredees and rake until +poothtick comes out crean. +% +FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14 + +Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your good +liquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert and +light after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anything +drinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck. +% +Glogg (a traditional Scandinavian holiday drink): + fifth of dry red wine + fifth of Aquavit + 1 and 1/2 inch piece of cinnamon + 10 cardamom seeds + 1 cup raisins + 4 dried figs + 1 cup blanched or flaked almonds + a few pieces of dried orange peel + 5 cloves + 1/2 lb. sugar cubes + Heat up the wine and hard stuff (which may be substituted with wine +for the faint of heart) in a big pot after adding all the other stuff EXCEPT +the sugar cubes. Just when it reaches boiling, put the sugar in a wire +strainer, moisten it in the hot brew, lift it out and ignite it with a match. +Dip the sugar several times in the liquid until it is all dissolved. Serve +hot in cups with a few raisins and almonds in each cup. + N.B. Aquavit may be hard to find and expensive to boot. Use it only +if you really have a deep-seated desire to be fussy, or if you are of Swedish +extraction. +% +Halley's Comet: It came, we saw, we drank. +% +Harry's bar has a new cocktail. It's called MRS punch. They make it with +milk, rum and sugar and it's wonderful. The milk is for vitality and the +sugar is for pep. They put in the rum so that people will know what to do +with all that pep and vitality. +% +Having a wonderful wine, wish you were beer. +% +Having wandered helplessly into a blinding snowstorm Sam was greatly +relieved to see a sturdy Saint Bernard dog bounding toward him with +the traditional keg of brandy strapped to his collar. + "At last," cried Sam, "man's best friend -- and a great big dog, too!" +% +He knew the tavernes well in every toun. + -- Geoffrey Chaucer +% +He's just like Capistrano, always ready for a few swallows. +% +"Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!" + -- W. C. Fields +% +HOGAN'S HEROES DRINKING GAME -- + Take a shot every time: + +-- Sergeant Schultz says, "I knoooooowww nooooothing!" +-- General Burkhalter or Major Hochstetter intimidate/insult Colonel Klink. +-- Colonel Klink falls for Colonel Hogan's flattery. +-- One of the prisoners sneaks out of camp (one shot for each prisoner to go). +-- Colonel Klink snaps to attention after answering the phone (two shots + if it's one of our heroes on the other end). +-- One of the Germans is threatened with being sent to the Russian front. +-- Corporal Newkirk calls up a German in his phoney German accent, and + tricks him (two shots if it's Colonel Klink). +-- Hogan has a romantic interlude with a beautiful girl from the underground. +-- Colonel Klink relates how he's never had an escape from Stalag 13. +-- Sergeant Schultz gives up a secret (two shots if he's bribed with food). +-- The prisoners listen to the Germans' conversation by a hidden transmitter. +-- Sergeant Schultz "captures" one of the prisoners after an escape. +-- Lebeau pronounces "colonel" as "cuh-loh-`nell". +-- Carter builds some kind of device (two shots if it's not explosive). +-- Lebeau wears his apron. +-- Hogan says "We've got no choice" when someone claims that the plan is + impossible. + -- The prisoners capture an important German, and sneak him out the tunnel. +% +I can't die until the government finds a safe place to bury my liver. + -- Phil Harris +% +I distrust a man who says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink +too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does. + -- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon" +% +I don't drink, I don't like it, it makes me feel too good. + -- K. Coates +% +I drink to make other people interesting. + -- George Jean Nathan +% +I gave up Smoking, Drinking and Sex. It was the most +*__________horrifying* 20 minutes of my life! +% +I have just had eighteen whiskeys in a row. I do believe that is a record. + -- Dylan Thomas, his last words +% +I have to think hard to name an interesting man who does not drink. + -- Richard Burton +% +I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. +I haven't had time for tobacco since. + -- Arturo Toscanini +% +I may not be able to walk, but I drive from a sitting position. +% +I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry Martini. + -- Alexander Woolcott +% +I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was all +saloonkeepers were Democrats. +% +I never take work home with me; I always leave it in some bar along the way. +% +I suppose that in a few hours I will sober up. That's such a sad +thought. I think I'll have a few more drinks to prepare myself. +% +I used to have a drinking problem. Now I love the stuff. +% +I will not drink! +But if I do... +I will not get drunk! +But if I do... +I will not in public! +But if I do... +I will not fall down! +But if I do... +I will fall face down so that they cannot see my company badge. +% +I wish you were a Scotch on the rocks. +% +I'd like to meet the guy who invented beer and see what he's working on now. +% +I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy. + -- Fred Allen + +[Also attributed to S. Clay Wilson. Ed.] +% +I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol +that some thinkle peep I am. +It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get. +% +I've always felt sorry for people that don't drink -- remember, +when they wake up, that's as good as they're gonna feel all day! +% +I've always made it a solemn practice to never drink anything stronger +than tequila before breakfast. + -- R. Nesson +% +I've never been drunk, but often I've been overserved. + -- George Gobel +% +If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire. +% +If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their Heads. +% +If I knew what brand [of whiskey] he drinks, I would send a barrel or +so to my other generals. + -- Abraham Lincoln, on General Grant +% +If people drank ink instead of Schlitz, they'd be better off. + -- Edward E. Hippensteel + +[What brand of ink? Ed.] +% +If you don't drink it, someone else will. +% +If you drink, don't park. Accidents make people. +% +In 1967, the Soviet Government minted a beautiful silver ruble with Lenin +in a very familiar pose -- arms raised above him, leading the country to +revolution. But, it was clear to everybody, that if you looked at it from +behind, it was clear that Lenin was pointing to 11:00, when the Vodka +shops opened, and was actually saying, "Comrades, forward to the Vodka shops. + +It became fashionable, when one wanted to have a drink, to take out the +ruble and say, "Oh my goodness, Comrades, Lenin tells me we should go. +% +In a bottle, the neck is always at the top. +% +In a gathering of two or more people, when a lighted cigarette is +placed in an ashtray, the smoke will waft into the face of the non-smoker. +% +In a whiskey it's age, in a cigarette it's taste and in a sports car +it's impossible. +% +In vino veritas. + [In wine there is truth.] + -- Pliny +% +It has been said that Public Relations is the art of winning friends +and getting people under the influence. + -- Jeremy Tunstall +% +It's a brave man who, when things are at their darkest, can kick back and party! + -- Dennis Quaid, "Inner Space" +% +It's gonna be alright, +It's almost midnight, +And I've got two more bottles of wine. +% +It's the same old story; boy meets beer, boy drinks beer... boy gets +another beer. + -- Cheers +% +It's useless to try to hold some people to anything they say while they're +madly in love, drunk, or running for office. +% +Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans. +% +Kiss a non-smoker; taste the difference. +% +Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray. +% +Lady Astor was giving a costume ball and Winston Churchill asked her what +disguise she would recommend for him. She replied, "Why don't you come +sober, Mr. Prime Minister?" +% +Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best way +they can. I'm sick of the job. It's a thankless one and full of grief. + -- Al Capone +% +Life, like beer, is merely borrowed. + -- Don Reed +% +Look at it this way: Your daughter just named the fresh turkey you brought +home "Cuddles", so you're going out to buy a canned ham. And you're still +drinking ordinary scotch? +% +Look at it this way: Your wife's spending $280 a month on meditation lessons to +forget $26,000 of college education. And you're still drinking ordinary scotch? +% +Marvin the Nature Lover spied a grasshopper hopping along in the grass, +and in a mood for communing with nature, rare even among full-fledged +Nature Lovers, he spoke to the grasshopper, saying: "Hello, friend +grasshopper. Did you know they've named a drink after you?" + "Really?" replied the grasshopper, obviously pleased. "They've +named a drink Fred?" +% +"Mind if I smoke?" + "I don't care if you burst into flames and die!" +% +"Mind if I smoke?" + "Yes, I'd like to see that, does it come out of your ears or what?" +% +My mother drinks to forget she drinks. + -- Crazy Jimmy +% +My uncle was the town drunk -- and we lived in Chicago. + -- George Gobel +% +Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour. +% +Never drink from your finger bowl -- it contains only water. +% +No, I don't have a drinking problem. + +I drink, I get drunk, I fall down. + +No problem! +% +[Norm comes in with an attractive woman.] + +Coach: Normie, Normie, could this be Vera? +Norm: With a lot of expensive surgery, maybe. + -- Cheers, Norman's Conquest + +Coach: What's up, Normie? +Norm: The temperature under my collar, Coach. + -- Cheers, I'll Be Seeing You (Part 2) + +Coach: What would you say to a nice beer, Normie? +Norm: Going down? + -- Cheers, Diane Meets Mom +% +[Norm goes into the bar at Vic's Bowl-A-Rama.] + +Off-screen crowd: Norm! +Sam: How the hell do they know him here? +Cliff: He's got a life, you know. + -- Cheers, From Beer to Eternity + +Woody: What can I do for you, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Elope with my wife. + -- Cheers, The Triangle + +Woody: How's life, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Oh, I'm waiting for the movie. + -- Cheers, Take My Shirt... Please? +% +[Norm is angry.] + +Woody: What can I get you, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Clifford Clavin's head. + -- Cheers, The Triangle + +Sam: Hey, what's happening, Norm? +Norm: Well, it's a dog-eat-dog world, Sammy, + and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear. + -- Cheers, The Peterson Principle + +Sam: How's life in the fast lane, Normie? +Norm: Beats me, I can't find the on-ramp. + -- Cheers, Diane Chambers Day +% +[Norm returns from the hospital.] + +Coach: What's up, Norm? +Norm: Everything that's supposed to be. + -- Cheers, Diane Meets Mom + +Sam: What's new, Normie? +Norm: Terrorists, Sam. They've taken over my stomach. They're demanding beer. + -- Cheers, The Heart is a Lonely Snipehunter + +Coach: What'll it be, Normie? +Norm: Just the usual, Coach. I'll have a froth of beer and a snorkel. + -- Cheers, King of the Hill +% +[Norm tries to prove that he is not Anton Kreitzer.] +Norm: Afternoon, everybody! +All: Anton! + -- Cheers, The Two Faces of Norm + +Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: A flashing sign in my gut that says, ``Insert beer here.'' + -- Cheers, Call Me, Irresponsible + +Sam: What can I get you, Norm? +Norm: [scratching his beard] Got any flea powder? Ah, just kidding. + Gimme a beer; I think I'll just drown the little suckers. + -- Cheers, Two Girls for Every Boyd +% +Norm: Gentlemen, start your taps. + -- Cheers, The Coach's Daughter + +Coach: How's life treating you, Norm? +Norm: Like it caught me in bed with his wife. + -- Cheers, Any Friend of Diane's + +Coach: How's life, Norm? +Norm: Not for the squeamish, Coach. + -- Cheers, Friends, Romans, and Accountants +% +Norm: Hey, everybody. +All: [silence; everybody is mad at Norm for being rich.] +Norm: [Carries on both sides of the conversation himself.] + Norm! (Norman.) + How are you feeling today, Norm? + Rich and thirsty. Pour me a beer. + -- Cheers, Tan 'n Wash + +Woody: What's the latest, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Zsa-Zsa marries a millionaire, Peterson drinks a beer. + Film at eleven. + -- Cheers, Knights of the Scimitar + +Woody: How are you today, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Never been better, Woody. ... Just once I'd like to be better. + -- Cheers, Chambers vs. Malone +% +Not all men who drink are poets. Some of us drink because we aren't poets. +% +Not drinking, chasing women, or doing drugs won't make you live longer -- +it just seems that way. +% +NOTICE: + Anyone seen smoking will be assumed to be on fire and will + be summarily put out. +% +Now is the time for drinking; now the time to beat the earth with +unfettered foot. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power +tools aren't soluble in alcohol... + -- Crazy Nigel +% +Old Grandad is dead but his spirits live on. +% +Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were +forced to live on nothing but food and water for days. + -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee" +% +One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet +when well oiled. +% +One dusty July afternoon, somewhere around the turn of the century, Patrick +Malone was in Mulcahey's Bar, bending an elbow with the other street car +conductors from the Brooklyn Traction Company. While they were discussing the +merits of a local ring hero, the bar goes silent. Malone turns around to see +his wife, with a face grim as death, stalking to the bar. + Slapping a four-bit piece down on the bar, she draws herself up to her +full five feet five inches and says to Mulcahey, "Give me what himself has +been havin' all these years." + Mulcahey looks at Malone, who shrugs, and then back at Margaret Mary +Malone. He sets out a glass and pours her a triple shot of Rye. The bar is +totally silent as they watch the woman pick up the glass and knock back the +drink. She slams the glass down on the bar, gasps, shudders slightly, and +passes out; falling straight back, stiff as a board, saved from sudden contact +with the barroom floor by the ample belly of Seamus Fogerty. + Sometime later, she comes to on the pool table, a jacket under her +head. Her bloodshot eyes fell upon her husband, who says, "And all these +years you've been thinkin' I've been enjoying meself." +% +Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups -- +alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat. + -- Alex Levine +% +PLEASE DON'T SMOKE HERE! + +Penalty: An early, lingering death from cancer, + emphysema, or other smoking-caused ailment. +% +Police: Good evening, are you the host? +Host: No. +Police: We've been getting complaints about this party. +Host: About the drugs? +Police: No. +Host: About the guns, then? Is somebody complaining about the guns? +Police: No, the noise. +Host: Oh, the noise. Well that makes sense because there are no guns + or drugs here. (An enormous explosion is heard in the + background.) Or fireworks. Who's complaining about the noise? + The neighbors? +Police: No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago. Most of the recent + complaints have come from Pittsburgh. Do you think you could + ask the host to quiet things down? +Host: No Problem. (At this point, a Volkswagon bug with primitive + religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living + room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the + lawn, where it smashes into a tree. Eight guests tumble out + onto the grass, moaning.) See? Things are starting to wind + down. +% +Preserve Wildlife! Throw a party today! +% +Recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster: + (1) Take the juice from one bottle of Ol' Janx Spirit + (2) Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of + Santraginus V (Oh, those Santraginean fish!) + (3) Allow 3 cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the + mixture (properly iced or the benzine is lost.) + (4) Allow four liters of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it. + (5) Over the back of a silver spoon, float a measure of + Qualactin Hypermint extract. + (6) Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve. + (7) Sprinkle Zamphuor. + (8) Add an olive. + (9) Drink... but... very carefully... +% +Riffle West Virginia is so small that the Boy Scout had to double as the +town drunk. +% +Romance, like alcohol, should be enjoyed, but should not be allowed to +become necessary. + -- Edgar Friedenberg +% +Said the attractive, cigar-smoking housewife to her girl-friend: "I got +started one night when George came home and found one burning in the ashtray." +% +Sam: What do you know there, Norm? +Norm: How to sit. How to drink. Want to quiz me? + -- Cheers, Loverboyd + +Sam: Hey, how's life treating you there, Norm? +Norm: Beats me. ... Then it kicks me and leaves me for dead. + -- Cheers, Loverboyd + +Woody: How would a beer feel, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Pretty nervous if I was in the room. + -- Cheers, Loverboyd +% +Sam: What's the good word, Norm? +Norm: Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. +Sam: Oh no, not the Hungry Heifer... +Norm: Yeah, yeah, yeah... +Sam: One heartburn cocktail coming up. + -- Cheers, I'll Gladly Pay You Tuesday + +Sam: Whaddya say, Norm? +Norm: Well, I never met a beer I didn't drink. And down it goes. + -- Cheers, Love Thy Neighbor + +Woody: What's your pleasure, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Boxer shorts and loose shoes. But I'll settle for a beer. + -- Cheers, The Bar Stoolie +% +Sam: What do you say, Norm? +Norm: Any cheap, tawdry thing that'll get me a beer. + -- Cheers, Birth, Death, Love and Rice + +Sam: What do you say to a beer, Normie? +Norm: Hiya, sailor. New in town? + -- Cheers, Woody Goes Belly Up + +Norm: [coming in from the rain] Evening, everybody. +All: Norm! (Norman.) +Sam: Still pouring, Norm? +Norm: That's funny, I was about to ask you the same thing. + -- Cheers, Diane's Nightmare +% +Sam: What's going on, Normie? +Norm: My birthday, Sammy. Give me a beer, stick a candle in + it, and I'll blow out my liver. + -- Cheers, Where Have All the Floorboards Gone + +Woody: Hey, Mr. P. How goes the search for Mr. Clavin? +Norm: Not as well as the search for Mr. Donut. + Found him every couple of blocks. + -- Cheers, Head Over Hill +% +Sam: What's new, Norm? +Norm: Most of my wife. + -- Cheers, The Spy Who Came in for a Cold One + +Coach: Beer, Norm? +Norm: Naah, I'd probably just drink it. + -- Cheers, Now Pitching, Sam Malone + +Coach: What's doing, Norm? +Norm: Well, science is seeking a cure for thirst. I happen + to be the guinea pig. + -- Cheers, Let Me Count the Ways +% +Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change. +% +Sleep -- the most beautiful experience in life -- except drink. + -- W. C. Fields +% +SMOKING IS NOW ALLOWED !!! + Anyone wishing to smoke, however, must file, in triplicate, the + U.S. government Environmental Impact Narrative Statement (EINS), + describing in detail the type of combustion proposed, impact on + the environment, and anticipated opposition. Statements must be + filed 30 days in advance. +% +Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. + -- Fletcher Knebel +% +Smoking is, as far as I'm concerned, the entire point of being an adult. + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +Smoking Prohibited. Absolutely no ifs, ands, or butts. +% +So, is the glass half empty, half full, or just twice as +large as it needs to be? +% +Some people have no respect for age unless it's bottled. +% +Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm the +only ashtray. +% + Split 1/4 bottle .187 liters + Half 1/2 bottle + Bottle 750 milliliters + Magnum 2 bottles 1.5 liters + Jeroboam 4 bottles + Rehoboam 6 bottles Not available in the US + Methuselah 8 bottles + Salmanazar 12 bottles + Balthazar 16 bottles + Nebuchadnezzar 20 bottles 15 liters + Sovereign 34 bottles 26 liters + + The Sovereign is a new bottle, made for the launching of the +largest cruise ship in the world. The bottle alone cost 8,000 dollars +to produce and they only made 8 of them. + Most of the funny names come from Biblical people. +% +Symptom: Drinking fails to give taste and satisfaction, beer is + unusually pale and clear. +Problem: Glass empty. +Action Required: Find someone who will buy you another beer. + +Symptom: Drinking fails to give taste and satisfaction, + and the front of your shirt is wet. +Fault: Mouth not open when drinking or glass applied to + wrong part of face. +Action Required: Buy another beer and practice in front of mirror. + Drink as many as needed to perfect drinking technique. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Symptom: Everything has gone dark. +Fault: The Bar is closing. +Action Required: Panic. + +Symptom: You awaken to find your bed hard, cold and wet. + You cannot see the bathroom light. +Fault: You have spent the night in the gutter. +Action Required: Check your watch to see if bars are open yet. If not, + treat yourself to a lie-in. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Symptom: Feet cold and wet, glass empty. +Fault: Glass being held at incorrect angle. +Action Required: Turn glass other way up so that open end points + toward ceiling. + +Symptom: Feet warm and wet. +Fault: Improper bladder control. +Action Required: Go stand next to nearest dog. After a while complain + to the owner about its lack of house training and + demand a beer as compensation. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Symptom: Floor blurred. +Fault: You are looking through bottom of empty glass. +Action Required: Find someone who will buy you another beer. + +Symptom: Floor moving. +Fault: You are being carried out. +Action Required: Find out if you are taken to another bar. If not, + complain loudly that you are being kidnapped. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Symptom: Floor swaying. +Fault: Excessive air turbulence, perhaps due to air-hockey + game in progress. +Action Required: Insert broom handle down back of jacket. + +Symptom: Everything has gone dim, strange taste of peanuts + and pretzels or cigarette butts in mouth. +Fault: You have fallen forward. +Action Required: See above. + +Symptom: Opposite wall covered with acoustic tile and several + fluorescent light strips. +Fault: You have fallen over backward. +Action Required: If your glass is full and no one is standing on your + drinking arm, stay put. If not, get someone to help + you get up, lash yourself to bar. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Take me drunk, I'm home again! +% +The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk. + -- Maurice Baring +% +The best way to preserve a right is to exercise it, and the right to +smoke is a right worth dying for. +% +The Celts invented two things, Whiskey and self-destruction. +% +The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will +walk carefully. + -- Russian Proverb +% +The cost of living has just gone up another dollar a quart. + -- W. C. Fields +% +The father, passing through his son's college town late one evening on a +business trip, thought he would pay his boy a surprise visit. Arriving at the +lad's fraternity house, dad rapped loudly on the door. After several minutes +of knocking, a sleepy voice drifted down from a second-floor window, + "Whaddaya want?" + "Does Ramsey Duncan live here?" asked the father. + "Yeah," replied the voice. "Dump him on the front porch." +% +The mark of a good party is that you wake up the next morning wanting to +change your name and start a new life in different city. + -- Vance Bourjaily, "Esquire" +% +The search for the perfect martini is a fraud. The perfect martini is +a belt of gin from the bottle; anything else is the decadent trappings +of civilization. + -- T.K. +% +The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer +them a drink. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Interview" +% +The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes +the worst cigars. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The voluptuous blond was chatting with her handsome escort in a posh +restaurant when their waiter, stumbling as he brought their drinks, +dumped a martini on the rocks down the back of the blonde's dress. She +sprang to her feet with a wild rebel yell, dashed wildly around the table, +then galloped wriggling from the room followed by her distraught boyfriend. +A man seated on the other side of the room with a date of his own beckoned +to the waiter and said, "We'll have two of whatever she was drinking." +% +The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whiskey. +By diligent effort, I learned to like it. + -- Winston Churchill +% +"The whole world is about three drinks behind." + -- Humphrey Bogart +% +The wise and intelligent are coming belatedly to realize that alcohol, and +not the dog, is man's best friend. Rover is taking a beating -- and he should. + -- W. C. Fields +% +There are more old drunkards than old doctors. +% +There are only two kinds of tequila. Good and better. +% +There are two problems with a major hangover. You feel +like you are going to die and you're afraid that you won't. +% +There be sober men a'plenty, and drunkards barely twenty; there are men +of over ninety who have never yet kissed a girl. But give me the rambling +rover, from Orkney down to Dover, we will roam the whole world over, and +together we'll face the world. + -- Andy Stewart, "After the Hush" +% +There is nothing wrong with abstinence, in moderation. +% +There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when +the boss asks for a lift home from the office. +% +These days the necessities of life cost you about three times what they +used to, and half the time they aren't even fit to drink. +% +They took some of the Van Goghs, most of the jewels, and all of the Chivas! +% +To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it. +% +To one large turkey add one gallon of vermouth and a demijohn of Angostura +bitters. Shake. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, recipe for turkey cocktail. +% +Too ripped. Gotta go. +% +Toothpaste never hurts the taste of good scotch. +% +Two friends were out drinking when suddenly one lurched backward off his +barstool and lay motionless on the floor. + "One thing about Jim," the other said to the bartender, "he sure +knows when to stop." +% +Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic. + -- E. F. Benson +% +We don't smoke and we don't chew, and we don't go with girls that do. + -- Walter Summers +% +What scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch? + -- J. D. Farley +% +When all else fails, pour a pint of Guinness in the gas tank, advance +the spark 20 degrees, cry "God Save the Queen!", and pull the starter knob. + -- MG "Series MGA" Workshop Manual +% +When I drink, *everybody* drinks!" a man shouted to the assembled bar patrons. +A loud general cheer went up. After downing his whiskey, he hopped onto a +barstool and shouted "When I take another drink, *everybody* takes another +drink!" The announcement produced another cheer and another round of drinks. + As soon as he had downed his second drink, the fellow hopped back +onto the stool. "And when I pay," he bellowed, slapping five dollars onto +the bar, "*everybody* pays!" +% +When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a year. I +have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire winter with +slightly over half that quantity of beer. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve +it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality. + -- Al Capone +% +When the cup is full, carry it level. +% +When the going gets tough, the tough go grab a beer. +% + While riding in a train between London and Birmingham, a woman +inquired of Oscar Wilde, "You don't mind if I smoke, do you?" + Wilde gave her a sidelong glance and replied, "I don't mind if +you burn, madam." +% +Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink? +% +Why on earth do people buy old bottles of wine when they can get a +fresh one for a quarter of the price? +% +Woman on Street: Sir, you are drunk; very, very drunk. +Winston Churchill: Madame, you are ugly; very, very ugly. + I shall be sober in the morning. +% +Wonderful day. Your hangover just makes it seem terrible. +% +Woody: What's the story, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: The Bobbsey twins go to the brewery. + Let's just cut to the happy ending. + -- Cheers, Airport V + +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, there's a cold one waiting for you. +Norm: I know, and if she calls, I'm not here. + -- Cheers, Bar Wars II: The Woodman Strikes Back + +Sam: Beer, Norm? +Norm: Have I gotten that predictable? Good. + -- Cheers, Don't Paint Your Chickens +% +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, Jack Frost nipping at your nose? +Norm: Yep, now let's get Joe Beer nipping at my liver, huh? + -- Cheers, Feeble Attraction + +Sam: What are you up to Norm? +Norm: My ideal weight if I were eleven feet tall. + -- Cheers, Bar Wars III: The Return of Tecumseh + +Woody: Nice cold beer coming up, Mr. Peterson. +Norm: You mean, `Nice cold beer going *down* Mr. Peterson.' + -- Cheers, Loverboyd +% +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what do you say to a cold one? +Norm: See you later, Vera, I'll be at Cheers. + -- Cheers, Norm's Last Hurrah + +Sam: Well, look at you. You look like the cat that swallowed the canary. +Norm: And I need a beer to wash him down. + -- Cheers, Norm's Last Hurrah + +Woody: Would you like a beer, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: No, I'd like a dead cat in a glass. + -- Cheers, Little Carla, Happy at Last, Part 2 +% +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what's up? +Norm: The warranty on my liver. + -- Cheers, Breaking In Is Hard to Do + +Sam: What can I do for you, Norm? +Norm: Open up those beer taps and, oh, take the day off, Sam. + -- Cheers, Veggie-Boyd + +Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Another layer for the winter, Wood. + -- Cheers, It's a Wonderful Wife +% +Woody: How are you feeling today, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Poor. +Woody: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. +Norm: No, I meant `pour'. + -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 3 + +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what's the story? +Norm: Boy meets beer. Boy drinks beer. Boy gets another beer. + -- Cheers, The Proposal + +Paul: Hey Norm, how's the world been treating you? +Norm: Like a baby treats a diaper. + -- Cheers, Tan 'n Wash +% +Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Let's talk about what's going *in* Mr. Peterson. A beer, Woody. + -- Cheers, Paint Your Office + +Sam: How's life treating you? +Norm: It's not, Sammy, but that doesn't mean you can't. + -- Cheers, A Kiss is Still a Kiss + +Woody: Can I pour you a draft, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: A little early, isn't it Woody? +Woody: For a beer? +Norm: No, for stupid questions. + -- Cheers, Let Sleeping Drakes Lie +% +Woody: What's happening, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: The question is, Woody, why is it happening to me? + -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 1 + +Woody: What's going down, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: My cheeks on this barstool. + -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2 + +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, can I pour you a beer? +Norm: Well, okay, Woody, but be sure to stop me at one. ... + Eh, make that one-thirty. + -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2 +% +Work is the curse of the drinking classes. + -- Mike Romanoff +% +You can't fall off the floor. +% +You're not an alcoholic unless you go to the meetings. +% +You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. + -- Dean Martin +% diff --git a/fortunes/education b/fortunes/education new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d67b3ed --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/education @@ -0,0 +1,952 @@ +A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems +best. That's dangerous. Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to +serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the +schools as 'standards'? Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to +work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if +not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent, +elitist. ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such +stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be +supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real +professionals. Those texts are called 'reading material.' They are the +academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms, +and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating +resource centers along the roads. + -- The Underground Grammarian +% +A definition of teaching: casting fake pearls before real swine. + -- Bill Cain, "Stand Up Tragedy" +% +A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and +art into pedantry. Hence University education. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened +into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the +hope of greening the landscape of idea. + -- John Ciardi +% +A grammarian's life is always in tense. +% +A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely +rearranging their prejudices. + -- William James +% +A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll across the kitchen +floor one day when the local cat, by a feat of stealth unusual even for +its species, managed to trap them in a corner. The children cowered, +terrified by this fearsome beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother! +Save us! Save us! We're scared, Mother!" + Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting its +children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat, towering huge above them, +and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that would have done any Doberman +proud. The startled cat fled in fear for its life. + As her grateful offspring flocked around her shouting "Oh, Mother, +you saved us!" and "Yay! You scared the cat away!" she turned to them +purposefully and declared, "You see how useful it is to know a second +language?" +% +A Parable of Modern Research: + + Bob has lost his keys in a room which is dark except for one +brightly lit corner. + "Why are you looking under the light, you lost them in the dark!" + "I can only see here." +% +A pencil with no point needs no eraser. +% + A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling + misattributed to Mark Twain + + For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped +to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer +be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained +would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 +might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the +same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with +"i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. + Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear +with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 +or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. +Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi +ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz +ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. + Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud +hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. +% +A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. +% + A reader reports that when the patient died, the attending doctor +recorded the following on the patient's chart: "Patient failed to fulfill +his wellness potential." + Another doctor reports that in a recent issue of the *American Journal +of Family Practice* fleas were called "hematophagous arthropod vectors." + A reader reports that the Army calls them "vertically deployed anti- +personnel devices." You probably call them bombs. + At McClellan Air Force base in Sacramento, California, civilian +mechanics were placed on "non-duty, non-pay status." That is, they were fired. + After taking the trip of a lifetime, our reader sent his twelve rolls +of film to Kodak for developing (or "processing," as Kodak likes to call it) +only to receive the following notice: "We must report that during the handling +of your twelve 35mm Kodachrome slide orders, the films were involved in an +unusual laboratory experience." The use of the passive is a particularly nice +touch, don't you think? Nobody did anything to the films; they just had a bad +experience. Of course our reader can always go back to Tibet and take his +pictures all over again, using the twelve replacement rolls Kodak so generously +sent him. + -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) +% +A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. +% +A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first +thought of. + -- Burt Bacharach +% +A tautology is a thing which is tautological. +% +A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest +in students. + -- John Ciardi +% +"A University without students is like an ointment without a fly." + -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin +% +About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard. +% +Abstract: + This study examined the incidence of neckwear tightness among a group +of 94 white-collar working men and the effect of a tight business-shirt collar +and tie on the visual performance of 22 male subjects. Of the white-collar +men measured, 67% were found to be wearing neckwear that was tighter than +their neck circumference. The visual discrimination of the 22 subjects was +evaluated using a critical flicker frequency (CFF) test. Results of the CFF +test indicated that tight neckwear significantly decreased the visual +performance of the subjects and that visual performance did not improve +immediately when tight neckwear was removed. + -- Langan, L. M. and Watkins, S. M. "Pressure of Menswear on the + Neck in Relation to Visual Performance." Human Factors 29, + #1 (Feb. 1987), pp. 67-71. +% +Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, +because the stakes are so low. + -- Wallace Sayre +% +Academicians care, that's who. +% +=============== ALL FRESHMEN PLEASE NOTE =============== + +To minimize scheduling confusion, please realize that if you are taking one +course which is offered at only one time on a given day, and another which is +offered at all times on that day, the second class will be arranged as to +afford maximum inconvenience to the student. For example, if you happen +to work on campus, you will have 1-2 hours between classes. If you commute, +there will be a minimum of 6 hours between the two classes. +% +An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. +% +As Gen. de Gaulle occasionally acknowledges America to be the daughter +of Europe, so I am pleased to come to Yale, the daughter of Harvard. + -- J. F. Kennedy +% +As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? +% +Briefly stated, the findings are that when presented with an array of +data or a sequence of events in which they are instructed to discover +an underlying order, subjects show strong tendencies to perceive order +and causality in random arrays, to perceive a pattern or correlation +which seems a priori intuitively correct even when the actual correlation +in the data is counterintuitive, to jump to conclusions about the correct +hypothesis, to seek and to use only positive or confirmatory evidence, to +construe evidence liberally as confirmatory, to fail to generate or to +assess alternative hypotheses, and having thus managed to expose themselves +only to confirmatory instances, to be fallaciously confident of the validity +of their judgments (Jahoda, 1969; Einhorn and Hogarth, 1978). In the +analyzing of past events, these tendencies are exacerbated by failure to +appreciate the pitfalls of post hoc analyses. + -- A. Benjamin +% +British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive +it. If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps. + -- Peter Ustinov +% +... 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" +% +Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two points. + -- M. M. Johnston +% +Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness +of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." + -- David Guaspari +% +Dear Freshman, + You don't know who I am and frankly shouldn't care, but +unknown to you we have something in common. We are both rather +prone to mistakes. I was elected Student Government President by +mistake, and you came to school here by mistake. +% +Dear Miss Manners: + My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's +elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between +courses, is all right. Which is correct? + +Gentle Reader: + For the purpose of answering examinations in your home economics +class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this principle of +education may be of even greater importance to you now than learning +correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners believes that is. +% +Department chairmen never die, they just lose their faculties. +% +Did you know the University of Iowa closed down after someone stole the book? +% +Do not clog intellect's sluices with bits of knowledge of questionable uses. +% +Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education +is what you get when you read the fine print; experience is what you get +when you don't. + -- Pete Seeger +% +Do you think that illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup? +% +Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and +demand. The less of either the people have, the less they want. + -- Charlotte Observer, 1897 +% +Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to +time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist" +% +Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. + -- Daniel J. Boorstin +% +Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine. + -- Irwin Edman +% +Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. + -- B. F. Skinner +% +Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead +to unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters +of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around with +royal-blue chickens. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Eloquence is logic on fire. +% +Encyclopedia for sale by father. Son knows everything. +% +Engineering: "How will this work?" +Science: "Why will this work?" +Management: "When will this work?" +Liberal Arts: "Do you want fries with that?" +% +Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak +it to? + -- Clarence Darrow +% +Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My +opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller +that could have been prevented by a good teacher. + -- Flannery O'Connor +% +Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for +even the greatest fool may ask more the wisest man can answer. + -- C. C. Colton +% +Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and +the instruction afterward. +% +F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm! +% +f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. +% +f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng. +% +f u cn rd ths, u r prbbly a lsy spllr. +% +Fortune's Guide to Freshman Notetaking: + +WHEN THE PROFESSOR SAYS: YOU WRITE: + +Probably the greatest quality of the poetry John Milton -- born 1608 +of John Milton, who was born in 1608, is the +combination of beauty and power. Few have +excelled him in the use of the English language, +or for that matter, in lucidity of verse form, +'Paradise Lost' being said to be the greatest +single poem ever written." + +Current historians have come to Most of the problems that now +doubt the complete advantageousness face the United States are +of some of Roosevelt's policies... directly traceable to the + bungling and greed of President + Roosevelt. + +... it is possible that we simply do Professor Mitchell is a +not understand the Russian viewpoint... communist. +% +Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue +ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature. +This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays. + -- Robert Parker, quoted in "Murder Ink", ed. D. Wynn +% +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. +% +Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. +% +Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths good theatre. + -- Gail Godwin +% +Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture. +% +Graduate students and most professors are no smarter than undergrads. +They're just older. +% +He that teaches himself has a fool for a master. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +"He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him insufferable." +% +He who writes with no misspelled words has prevented a first suspicion +on the limits of his scholarship or, in the social world, of his general +education and culture. + -- Julia Norton McCorkle +% +[He] took me into his library and showed me his books, of which he had +a complete set. + -- Ring Lardner +% +Higher education helps your earning capacity. Ask any college professor. +% +History books which contain no lies are extremely dull. +% +History is nothing but a collection of fables and useless trifles, +cluttered up with a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names. + -- Leo Tolstoy +% +How do you explain school to a higher intelligence? + -- Elliot, "E.T." +% +I am a bookaholic. If you are a decent person, you will not sell me +another book. +% +"I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it." + -- English Professor +% +I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone +has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. + -- Professor Lowd, English, Ohio University +% +I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of the +sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for you are +loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway. + -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy, + University of Tennessee at Knoxville +% +I came out of twelve years of college and I didn't even know how to sew. +All I could do was account -- I couldn't even account for myself. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +I came to MIT to get an education for myself and a diploma for my mother. +% +I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to +make it shorter. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +"I have to convince you, or at least snow you ..." + -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 +% +I heard a definition of an intellectual, that I thought was very interesting: +a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +I think your opinions are reasonable, except for the one about my mental +instability. + -- Psychology Professor, Farifield University +% +"I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it (your paper) +presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage." + -- English Professor, Providence College +% +If any man wishes to be humbled and mortified, let him become president +of Harvard. + -- Edward Holyoke +% +If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have +taught much more! +% +If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? +% +If little else, the brain is an educational toy. + -- Tom Robbins +% +If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. + -- Pope John Paul I +% +If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get +the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in +college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural +method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall +learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should +be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the +young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. +I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not +by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise +instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the +attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, +not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to +put on a professor. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library? + -- Lily Tomlin +% +If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. + -- Wittgenstein +% +If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel +in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary +qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted. + -- Marguerite Emmons +% +If you are too busy to read, then you are too busy. +% +If you can't read this, blame a teacher. +% +If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire +deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading +are precisely those that challenge our convictions. +% +If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. + -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard +% +If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid them end to +end, they'd be a lot more comfortable. + -- "Graffiti in the Big Ten" +% +"If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything." + -- A. L. +% +Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the +rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow. + -- Franklin K. Dane +% +Ignorance is when you don't know anything and somebody finds it out. +% +Ignorance must certainly be bliss or there wouldn't be so many people +so resolutely pursuing it. +% +Illiterate? Write today, for free help! +% + In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, +Junior, what are you up to?" + "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the +rabbit. + "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible! No one +will publish such rubbish!" + "Well, follow me and I'll show you." + They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the +rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face. Comes along a +wolf. "Hello, little buddy, what are we doing these days?" + "I'm writing the 2'nd chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour +wolves." + "Are you crazy? Where's your academic honesty?" + "Come with me and I'll show you." + As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face +and a diploma in his paw. Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave +and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge +lion, sitting, picking his teeth and belching, next to some furry, bloody +remnants of the wolf and the fox. + + The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are +important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts. +% +In California, Bill Honig, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, said he +thought the general public should have a voice in defining what an excellent +teacher should know. "I would not leave the definition of math," Dr. Honig +said, "up to the mathematicians." + -- The New York Times, October 22, 1985 +% +Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't +they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning +anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five +years we would have the smartest race of people on earth. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +Iowa State -- the high school after high school! + -- Crow T. Robot +% +It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself +that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *____only* by amusing oneself that +one can learn." + -- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman +% +It has long been an article of our folklore that too much knowledge or skill, +or especially consummate expertise, is a bad thing. It dehumanizes those who +achieve it, and makes difficult their commerce with just plain folks, in whom +good old common sense has not been obliterated by mere book learning or fancy +notions. This popular delusion flourishes now more than ever, for we are all +infected with it in the schools, where educationists have elevated it from +folklore to Article of Belief. It enhances their self-esteem and lightens +their labors by providing theoretical justification for deciding that +appreciation, or even simple awareness, is more to be prized than knowledge, +and relating (to self and others), more than skill, in which minimum +competence will be quite enough. + -- The Underground Grammarian +% + It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and +by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate +the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the +case. Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations +which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are +like cavalry charges in battle -- they are strictly limited in number, they +require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% + It's grad exam time... +COMPUTER SCIENCE + Inside your desk you'll find a listing of the DEC/VMS operating +system in IBM 1710 machine code. Show what changes are necessary to convert +this code into a UNIX Berkeley 7 operating system. Prove that these fixes are +bug free and run correctly. You should gain at least 150% efficiency in the +new system. (You should take no more than 10 minutes on this question.) + +MATHEMATICS + If X equals PI times R^2, construct a formula showing how long +it would take a fire ant to drill a hole through a dill pickle, if the +length-girth ratio of the ant to the pickle were 98.17:1. + +GENERAL KNOWLEDGE +Describe the Universe. Give three examples. +% + It's grad exam time... +MEDICINE + You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a +bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has +been inspected. (You have 15 minutes.) + +HISTORY + Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present +day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, +economic, religious and philosophical impact upon Europe, Asia, America, and +Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific. + +BIOLOGY + Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture +if this form of life had been created 500 million years ago or earlier, with +special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. +% +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 +% +Joe Cool always spends the first two weeks at college sailing his frisbee. + -- Snoopy +% +Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads. +% +Learning at some schools is like drinking from a firehose. +% +Learning without thought is labor lost; +thought without learning is perilous. + -- Confucius +% +Maybe ain't ain't so correct, but I notice that lots of folks who ain't +using ain't ain't eatin' well. + -- Will Rogers +% +Most seminars have a happy ending. Everyone's glad when they're over. +% +My father, a good man, told me, "Never lose your ignorance; you cannot +replace it." + -- Erich Maria Remarque +% +Never have so many understood so little about so much. + -- James Burke +% +Never let your schooling interfere with your education. +% +No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are +really worth the attending. + -- Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations" +% +No matter who you are, some scholar can show you the great idea you had +was had by someone before you. +% +No wonder you're tired! You understood so much today. +% +Normally our rules are rigid; we tend to discretion, if for no other reason +than self-protection. We never recommend any of our graduates, although we +cheerfully provide information as to those who have failed their courses. + -- Jack Vance, "Freitzke's Turn" +% +Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper +is from the wrong kind of tree. + -- Professor, EECS, George Washington University + +I'm looking forward to working with you on this next year. + -- Professor, Harvard, on a senior thesis. +% + `O' LEVEL COUNTER CULTURE +Timewarp allowed: 3 hours. Do not scrawl situationalist graffiti in the +margins or stub your rollups in the inkwells. Orange may be worn. Credit +will be given to candidates who self-actualise. + + (1) Compare and contrast Pink Floyd with Black Sabbath and say why + neither has street credibility. + (2) "Even Buddha would have been hard pushed to reach Nirvana squatting + on a juggernaut route." Consider the dialectic of inner truth + and inner city. + (3) Discuss degree of hassle involved in paranoia about being sucked + into a black hole. + (4) "The Egomaniac's Liberation Front were a bunch of revisionist + ripoff merchants." Comment on this insult. + (5) Account for the lack of references to brown rice in Dylan's lyrics. + (6) "Castenada was a bit of a bozo." How far is this a fair summing + up of western dualism? + (7) Hermann Hesse was a Pisces. Discuss. +% +"OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard." + -- Dr. Joy +% +OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything. +% +One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing +how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette. + -- Professor Charles P. Issawi +% +Periphrasis is the putting of things in a round-about way. "The cost may be +upwards of a figure rather below 10m#." is a periphrasis for The cost may be +nearly 10m#. "In Paris there reigns a complete absence of really reliable +news" is a periphrasis for There is no reliable news in Paris. "Rarely does +the 'Little Summer' linger until November, but at times its stay has been +prolonged until quite late in the year's penultimate month" contains a +periphrasis for November, and another for lingers. "The answer is in the +negative" is a periphrasis for No. "Was made the recipient of" is a +periphrasis for Was presented with. The periphrasis style is hardly possible +on any considerable scale without much use of abstract nouns such as "basis, +case, character, connexion, dearth, description, duration, framework, lack, +nature, reference, regard, respect". The existence of abstract nouns is a +proof that abstract thought has occurred; abstract thought is a mark of +civilized man; and so it has come about that periphrasis and civilization are +by many held to be inseparable. These good people feel that there is an almost +indecent nakedness, a reversion to barbarism, in saying No news is good news +instead of "The absence of intelligence is an indication of satisfactory +developments." + -- Fowler's English Usage +% +"Plaese porrf raed." + -- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase +% +Practice is the best of all instructors. + -- Publilius +% +Princeton's taste is sweet like a strawberry tart. Harvard's is a subtle +taste, like whiskey, coffee, or tobacco. It may even be a bad habit, for +all I know. + -- Prof. J. H. Finley '25 +% +Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem Eng. 130 +midterm. Once again a student did not receive a single point on his exam. +Newell has now tossed 5 shutouts this quarter. Newell's earned exam average +has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%. +% +Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own. +% +Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. +% +Reporter: "How did you like school when you were growing up, Yogi?" +Yogi Berra: "Closed." +% +Rules for Good Grammar #4. + (1) Don't use no double negatives. + (2) Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents. + (3) Join clauses good, like a conjunction should. + (4) About them sentence fragments. + (5) When dangling, watch your participles. + (6) Verbs has got to agree with their subjects. + (7) Just between you and i, case is important. + (8) Don't write run-on sentences when they are hard to read. + (9) Don't use commas, which aren't necessary. + (10) Try to not ever split infinitives. + (11) It is important to use your apostrophe's correctly. + (12) Proofread your writing to see if you any words out. + (13) Correct speling is essential. + (14) A preposition is something you never end a sentence with. + (15) While a transcendent vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally + careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not + become ensconced in obscurity. In other words, eschew obfuscation. +% +Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my +teacher was in my class for five years. + -- George Burns +% +Some scholars are like donkeys, they merely carry a lot of books. + -- Folk saying +% +"Speed is subsittute fo accurancy." +% +Spelling is a lossed art. +% +Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar +without his duck ... +% +Teachers have class. +% +The 'A' is for content, the 'minus' is for not typing it. Don't ever do +this to my eyes again. + -- Professor Ronald Brady, Philosophy, Ramapo State College +% +The alarm clock that is louder than God's own belongs to the roommate with +the earliest class. +% +The average Ph.D thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from +one graveyard to another. + -- J. Frank Dobie, "A Texan in England" +% +The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned +into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D. + -- Nelson Algren, "Writers at Work" +% + "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff +and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. +You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at +night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, +you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your +honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for +it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is +the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be +tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning +is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." + -- T. H. White, "The Once and Future King" +% +The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up +in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school. +% +The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his +intellectual nakedness. + -- Robert M. Hutchins +% +The end of the world will occur at three p.m., this Friday, with +symposium to follow. +% +The future is a race between education and catastrophe. + -- H. G. Wells +% +The important thing is not to stop questioning. +% +The man who has never been flogged has never been taught. + -- Menander +% +The only thing that experience teaches us is that experience teaches us nothing. + -- Andre Maurois (Emile Herzog) +% +The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn. + -- Earl Warren + +That men do not learn very much from history is the most important of all +the lessons that history has to teach. + -- Aldous Huxley + +We learn from history that we do not learn from history. + -- Georg Hegel + +HISTORY: Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn +nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened +this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view. + -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab" +% +The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. + -- Hegel + +I know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking the long view. + -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar" +% +The problem with graduate students, in general, is that they have +to sleep every few days. +% +The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is a constant, but nowadays the +illiterates can read. + -- Alberto Moravia +% +The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking. + -- Christopher Morley +% +"The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and +is an emerging underachiever." +% +The sum of the intelligence of the world is constant. The population is, +of course, growing. +% +The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness. + -- Ursula K. LeGuin, "The Dispossessed" +% +The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed +ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald +% +The three best things about going to school are June, July, and August. +% +The Tree of Learning bears the noblest fruit, but noble fruit tastes bad. +% +The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious +seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the +unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more +bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together. + -- Sir Peter Medawar +% +The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books! +% +The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an +open doorway with an open mind. + -- E. B. White +% +There are no answers, only cross-references. + -- Weiner +% +This is the sort of English up with which I will not put. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for +these only gave life, those the art of living well. + -- Aristotle +% +Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. + -- Hector Berlioz +% +To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. +To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither +oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete. + -- Epictetus +% +To craunch a marmoset. + -- Pedro Carolino, "English as She is Spoke" +% +To teach is to learn twice. + -- Joseph Joubert +% +To teach is to learn. +% +Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational. + -- Charles Schulz +% +Trying to get an education here is like trying to get a drink from a fire hose. +% +Universities are places of knowledge. The freshman each bring a little +in with them, and the seniors take none away, so knowledge accumulates. +% +University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. + -- C. P. Snow +% +Walt: Dad, what's gradual school? +Garp: Gradual school? +Walt: Yeah. Mom says her work's more fun now that she's teaching + gradual school. +Garp: Oh. Well, gradual school is someplace you go and gradually + find out that you don't want to go to school anymore. + -- The World According To Garp +% +"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" + -- Vroomfondel +% +We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary +to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. +Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition +to crave knowledge. + -- George Will +% +We're fantastically incredibly sorry for all these extremely unreasonable +things we did. I can only plead that my simple, barely-sentient friend +and myself are underprivileged, deprived and also college students. + -- Waldo D. R. Dobbs +% + "We're running out of adjectives to describe our situation. We +had crisis, then we went into chaos, and now what do we call this?" said +Nicaraguan economist Francisco Mayorga, who holds a doctorate from Yale. + -- The Washington Post, February, 1988 + +The New Yorker's comment: + At Harvard they'd call it a noun. +% +What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a +free meandering brook. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% + What I Did During My Fall Semester +On the first day of my fall semester, I got up. +Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. +Then I hung out in front of the Dover. + +On the second day of my fall semester, I got up. +Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. +Then I hung out in front of the Dover. + +On the third day of my fall semester, I got up. +Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. +I found a thesis topic: + How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover. + -- Sister Mary Elephant, "Student Statement for Black Friday" +% +What makes you think graduate school is supposed to be satisfying? + -- Erica Jong, "Fear of Flying" +% +What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error. + -- Raymond Aron, "The Opium of the Intellectuals" +% +What we do not understand we do not possess. + -- Goethe +% +What's page one, a preemptive strike? + -- Professor Freund, Communication, Ramapo State College +% +When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into +the soul of the boy sitting next to me. + -- Woody Allen +% +Whenever anyone says, "theoretically," they really mean, "not really." + -- Dave Parnas +% +Where do I find the time for not reading so many books? + -- Karl Kraus +% +"Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school. + -- George Ade +% + Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish +and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearer if +quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and +and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and +Chips, as well as after Chips? +% +You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school. + -- H. H. Munro +% +You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. + -- J. D. Salinger +% +You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. + -- Alfred Kahn +% +"You should, without hesitation, pound your typewriter into a plowshare, +your paper into fertilizer, and enter agriculture" + -- Business Professor, University of Georgia +% +Your education begins where what is called your education is over. +% diff --git a/fortunes/ethnic b/fortunes/ethnic new file mode 100644 index 0000000..305c198 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/ethnic @@ -0,0 +1,851 @@ + A German, a Pole and a Czech left camp for a hike through the woods. +After being reported missing a day or two later, rangers found two bears, +one a male, one a female, looking suspiciously overstuffed. They killed +the female, autopsied her, and sure enough, found the German and the Pole. + "What do you think?" said the first ranger. + "The Czech is in the male," replied the second. +% +Aberdeen was so small that when the family with the car went +on vacation, the gas station and drive-in theatre had to close. +% +According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to live in +America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came in twenty-fifth. +Here in New York we really don't care too much. Because we know that we could +beat up their city anytime. + -- David Letterman +% +"All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right hands." + -- Saint Patrick +% +Also, the Scots are said to have invented golf. Then they had +to invent Scotch whiskey to take away the pain and frustration. +% +alta, v: To change; make or become different; modify. +ansa, v: A spoken or written reply, as to a question. +baa, n: A place people meet to have a few drinks. +Baaston, n: The capital of Massachusetts. +baaba, n: One whose business is to cut or trim hair or beards. +beea, n: An alcoholic beverage brewed from malt and hops, often + found in baas. +caaa, n: An automobile. +centa, n: A point around which something revolves; axis. (Or + someone involved with the Knicks.) +chouda, n: A thick seafood soup, often in a milk base. +dada, n: Information, esp. information organized for analysis or + computation. + -- Massachewsetts Unabridged Dictionary +% +America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him, until +people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and changed its +name to "America". + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? + -- Allen Ginsberg +% +American by birth; Texan by the grace of God. +% +Americans are people who insist on living in the present, tense. +% +Americans' greatest fear is that America will turn out to have been a +phenomenon, not a civilization. + -- Shirley Hazzard, "Transit of Venus" +% +An American is a man with two arms and four wheels. + -- A Chinese child +% +An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. + -- A. P. Herbert +% +Anything anybody can say about America is true. + -- Emmett Grogan +% +Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh +autonomous region, rioted over much needed spelling reform in the Soviet Union. + -- P. J. O'Rourke +% +Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game - it, and high taxes. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them +seemed to come from Texas. + -- Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale" +% +Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System. You couldn't pry that out +of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a +crowbar. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes +% + Carol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling Calibrees +along the block of booths. She chirruped at Kennicott, "Let's be wild! +Let's ride on the merry-go-round and grab a gold ring!" + Kennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, "Think you folks +would like to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?" + Calibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, "Think you'd like +to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?" + Mrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed, "Oh no, +I don't believe I care to much, but you folks go ahead and try it." + Calibree stated to Kennicott, "No, I don't believe we care to a +whole lot, but you folks go ahead and try it." + Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: "Let's try +it some other time, Carrie." + She gave it up. + -- Sinclair Lewis, "Main Street" +% +Climate and Surgery + R C Gilchrist, who was shot by J Sharp twelve days ago, and who +received a derringer ball in the right breast, and who it was supposed at +the time could not live many hours, was on the street yesterday and the +day before -- walking several blocks at a time. To those who design to be +riddled with bullets or cut to pieces with Bowie-knives, we cordially +recommend our Sacramento climate and Sacramento surgery. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, September 11, 1861 +% +David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans": + + * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO + * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE" + * Hourly motel rates + * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here + * Didn't just give up right away during World War II + like some countries we could mention + * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies + * Our well-behaved golf professionals + * Fabulous babes coast to coast +% +Decemba, n: The 12th month of the year. +erra, n: A mistake. +faa, n: To, from, or at considerable distance. +Linder, n: A female name. +memba, n: To recall to the mind; think of again. +New Hampsha, n: A state in the northeast United States. +New Yaak, n: Another state in the northeast United States. +Novemba, n: The 11th month of the year. +Octoba, n: The 10th month of the year. +ova, n: Location above or across a specified position. What the + season is when the Knicks quit playing. + -- Massachewsetts Unabridged Dictionary +% +Detroit is Cleveland without the glitter. +% +Do Miami a favor. When you leave, take someone with you. +% +Do you know Montana? +% +Do you know the difference between a yankee and a damyankee? + +A yankee comes south to *_____visit*. +% +Eli and Bessie went to sleep. +In the middle of the night, Bessie nudged Eli. + "Please be so kindly and close the window. It's cold outside!" +Half asleep, Eli murmured, + "Nu ... so if I'll close the window, will it be warm outside?" +% +Five people -- an Englishman, Russian, American, Frenchman and Irishman +were each asked to write a book on elephants. Some amount of time later they +had all completed their respective books. The Englishman's book was entitled +"The Elephant -- How to Collect Them", the Russian's "The Elephant -- Vol. I", +the American's "The Elephant -- How to Make Money from Them", the Frenchman's +"The Elephant -- Its Mating Habits" and the Irishman's "The Elephant and +Irish Political History". +% +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. +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #1. + +^Cu vi parolas angle? Do you speak English? +Mi ne komprenas. I don't understand. +Vi estas la sola esperantisto kiun mi You're the only Esperanto speaker + renkontas. I've met. +La ^ceko estas enpo^stigita. The check is in the mail. +Oni ne povas, ^gin netrovi. You can't miss it. +Mi nur rigardadas. I'm just looking around. +Nu, ^sajnis bona ideo. Well, it seemed like a good idea. +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #2. + +^Cu tiu loko estas okupita? Is this seat taken? +^Cu vi ofte venas ^ci-tien? Do you come here often? +^Cu mi povas havi via telelonnumeron? May I have your phone number? +Mi estas komputilisto. I work with computers. +Mi legas multe da scienca fikcio. I read a lot of science fiction. +^Cu necesas ke vi eliras? Do you really have to be going? +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #5. + +Mi ^cevalovipus vin se mi havus I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse. + ^cevalon. +Vere vi ^sercas. You must be kidding. +Nu, parDOOOOOnu min! Well exCUUUUUSE me! +Kiu invitis vin? Who invited you? +Kion vi diris pri mia patrino? What did you say about my mother? +Bu^so^stopu min per kulero. Gag me with a spoon. +% +Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep". + +Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound than the +harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference: + "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling." +Obvious, isn't it? + Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start +speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as +long as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all +your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and +so on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committed +individuals and then grow.... + Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those +signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when +everything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving on +the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs +backwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? +I think not, my friend, I think not. + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +"Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore." +% +"God gives burdens; also shoulders" + +Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the +end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I +can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why +would he lie about a thing like that? + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +Good night, Austin, Texas, wherever you are! +% +Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers and +cheating on your income tax. + -- Mike Royko +% +Have you seen the latest Japanese camera? Apparently it is so fast it can +photograph an American with his mouth shut! +% +Hear about the Californian terrorist that tried to blow up a bus? +Burned his lips on the exhaust pipe. +% +Hear about the young Chinese woman who just won the lottery? +One fortunate cookie... +% + Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the month. +According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people are experiencing +severe marketing anxiety in China. + The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either (depending +on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax tadpole". + Bite the wax tadpole. + There is a sort of rough justice, is there not? + The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's hard +to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to bite a wax +tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad, but broad +satiric vistas do not open up. + -- John Carrol, The San Francisco Chronicle +% +"His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had +money, he went to Southern California." +% +Historians have now definitely established that Juan Cabrillo, discoverer +of California, was not looking for Kansas, thus setting a precedent that +continues to this day. + -- Wayne Shannon +% +Houdini escaping from New Jersey! + +Film at eleven. +% +How many priests are needed for a Boston Mass? +% +I am just a nice, clean-cut Mongolian boy. + -- Yul Brynner, 1956 +% +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" +% +I didn't know he was dead; I thought he was British. +% +I have defined the hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent an idiot. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +I shot an arrow in to the air, and it stuck. + -- graffito in Los Angeles + +On a clear day, +U.C.L.A. + -- graffito in San Francisco + +There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our +lungs there'd be no place to put it all. + -- Robert Orben +% +I'm going through my "I want to go back to New York" phase today. Happens +every six months or so. So, I thought, perhaps unwisely, that I'd share +it with you. + +> In New York in the winter it is million degrees below zero and + the wind travels at a million miles an hour down 5th avenue. +> And in LA it's 72. + +> In New York in the summer it is a million degrees and the humidity + is a million percent. +> And in LA it's 72. + +> In New York there are a million interesting people. +> And in LA there are 72. +% +"I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here?" + -- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate +% +If all the Chinese simultaneously jumped into the Pacific off a 10 foot +platform erected 10 feet off their coast, it would cause a tidal wave +that would destroy everything in this country west of Nebraska. +% +Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the +land He's trying to ignore. +% +In 1880 the French captured Detroit but gave it back ... they couldn't +get parts. +% +In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save. +% +In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations -- +it's cold, half-French, and difficult to stir. + -- Stuart Keate +% +In California they don't throw their garbage away -- they make it into +television shows. + -- Woody Allen, "Annie Hall" +% +In Minnesota they ask why all football fields in Iowa have artificial turf. +It's so the cheerleaders won't graze during the game. +% +Indiana is a state dedicated to basketball. Basketball, soybeans, hogs and +basketball. Berkeley, needless to say, is not nearly as athletic. Berkeley +is dedicated to coffee, angst, potholes and coffee. + -- Carolyn Jones +% +Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations + + Sign on a cabin door of a Soviet Black Sea cruise liner: + Helpsavering apparata in emergings behold many whistles! + Associate the stringing apparata about the bosums and meet + behind, flee then to the indifferent lifesaveringshippen + obedicing the instructs of the vessel. + + On the door in a Belgrade hotel: + Let us know about any unficiency as well as leaking on + the service. Our utmost will improve it. + + -- Colin Bowles +% +Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations + + Sign on a cathedral in Spain: + It is forbidden to enter a woman, even a foreigner if + dressed as a man. + + Above the enterance to a Cairo bar: + Unaccompanied ladies not admitted unless with husband + or similar. + + On a Bucharest elevator: + + The lift is being fixed for the next days. + During that time we regret that you will be unbearable. + + -- Colin Bowles +% +Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations + + Various signs in Poland: + + Right turn toward immediate outside. + + Go soothingly in the snow, as there lurk the ski demons. + + Five o'clock tea at all hours. + + In a men's washroom in Sidney: + + Shake excess water from hands, push button to start, + rub hands rapidly under air outlet and wipe hands + on front of shirt. + + -- Colin Bowles, San Francisco Chronicle +% +Iowans ask why Minnesotans don't drink more Kool-Aid. That's because +they can't figure out how to get two quarts of water into one of those +little paper envelopes. +% +Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there? + -- Herb Caen +% +It's hard to argue that God hated Oklahoma. If He didn't, why is it so +close to Texas? +% +It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either. + -- Kevin White, Mayor of Boston +% +It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too. + -- Alexander Korda +% +It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that +English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many +other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case. + -- Sydney J. Harris +% +It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. +% +Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else +follows in the same way. + -- Alan J. Perlis +% +Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made +sense from things she found in gift shops. + -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. +% +Likewise, the national appetizer, brine-cured herring with raw onions, +wins few friends, Germans excepted. + -- Darwin Porter "Scandinavia On $50 A Day" +% +Living in LA is like not having a date on Saturday night. + -- Candice Bergen +% +Living in New York City gives people real incentives to want things that +nobody else wants. + -- Andy Warhol +% +Minnesota -- + home of the blonde hair and blue ears. + mosquito supplier to the free world. + come fall in love with a loon. + where visitors turn blue with envy. + one day it's warm, the rest of the year it's cold. + land of many cultures -- mostly throat. + where the elite meet sleet. + glove it or leave it. + many are cold, but few are frozen. + land of the ski and home of the crazed. + land of 10,000 Petersons. +% +Moishe Margolies, who weighed all of 105 pounds and stood an even five feet +in his socks, was taking his first airplane trip. He took a seat next to a +hulking bruiser of a man who happened to be the heavyweight champion of +the world. Little Moishe was uneasy enough before he even entered the plane, +but now the roar of the engines and the great height absolutely terrified him. +So frightened did he become that his stomach turned over and he threw up all +over the muscular giant siting beside him. Fortunately, at least for Moishe, +the man was sound asleep. But now the little man had another problem. How in +the world would he ever explain the situation to the burly brute when he +awakened? The sudden voice of the stewardess on the plane's intercom, finally +woke the bruiser, and Moishe, his heart in his mouth, rose to the occasion. + "Feeling better now?" he asked solicitously. +% +Monterey... is decidedly the pleasantest and most civilized-looking place +in California ... [it] is also a great place for cock-fighting, gambling +of all sorts, fandangos, and various kinds of amusements and knavery. + -- Richard Henry Dama, "Two Years Before the Mast", 1840 +% +Most Texans think Hanukkah is some sort of duck call. + -- Richard Lewis +% +My godda bless, never I see sucha people. + -- Signor Piozzi, quoted by Cecilia Thrale +% +New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors. +% +New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around +whom you shouldn't make a sudden move. + -- David Letterman +% +No matter what other nations may say about the United States, +immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery. +% +"Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called +Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that +were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..." + -- "The Begatting of a President" +% +On the night before her family moved from Kansas to California, the little +girl knelt by her bed to say her prayers. "God bless Mommy and Daddy and +Keith and Kim," she said. As she began to get up, she quickly added, "Oh, +and God, this is goodbye. We're moving to Hollywood." +% +On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia. + -- W. C. Fields' epitaph +% +One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your +seat to another passenger. This may seem callous, but it is the best +way, really. If one passenger were to give a seat to someone who fainted +in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would become disoriented and +imagine they were in Topeka Kansas. +% +paak, n: A stadium or inclosed playing field. To put or leave (a + a vehicle) for a time in a certain location. +patato, n: The starchy, edible tuber of a widely cultivated plant. +Septemba, n: The 9th month of the year. +shua, n: Having no doubt; certain. +sista, n: A female having the same mother and father as the speaker. +tamato, n: A fleshy, smooth-skinned reddish fruit eaten in salads + or as a vegetable. +troopa, n: A state policeman. +Wista, n: A city in central Masschewsetts. +yaad, n: A tract of ground adjacent to a building. + -- Massachewsetts Unabridged Dictionary +% +Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would +say that it had merely been detected. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to +exciting Camden, New Jersey. +% +Providence, New Jersey, is one of the few cities where Velveeta cheese +appears on the gourmet shelf. +% +San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was. + -- Herb Caen +% +Seattle is so wet that people protect their property with watch-ducks. +% +Seems that a pollster was taking a worldwide opinion poll. +Her question was, "Excuse me; what's your opinion on the meat shortage?" + +In Texas, the answer was "What's a shortage?" +In Poland, the answer was "What's meat?" +In the Soviet Union, the answer was "What's an opinion?" +In New York City, the answer was "What's excuse me?" +% + Some 1500 miles west of the Big Apple we find the Minneapple, a +haven of tranquility in troubled times. It's a good town, a civilized town. +A town where they still know how to get your shirts back by Thursday. Let +the Big Apple have the feats of "Broadway Joe" Namath. We have known the +stolid but steady Killebrew. Listening to Cole Porter over a dry martini +may well suit those unlucky enough never to have heard the Whoopee John Polka +Band and never to have shared a pitcher of 3.2 Grain Belt Beer. The loss is +theirs. And the Big Apple has yet to bake the bagel that can match peanut +butter on lefse. Here is a town where the major urban problem is dutch elm +disease and the number one crime is overtime parking. We boast more theater +per capita than the Big Apple. We go to see, not to be seen. We go even +when we must shovel ten inches of snow from the driveway to get there. Indeed +the winters are fierce. But then comes the marvel of the Minneapple summer. +People flock to the city's lakes to frolic and rejoice at the sight of so +much happy humanity free from the bonds of the traditional down-filled parka. +Here's to the Minneapple. And to its people. Our flair for style is balanced +by a healthy respect for wind chill factors. + And we always, always eat our vegetables. + This is the Minneapple. +% +Someone did a study of the three most-often-heard phrases in New York +City. One is "Hey, taxi." Two is, "What train do I take to get to +Bloomingdale's?" And three is, "Don't worry. It's just a flesh wound." + -- David Letterman +% + "Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the +Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then +intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men and +women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our best, with +good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are we not God's +Machineries of Joy?" + "If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin." + -- R. Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy" +% +The Almighty in His infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen +in the image of Englishmen. + -- Winston Churchill, 1942 +% +The American nation in the sixth ward is a fine people; they love the +eagle -- on the back of a dollar. + -- Finlay Peter Dunne +% +The Anglo-Saxon conscience does not prevent the Anglo-Saxon from +sinning, it merely prevents him from enjoying his sin. + -- Salvador De Madariaga +% +The best case: Get salary from America, build a house in England, + live with a Japanese wife, and eat Chinese food. +Pretty good case: Get salary from England, build a house in America, + live with a Chinese wife, and eat Japanese food. +The worst case: Get salary from China, build a house in Japan, + live with a British wife, and eat American food. + -- Bungei Shunju, a popular Japanese magazine +% +The best thing that comes out of Iowa is I-80. +% +The big cities of America are becoming Third World countries. + -- Nora Ephron +% +The British are coming! The British are coming! +% +The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere. +% +The curse of the Irish is not that they don't know the words to a song -- +it's that they know them *___all*. + -- Susan Dooley +% +The Czechs announced after Sputnik that they, too, would launch a satellite. +Of course, it would orbit Sputnik, not Earth! +% +The difference between America and England is that the English think 100 +miles is a long distance and the Americans think 100 years is a long time. +% +The egg cream is psychologically the opposite of circumcision -- it +*pleasurably* reaffirms your Jewishness. + -- Mel Brooks +% +The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable +in full pursuit of the uneatable. + -- Oscar Wilde, "A Woman of No Importance" +% +The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach +their children to speak it. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest +about it. + -- James Agate, British film and drama critic +% +[The French Riviera is] a sunny place for shady people. + -- Somerset Maugham +% +The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the +center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South +Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South +End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End. +% +The goys have proven the following theorem... + -- Physicist John von Neumann, at the start of a classroom + lecture. +% + The Martian landed his saucer in Manhattan, and immediately upon +emerging was approached by a panhandler. "Mister," said the man, "can I +have a quarter?" + The Martian asked, "What's a quarter?" + The panhandler thought a minute, brightened, then said, "You're +right! Can I have a dollar?" +% +The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey. + -- Andy Warhol +% +The most common given name in the world is Mohammad; the most common +family name in the world is Chang. Can you imagine the enormous number +of people in the world named Mohammad Chang? + -- Derek Wills +% +The only cultural advantage LA has over NY is that you can make a right +turn on a red light. + -- Woody Allen +% +The San Diego Freeway. Official Parking Lot of the 1984 Olympics! +% +The trouble is, there is an endless supply of White Men, but there has +always been a limited number of Human Beings. + -- Little Big Man +% + The world's most avid baseball fan (an Aggie) had arrived at the +stadium for the first game of the World Series only to realize he had left +his ticket at home. Not wanting to miss any of the first inning, he went +to the ticket booth and got in a long line for another seat. After an hour's +wait he was just a few feet from the booth when a voice called out, "Hey, +Dave!" The Aggie looked up, stepped out of line and tried to find the owner +of the voice -- with no success. Then he realized he had lost his place in +line and had to wait all over again. When the fan finally bought his ticket, +he was thirsty, so he went to buy a drink. The line at the concession stand +was long, too, but since the game hadn't started he decided to wait. Just as +he got to the window, a voice called out, "Hey, Dave!" Again the Aggie tried +to find the voice -- but no luck. He was very upset as he got back in line +for his drink. Finally the fan went to his seat, eager for the game to begin. +As he waited for the pitch, he heard the voice calling, "Hey Dave!" once more. +Furious, he stood up and yelled at the top of his lungs, "My name isn't Dave!" +% +Then there was the Formosan bartender named Taiwan-On. +% +There *__is* intelligent life on Earth, but I leave for Texas on Monday. +% +There are people who find it odd to eat four or five Chinese meals +in a row; in China, I often remind them, there are a billion or so +people who find nothing odd about it. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the +ocean level wouldn't cure. + -- Ross MacDonald +% +There must be at least 500,000,000 rats in the United States; of course, +I never heard the story before. +% + There once was this swami who lived above a delicatessan. Seems one +day he decided to stop in downstairs for some fresh liver. Well, the owner +of the deli was a bit of a cheap-skate, and decided to pick up a little extra +change at his customer's expense. Turning quietly to the counterman, he +whispered, "Weigh down upon the swami's liver!" +% +There was this New Yorker that had a lifelong ambition to be an Texan. +Fortunately, he had an Texan friend and went to him for advice. "Mike, +you know I've always wanted to be a Texan. You're a *____real* Texan, what +should I do?" + "Well," answered Mike, "The first thing you've got to do is look +like a Texan. That means you have to dress right. The second thing +you've got to do is speak in a southern drawl." + "Thanks, Mike, I'll give it a try," replied the New Yorker. + A few weeks passed and the New Yorker saunters into a store dressed +in a ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, Levi jeans and a bandanna. "Hey, there, +pardner, I'd like some beef, not too rare, and some of them fresh biscuits," +he tells the counterman. + The guy behind the counter takes a long look at him and then says, +"You must be from New York." + The New Yorker blushes, and says, "Well, yes, I am. How did +you know?" + "Because this is a hardware store." +% +There's just something I don't like about Virginia; the state. +% +There's something different about us -- different from people of Europe, +Africa, Asia ... a deep and abiding belief in the Easter Bunny. + -- G. Gordon Liddy +% +Three Midwesterners, a Kansan, a Missourian and an Iowan, +all appearing on a quiz program, were asked to complete this sentence: +"Old MacDonald had a . . ." + + "Old MacDonald had a carburetor," answered the Kansan. + "Sorry, that's wrong," the game show host said. + "Old MacDonald had a free brake alignment down at the + service station," said the Missourian. + "Wrong." + "Old MacDonald had a farm," said the Iowan. + "CORRECT!" shouts the quizmaster. "Now for $100,000, spell 'farm.'" + "Easy," said the Iowan. "E-I-E-I-O." +% +Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles. + -- Frank Lloyd Wright +% +To a Californian, a person must prove himself criminally insane before he +is allowed to drive a taxi in New York. For New York cabbies, honesty and +stopping at red lights are both optional. + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To a Californian, all New Yorkers are cold; even in heat they rarely go +above fifty-eight degrees. If you collapse on a street in New York, plan +to spend a few days there. + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To a Californian, the basic difference between the people and the pigeons +in New York is that the pigeons don't shit on each other. + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To a New Yorker, all Californians are blond, even the blacks. There are, +in fact, whole neighborhoods that are zoned only for blond people. The +only way to tell the difference between California and Sweden is that the +Swedes speak better English." + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To a New Yorker, the only California houses on the market for less than a +million dollars are those on fire. These generally go for six hundred +thousand. + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To be happy one must be a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in +Zion, b) full of a comfortable feeling of superiority to the masses of one's +fellow men, and c) delicately and unceasingly amused according to one's taste. +It is my contention that, if this definition be accepted, there is no country +in the world wherein a man constituted as I am -- a man of my peculiar +weaknesses, vanities, appetites, and aversions -- can be so happy as he can +be in the United States. Going further, I lay down the doctrine that it is +a sheer physical impossibility for such a man to live in the United States +and not be happy. + -- H. L. Mencken, "On Being An American" +% +To know Edina is to reject it. + -- Dudley Riggs, "The Year the Grinch Stole the Election" +% +Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. + -- Judy Garland, "Wizard of Oz" +% +Tourists -- have some fun with New York's hard-boiled cabbies. When you +get to your destination, say to your driver, "Pay? I was hitch-hiking." + -- David Letterman +% +Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines. + -- David Letterman +% +Traveling through New England, a motorist stopped for gas in a tiny village. +"What's this place called?" he asked the station attendant. + "All depends," the native drawled. "Do you mean by them that has +to live in this dad-blamed, moth-eaten, dust-covered, one-hoss dump, or +by them that's merely enjoying its quaint and picturesque rustic charms +for a short spell?" +% +Visit beautiful Vergas, Minnesota. +% +Visit beautiful Wisconsin Dells. +% +Visit[1] the beautiful Smoky Mountains! + +[1] visit, v.: + Come for a week, spend too much money and pay lots of hidden taxes, + then leave. We'll be happy to see your money again next year. + You can save time by simply sending the money, if you're too busy. +% +We don't care how they do it in New York. +% +Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the men are strong, the women are pretty, +and the children are above-average. + -- Garrison Keillor +% +What kind of sordid business are you on now? I mean, man, whither +goest thou? Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night? + -- Jack Kerouac +% +Whatever doesn't succeed in two months and a half in California will +never succeed. + -- Rev. Henry Durant, founder of the University of California +% +When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I +think it was a Tuesday. +% +When I first arrived in this country I had only fifteen cents in my pocket +and a willingness to compromise. + -- Weber cartoon caption +% +When I saw a sign on the freeway that said, "Los Angeles 445 miles," I said +to myself, "I've got to get out of this lane." + -- Franklyn Ajaye +% +When you become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself +Americanized. +% +Would the last person to leave Michigan please turn out the lights? +% +Yawd [noun, Bostonese]: the campus of Have Id. + -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary +% +Yes, I've now got this nice little apartment in New York, one of those +L-shaped ones. Unfortunately, it's a lower case l. + -- Rita Rudner +% +You always have the option of pitching baseballs at empty spray paint cans +in a cul-de-sac in a Cleveland suburb. +% +You don't move to Edina, you achieve Edina. + -- Guindon +% +You know you're in a small town when... + You don't use turn signals because everybody knows where you're going. + You're born on June 13 and your family receives gifts from the local + merchants because you're the first baby of the year. + Everyone knows whose credit is good, and whose wife isn't. + You speak to each dog you pass, by name... and he wags his tail. + You dial the wrong number, and talk for 15 minutes anyway. + You write a check on the wrong bank and it covers you anyway. +% diff --git a/fortunes/food b/fortunes/food new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab498be --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/food @@ -0,0 +1,886 @@ +1893 The ideal brain tonic +1900 Drink Coca-Cola -- delicious and refreshing -- 5 cents at all + soda fountains +1905 Is the favorite drink for LADIES when thirsty -- weary -- despondent +1905 Refreshes the weary, brightens the intellect and clears the brain +1906 The drink of QUALITY +1907 Good to the last drop +1907 It satisfies the thirst and pleases the palate +1907 Refreshing as a summer breeze. Delightful as a Dip in the Sea +1908 The Drink that Cheers but does not inebriate +1917 There's a delicious freshness to the taste of Coca-Cola +1919 It satisfies thirst +1919 The taste is the test +1922 Every glass holds the answer to thirst +1922 Thirst knows no season +1925 Enjoy the sociable drink + -- Coca-Cola slogans +% +1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty +1929 The high sign of refreshment +1929 The pause that refreshes +1930 It had to be good to get where it is +1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing +1935 The pause that brings friends together +1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed +1938 The best friend thirst ever had +1939 Thirst stops here +1942 It's the real thing +1947 Have a Coke +1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING +1963 Things go better with Coke +1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand +1979 Have a Coke and a smile +1982 Coke is it! + -- Coca-Cola slogans +% + A couple of kids tried using pickles instead of paddles for a Ping-Pong +game. They had the volley of the Dills. +% + A farm in the country side had several turkeys, it was known as the +house of seven gobbles. +% +A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart that looks at her watch. + -- James Beard +% + A new chef from India was fired a week after starting the job. He +kept favoring curry. +% +A waist is a terrible thing to mind. + -- Ziggy +% + A wife started serving chopped meat, Monday hamburger, Tuesday meat +loaf, Wednesday tartar steak, and Thursday meatballs. On Friday morning her +husband snarled, "How now, ground cow?" +% +Actor: So what do you do for a living? +Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving + dishes for Chinese restaurants. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +Actually, my goal is to have a sandwich named after me. +% + "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" +asked the father of his little son. + "Diet." +% +Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. +% +Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate. +% +As he had feared, his orders had been forgotten and everyone had brought +the potato salad. +% +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" +% +Be careful when you bite into your hamburger. + -- Derek Bok +% +BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH! +% +Boycott meat -- suck your thumb. +% +Carob works on the principle that, when mixed with the right combination of +fats and sugar, it can duplicate chocolate in color and texture. Of course, +the same can be said of dirt. +% +Cheese -- milk's leap toward immortality. + -- Clifton Fadiman, "Any Number Can Play" +% +Chinese saying: "He who speak with forked tongue, not need chopsticks." +% +Consider the following axioms carefully: + "Everything's better when it sits on a Ritz." + and + "Everything's better with Blue Bonnet on it." +What happens if one spreads Blue Bonnet margarine on a Ritz cracker? The +thought is frightening. Is this how God came into being? Try not to +consider the fact that "Things go better with Coke". +% +Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part of +this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be +watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for +a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky +Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food +such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete +breakfast". Don't that really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", +or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make +essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of +shaving cream there, or a dead bat? + +Answer: Yes. + -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" +% +Death before dishonor. But neither before breakfast. +% +Did you hear that Captain Crunch, Sugar Bear, Tony the Tiger, and +Snap, Crackle and Pop were all murdered recently... + +Police suspect the work of a cereal killer! +% +Dieters live life in the fasting lane. +% +Dinner is ready when the smoke alarm goes off. +% +Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. +% +Do not worry about which side your bread is buttered on: you eat BOTH sides. +% +Do you feel personally responsible for the world food shortage? +Every time you go to the beach, does the tide come in? +Have you ever eaten an entire moose? +Can you see your neck? +Do joggers take laps around you for exercise? +If so, welcome to National Fat Week. +This week we'll eat without guilt, and kick off our membership campaign, + ...by force-feeding a box of cornstarch to a skinny person. + -- Garfield +% + During the American Revolution, a Britisher tried to raid a farm. He +stumbled across a rock on the ground and fell, whereupon an aggressive Rhode +Island Red hopped on top. Seeing this, the farmer commented, "Chicken catch +a Tory!" +% +Eat as much as you like -- just don't swallow it. + -- Harry Secombe's diet +% +Eat drink and be merry! Tomorrow you may be in Utah. +% +Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. +% +Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet. +% +Eat right, stay fit, and die anyway. +% +"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work." +% +Eating chocolate is like being in love without the aggravation. +% +Even a blind pig stumbles upon a few acorns. +% +Even a cabbage may look at a king. +% +Every time I lose weight, it finds me again! +% +Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening. + -- Alexander Woollcott +% +Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being +that a belch is more satisfying. + -- Ingmar Bergman +% +Fat Liberation: because a waist is a terrible thing to mind. +% +Fat people of the world unite, we've got nothing to lose! +% +Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing. + -- Walt Kelly, "Potluck Pogo" +% +For those of you who have been unfortunate enough to never have tasted the +'Great Chieftain O' the Pudden Race' (i.e. haggis) here is an easy to follow +recipe which results in a dish remarkably similar to the above mentioned +protected species. + Ingredients: + 1 Sheep's Pluck (heart, lungs, liver) and bag + 2 teacupsful toasted oatmeal + 1 teaspoonful salt + 8 oz. shredded suet + 2 small onions + 1/2 teaspoonful black pepper + + Scrape and clean bag in cold, then warm, water. Soak in salt water +overnight. Wash pluck, then boil for 2 hours with windpipe draining over +the side of pot. Retain 1 pint of stock. Cut off windpipe, remove surplus +gristle, chop or mince heart and lungs, and grate best part of liver (about +half only). Parboil and chop onions, mix all together with oatmeal, suet, +salt, pepper and stock to moisten. Pack the mixture into bag, allowing for +swelling. Boil for three hours, pricking regularly all over. If bag not +available, steam in greased basin covered by greaseproof paper and cloth for +four to five hours. +% +Fortune's Contribution of the Month to the Animal Rights Debate: + + I'll stay out of animals' way if they'll stay out of mine. + "Hey you, get off my plate" + -- Roger Midnight +% +Fortune's diet truths: +1: Forget what the cookbooks say, plain yogurt tastes nothing like sour cream. +2: Any recipe calling for soybeans tastes like mud. +3: Carob is not an acceptable substitute for chocolate. In fact, carob is not + an acceptable substitute for anything, except, perhaps, brown shoe polish. +4: There is no such thing as a "fun salad." So let's stop pretending and see + salads for what they are: God's punishment for being fat. +5: Fruit salad without maraschino cherries and marshmallows is about as + appealing as tepid beer. +6: A world lacking gravy is a tragic place! +7: You should immediately pass up any recipes entitled "luscious and + low-cal." Also skip dishes featuring "lively liver." They aren't and + it isn't. +8: Wearing a blindfold often makes many diet foods more palatable. +9: Fresh fruit is not dessert. CAKE is dessert! +10: Okra tastes slightly worse than its name implies. +11: A plain baked potato isn't worth the effort involved in chewing and + swallowing. +% +God must have loved calories, she made so many of them. +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY (#7): November 23, 1915 + +Pancake make-up is invented; most people continue to prefer syrup. +% +Has anyone ever tasted an "end"? Are they really bitter? +% + Has your family tried 'em? + + POWDERMILK BISCUITS + + Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious! + + They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons + the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. + + POWDERMILK BISCUITS + + Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of + the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark + stains that indicate freshness. +% +Have a taco. + -- P. S. Beagle +% +Home on the Range was originally written in beef-flat. +% +Hors d'oeuvres -- a ham sandwich cut into forty pieces. + -- Jack Benny +% + "How did you spend the weekend?" asked the pretty brunette secretary +of her blonde companion. + "Fishing through the ice," she replied. + "Fishing through the ice? Whatever for?" + "Olives." +% +How many hors d'oeuvres you are allowed to take off a tray being carried by +a waiter at a nice party? + Two, but there are ways around it, depending on the style of the hors +d'oeuvre. If they're those little pastry things where you can't tell what's +inside, you take one, bite off about two-thirds of it, then say: "This is +cheese! I hate cheese!" Then you put the rest of it back on the tray and +bite another one and go, "Darn it! Another cheese!" and so on. + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +I am so optimistic about beef prices that I've just leased a pot roast +with an option to buy. +% +I brake for chezlogs! +% +I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps the +time I found out that M&Ms really DO melt in your hand. + -- Peter Oakley +% +I don't care for the Sugar Smacks commercial. I don't like the idea of +a frog jumping on my Breakfast. + -- Lowell, Chicago Reader 10/15/82 +% +I don't care where I sit as long as I get fed. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +I don't even butter my bread. I consider that cooking. + -- Katherine Cebrian +% +I don't have an eating problem. I eat. I get fat. I buy new clothes. +No problem. +% +"I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd +eat it, and I just hate it." + -- Clarence Darrow +% +I have never been one to sacrifice my appetite on the altar of appearance. + -- A. M. Readyhough +% +I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, +in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals. + -- Thoreau +% +I just ate a whole package of Sweet Tarts and a can of Coke. I think I saw God. + -- B. Hathrume Duk +% +I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like. +% +I never pray before meals -- my mom's a good cook. +% + "I thought you were trying to get into shape." + "I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle." +% +I'm hungry, time to eat lunch. +% +I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is two weeks. + -- Totie Fields +% +If at first you fricasee, fry, fry again. +% +If food be the music of love, eat up, eat up. +% +If puns were deli meat, this would be the wurst. +% +If you are what you eat, does that mean Euell Gibbons really was a nut? +% +If you put your supper dish to your ear you can hear the sounds of a +restaurant. + -- Snoopy +% +If you see an onion ring -- answer it! +% +If you stew apples like cranberries, they taste more like prunes than +rhubarb does. + -- Groucho Marx +% +If you waste your time cooking, you'll miss the next meal. +% +If you're going to America, bring your own food. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +If your bread is stale, make toast. +% +In Mexico we have a word for sushi: bait. + -- Josi Simon +% +Is there life before breakfast? +% +It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, +since it has no ears. + -- Marcus Porcius Cato +% +IT MAKES ME MAD when I go to all the trouble of having Marta cook up about +a hundred drumsticks, then the guy at Marineland says, "You can't throw +that chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish." + +Sure they eat fish if that's all you give them! Man, wise up. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +It was a brave man that ate the first oyster. +% +It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings +about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still +safe to eat. + -- Robert Fuoss +% +It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ... +% +It's so beautifully arranged on the plate -- you know someone's fingers +have been all over it. + -- Julia Child on nouvelle cuisine. +% +Just a few of the perfect excuses for having some strawberry shortcake. +Pick one. + + (1) It's less calories than two pieces of strawberry shortcake. + (2) It's cheaper than going to France. + (3) It neutralizes the brownies I had yesterday. + (4) Life is short. + (5) It's somebody's birthday. I don't want them to celebrate alone. + (6) It matches my eyes. + (7) Whoever said, "Let them eat cake." must have been talking to me. + (8) To punish myself for eating dessert yesterday. + (9) Compensation for all the time I spend in the shower not eating. + (10) Strawberry shortcake is evil. I must help rid the world of it. + (11) I'm getting weak from eating all that healthy stuff. + (12) It's the second anniversary of the night I ate plain broccoli. +% +Killing turkeys causes winter. +% +Kissing don't last, cookery do. + -- George Meredith +% +Kitchen activity is highlighted. Butter up a friend. +% +Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up +the pillow was gone. + -- Tommy Cooper +% +Last week's pet, this week's special. +% +Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. +% +Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to +eat it nevertheless. + -- Flaubert +% +"Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it." +% +Life is like a tin of sardines. We're, all of us, looking for the key. + -- Beyond the Fringe +% +Life is like an egg stain on your chin -- you can lick it, but it still +won't go away. +% +Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes +you weep. + -- Carl Sandburg +% +Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer and then you find +there is nothing in it. + -- James Huneker +% +Life is too short to stuff a mushroom. + -- Storm Jameson +% +Life without caffeine is stimulating enough. + -- Sanka Ad +% +Living here in Rio, I have lots of coffees to choose from. And when +you're on the lam like me, you appreciate a good cup of coffee. + -- "Great Train Robber" Ronald Biggs' coffee commercial +% +Lobster: + Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are +squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the only +proper method of preparing them. Frankly, the easiest way to eliminate your +guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial before they're cooked. +The fact is, lobsters are among the most ferocious predators on the sea +floor, and you're helping reduce crime in the reefs. Grasp the lobster +behind the head, look it right in its unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say, +"Where were you on the night of the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a +scallop or a sole and shout, "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural +apparatus you call a memory!" The lobster will squirm noticeably. It may +even take a swipe at you with one of its claws. Incorrigible. Pop it into +the pot. Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will +be, too. + -- Dave Barry, "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and + Utensils into Excuses and Apologies" +% +Man who arrives at party two hours late will find he has been beaten +to the punch. +% +MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed) + + Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers +2 cups water 2 cups sugar +2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice + Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine + Cinnamon + +Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break +RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar +and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon +juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously +with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top +crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let +steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust +is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices. + -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box +% +Most people eat as though they were fattening themselves for market. + -- E. W. Howe +% +Mountain Dew and doughnuts... because breakfast is the most important meal +of the day. +% +My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there +are three other people. + -- Orson Welles +% +My favorite sandwich is peanut butter, baloney, cheddar cheese, lettuce +and mayonnaise on toasted bread with catsup on the side. + -- Senator Hubert Humphrey +% +My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies. +% +Never drink coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled with +the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to change into +lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually fly in the +window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators have windows. +% +Never eat anything bigger than your head. +% +Never eat more than you can lift. + -- Miss Piggy +% +No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after +eating one peanut. + -- Channing Pollock +% +Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. + -- Charlie Brown +% +Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next +time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV +to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for +eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself +the following questions: + + (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a + food? + (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich + exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me? + (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as + prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with + double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living + right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like + longer.) + +That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick. +% +Peanut Blossoms + +4 cups sugar 16 tbsp. milk +4 cups brown sugar 4 tsp. vanilla +4 cups shortening 14 cups flour +8 eggs 4 tsp. soda +4 cups peanut butter 4 tsp. salt + +Shape dough into balls. Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookie +sheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes. Immediately top each cookie with a +Hershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie. Makes a +heck of a lot. +% +Pete: Waiter, this meat is bad. +Waiter: Who told you? +Pete: A little swallow. +% +Peter's hungry, time to eat lunch. +% +Preserve wildlife -- pickle a squirrel today! +% +Prunes give you a run for your money. +% +Put a pot of chili on the stove to simmer. Let it simmer. Meanwhile, +broil a good steak. Eat the steak. Let the chili simmer. Ignore it. + -- Recipe for chili from Allan Shrivers, former governor + of Texas. +% +Put cats in the coffee and mice in the tea! +% +Remember, DESSERT is spelled with two `s's while DESERT is spelled with +one, because EVERYONE wants two desserts, but NO ONE wants two deserts. + -- Miss Oglethorp, Gr. 5, PS. 59 +% +RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED + (1) Never eat on an empty stomach. + (2) Never leave the table hungry. + (3) When traveling, never leave a country hungry. + (4) Enjoy your food. + (5) Enjoy your companion's food. + (6) Really taste your food. It may take several portions to + accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned. + (7) Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare, + for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a + brownie. Which feels better against your cheeks? + (8) Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal. + (9) Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You + can always eat it later. + (10) Avoid any wine with a childproof cap. + (11) Avoid blue food. + -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet" +% +Sacred cows make great hamburgers. +% +Save gas, don't eat beans. +% +Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing. + -- James Thurber +% +So much food; so little time! +% +Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in +the milk. + -- Thoreau +% +The basic menu item, in fact the ONLY menu item, would be a food unit called +the "patty," consisting of -- this would be guaranteed in writing -- "100 +percent animal matter of some kind." All patties would be heated up and then +cooled back down in electronic devices immediately before serving. The +Breakfast Patty would be a patty on a bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, egg, +Ba-Ko-Bits, Cheez Whiz, a Special Sauce made by pouring ketchup out of a +bottle and a little slip of paper stating: "Inspected by Number 12." The +Lunch or Dinner Patty would be any Breakfast Patties that didn't get sold in +the morning. The Seafood Lover's Patty would be any patties that were +starting to emit a serious aroma. Patties that were too rank even to be +Seafood Lover's Patties would be compressed into wads and sold as "Nuggets." + -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants" +% +The black bear used to be one of the most commonly seen large animals +because in Yosemite and Sequoia national parks they lived off of garbage +and tourist handouts. This bear has learned to open car doors in +Yosemite, where damage to automobiles caused by bears runs into the tens +of thousands of dollars a year. Campaigns to bearproof all garbage +containers in wild areas have been difficult, because as one biologist +put it, "There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels +of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." +% +The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up +at the steam fitters' picnic. +% +The cow is nothing but a machine which makes grass fit for us people to eat. + -- John McNulty +% + THE DAILY PLANET + + SUPERMAN SAVES DESSERT! + Plans to "Eat it later" +% +The early bird gets the coffee left over from the night before. +% +The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through +three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry, and +Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For +instance, the first phase is characterized by the question "How can we eat?" +the second by "Why do we eat?" and the third by "Where shall we have lunch?". + -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +The Kosher Dill was invented in 1723 by Joe Kosher and Sam Dill. It is +the single most popular pickle variety today, enjoyed throughout the free +world by man, woman and child alike. An astounding 350 billion kosher +dills are eaten each year, averaging out to almost 1/4 pickle per person +per day. New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton says "The kosher dill +really changed my life. I used to enjoy eating McDonald's hamburgers and +drinking Iron City Lite, and then I encountered the kosher dill pickle. +I realized that there was far more to haute cuisine then I'd ever imagined. +And now, just look at me." +% +The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the klutz said, + "Life is like a bowl of sour cream." + "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?" + "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?" +% +The most exquisite peak in culinary art is conquered when you do right by a +ham, for a ham, in the very nature of the process it has undergone since last +it walked on its own feet, combines in its flavor the tang of smoky autumnal +woods, the maternal softness of earthy fields delivered of their crop children, +the wineyness of a late sun, the intimate kiss of fertilizing rain, and the +bite of fire. You must slice it thin, almost as thin as this page you hold +in your hands. The making of a ham dinner, like the making of a gentleman, +starts a long, long time before the event. + -- W. B. Courtney, "Reflections of Maryland Country Ham", + from "Congress Eate It Up" +% +The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served +the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +"The National Association of Theater Concessionaires reported that in +1986, 60% of all candy sold in movie theaters was sold to Roger Ebert." + -- D. Letterman +% +The number of feet in a yard is directly proportional to the success +of the barbecue. +% +The number of licorice gumballs you get out of a gumball machine +increases in direct proportion to how much you hate licorice. +% +The only thing better than love is milk. +% +The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose", which is +also sometimes called "grape sugar," and also because "Grape Nuts" is +catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between Gerbil Food and +Gravel," which is what it tastes like. + -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" +% +The scene: in a vast, painted desert, a cowboy faces his horse. + +Cowboy: "Well, you've been a pretty good hoss, I guess. Hardworkin'. + Not the fastest critter I ever come acrost, but..." + +Horse: "No, stupid, not feed*back*. I said I wanted a feed*bag*. +% +The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later +you're hungry again. + -- George Miller +% +The way to a man's stomach is through his esophagus. +% +There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be +offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a +series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of +food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection +increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the +affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no +circumstances can the food be omitted. + -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour +% +There are times when truth is stranger than fiction and lunch time is one +of them. +% +There are twenty-five people left in the world, and twenty-seven of +them are hamburgers. + -- Ed Sanders +% +There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the +man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle. + -- G. K. Chesterton +% +There is no sincerer love than the love of food. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +There's always free cheese in a mousetrap. +% +There's nothing like the face of a kid eating a Hershey bar. +% +Thirteen at a table is unlucky only when the hostess has only twelve chops. + -- Groucho Marx +% +This is Betty Frenel. I don't know who to call but I can't reach my +Food-a-holics partner. I'm at Vido's on my second pizza with sausage +and mushroom. Jim, come and get me! +% +This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week. +% + ... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal +lives as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as +determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people buy +imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80s couple +goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three weeks in +advance, and they are informed that their table is available, they stalk +out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent restaurant. If +it were, it would have an enormous crowd of excellence-oriented people +like themselves waiting, their beepers going off like crickets in the +night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't have a table ready immediately +for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli. + -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" +% + To lose weight, eat less; to gain weight, eat more; if you merely +wish to maintain, do whatever you were doing. + The Bronx diet is a legitimate system of food therapy showing that +food SHOULD be used a crutch and which food could be the most effective in +promoting spiritual and emotional satisfaction. For the first time, an +eater could instantly grasp the connection between relieving depression and +Mallomars, and understand why a lover's quarrel isn't so bad if there's a +pint of ice cream nearby. + -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet" +% +To see the butcher slap the steak, before he laid it on the block, +and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was +agreeable, too -- it really was -- to see him cut it off, so smooth and juicy. +There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen; +it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of +tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of +mind over matter; quite. + -- Dickens, "Martin Chuzzlewit" +% +Tom's hungry, time to eat lunch. +% +Too Late + A large number of turkies [sic] went to San Francisco yesterday by +the two o'clock boats. If their object in going down was to participate in +the Thanksgiving festivities of that city, they would arrive "the day after +the affair," and of course be sadly disappointed thereby. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, November 29, 1861 +% +Two peanuts were walking through the New York. One was assaulted. +% +Vegetables are what food eats. +Fruit are vegetables that fool you by tasting good. +Fish are fast moving vegetables. +Mushrooms are what grows on vegetables when food's done with them. + -- Meat Eater's Credo, according to Jim Williams +% +Vegetarians beware! You are what you eat. +% +Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?" +1st customer: "I'll have tea." +2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!" + (Waiter exits, returns) +Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?" +% +Wake up and smell the coffee. + -- Ann Landers +% +What foods these morsels be! +% +What is food to one, is to others bitter poison. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +What is important is food, money and opportunities for scoring off one's +enemies. Give a man these three things and you won't hear much squawking +out of him. + -- Brian O'Nolan, "The Best of Myles" +% +When a person goes on a diet, the first thing he loses is his temper. +% +When all else fails, EAT!!! +% +When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional +cheese dip. + -- Ignatius Reilly +% + "When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, +"what's the first thing you say to yourself?" + "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" + "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. + Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said. +% +When you're dining out and you suspect something's wrong, you're probably right. +% +Where do you go to get anorexia? + -- Shelley Winters +% +While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't +keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove. + -- Edward Stevenson +% +Whoever tells a lie cannot be pure in heart -- and only the pure in heart +can make a good soup. + -- Ludwig Van Beethoven +% +Why do so many foods come packaged in plastic? It's quite uncanny. +% +Why do they call a fast a fast, when it goes so slow? +% +Without coffee he could not work, or at least he could not have worked in the +way he did. In addition to paper and pens, he took with him everywhere as an +indispensable article of equipment the coffee machine, which was no less +important to him than his table or his white robe. + -- Stefan Zweigs, Biography of Balzac +% +Without ice cream, life and fame are meaningless. +% +You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting +incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail. Fruitcakes +make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable to find a way to +damage them. They last forever, largely because nobody ever eats them. In +fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes they receive and send them back +to the original givers the next year; some fruitcakes have been passed back +and forth for hundreds of years. + +The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then pound +some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear safety glasses. + -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" +% +You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting needles. + -- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food +% +You first parents of the human race... who ruined yourself for an apple, +what might you have done for a truffled turkey? + -- Brillat-savarin, "Physiologie du Gout" +% +You know you have a small apartment when Rice Krispies echo. + -- S. Rickly Christian +% +You know you're a little fat if you have stretch marks on your car. + -- Cyrus, Chicago Reader 1/22/82 +% +You must dine in our cafeteria. You can eat dirt cheap there!!!! +% +You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name, another $2 +if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you and another $2 for each +"special" he describes involving confusing terms such as "shallots," and $4 +if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In many restaurants, this means the +waiter will actually owe you money. If you are traveling with a child aged +six months to three years, you should leave an additional amount equal to +twice the bill to compensate for the fact that they will have to take the +banquette out and burn it because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets +made of partially chewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit. + +In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention his hemorrhoids. + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +Your mind is the part of you that says, + "Why'n'tcha eat that piece of cake?" +... and then, twenty minutes later, says, + "Y'know, if I were you, I wouldn't have done that!" + -- Steven and Ondrea Levine +% diff --git a/fortunes/fortunes b/fortunes/fortunes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a22dba --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/fortunes @@ -0,0 +1,916 @@ +A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? +% +A few hours grace before the madness begins again. +% +A gift of a flower will soon be made to you. +% +A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. + +Buy the negatives at any price. +% +A tall, dark stranger will have more fun than you. +% +A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work. +% +A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work. +% +A vivid and creative mind characterizes you. +% +Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. +% +Accent on helpful side of your nature. Drain the moat. +% +Advancement in position. +% +After your lover has gone you will still have PEANUT BUTTER! +% +Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. +% +Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. +% +All the troubles you have will pass away very quickly. +% +Among the lucky, you are the chosen one. +% +An avocado-tone refrigerator would look good on your resume. +% +An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future. +% +Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. +% +Are you a turtle? +% +Are you ever going to do the dishes? Or will you change your major to biology? +% +Are you making all this up as you go along? +% +Are you sure the back door is locked? +% +Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. +% +Avert misunderstanding by calm, poise, and balance. +% +Avoid gunfire in the bathroom tonight. +% +Avoid reality at all costs. +% +Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. +% +Be careful! Is it classified? +% +Be careful! UGLY strikes 9 out of 10! +% +Be cautious in your daily affairs. +% +Be cheerful while you are alive. + -- Phathotep, 24th Century B.C. +% +Be different: conform. +% +Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so +get used to it. +% +Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake. +% +Beauty and harmony are as necessary to you as the very breath of life. +% +Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon. +% +Better hope the life-inspector doesn't come around while you have your +life in such a mess. +% +Beware of a dark-haired man with a loud tie. +% +Beware of a tall black man with one blond shoe. +% +Beware of a tall blond man with one black shoe. +% +Beware of Bigfoot! +% +Beware of low-flying butterflies. +% +Beware the one behind you. +% +Blow it out your ear. +% +Break into jail and claim police brutality. +% +Bridge ahead. Pay troll. +% +Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. +% +Caution: Keep out of reach of children. +% +Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. +% +Change your thoughts and you change your world. +% +Cheer Up! Things are getting worse at a slower rate. +% +Chess tonight. +% +Chicken Little only has to be right once. +% +Chicken Little was right. +% +Cold hands, no gloves. +% +Communicate! It can't make things any worse. +% +Courage is your greatest present need. +% +Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. +% +Do not overtax your powers. +% +Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. +% +Do nothing unless you must, and when you must act -- hesitate. +% +Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. +% +Do what comes naturally. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. +% +Domestic happiness and faithful friends. +% +Don't feed the bats tonight. +% +Don't get stuck in a closet -- wear yourself out. +% +Don't get to bragging. +% +Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. +% +Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. +% +Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. +% +Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone. +% +Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. +% +Don't look now, but the man in the moon is laughing at you. +% +Don't look now, but there is a multi-legged creature on your shoulder. +% +Don't plan any hasty moves. You'll be evicted soon anyway. +% +Don't read any sky-writing for the next two weeks. +% +Don't read everything you believe. +% +Don't relax! It's only your tension that's holding you together. +% +Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. +% +Don't worry so loud, your roommate can't think. +% +Don't Worry, Be Happy. + -- Meher Baba +% +Don't worry. Life's too long. + -- Vincent Sardi, Jr. +% +Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? +% +Don't you wish you had more energy... or less ambition? +% +Everything that you know is wrong, but you can be straightened out. +% +Everything will be just tickety-boo today. +% +Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator. +% +Excellent day to have a rotten day. +% +Excellent time to become a missing person. +% +Executive ability is prominent in your make-up. +% +Exercise caution in your daily affairs. +% +Expect a letter from a friend who will ask a favor of you. +% +Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. +% +Fine day for friends. +So-so day for you. +% +Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. +% +Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samurai +sword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. + +Oh, and have a nice day! + -- Bryce Nesbitt '84 +% +Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening. +% +Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals. +% +Give him an evasive answer. +% +Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to +a new town. +% +Give your very best today. Heaven knows it's little enough. +% +Go to a movie tonight. Darkness becomes you. +% +Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. +% +Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. +% +Good day to deal with people in high places; particularly lonely stewardesses. +% +Good day to let down old friends who need help. +% +Good news from afar can bring you a welcome visitor. +% +Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day. +% +Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's +new lover. +% +Green light in A.M. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets. +% +Hope that the day after you die is a nice day. +% +If you can read this, you're too close. +% +If you learn one useless thing every day, in a single year you'll learn +365 useless things. +% +If you sow your wild oats, hope for a crop failure. +% +If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair. +% +If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens tomorrow! +% +If your life was a horse, you'd have to shoot it. +% +In the stairway of life, you'd best take the elevator. +% +Increased knowledge will help you now. Have mate's phone bugged. +% +Is that really YOU that is reading this? +% +Is this really happening? +% +It is so very hard to be an +on-your-own-take-care-of-yourself-because-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you +grown-up. +% +It may or may not be worthwhile, but it still has to be done. +% +It was all so different before everything changed. +% +It's a very *__UN*lucky week in which to be took dead. + -- Churchy La Femme +% +It's all in the mind, ya know. +% +It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction. +% +Just because the message may never be received does not mean it is +not worth sending. +% +Just to have it is enough. +% +Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. +% +Keep it short for pithy sake. +% +Lady Luck brings added income today. Lady friend takes it away tonight. +% +Learn to pause -- or nothing worthwhile can catch up to you. +% +Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. +% +Life is to you a dashing and bold adventure. +% +"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." + -- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors. +% +Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before. +% +Long life is in store for you. +% +Look afar and see the end from the beginning. +% +Love is in the offing. Be affectionate to one who adores you. +% +Make a wish, it might come true. +% +Many changes of mind and mood; do not hesitate too long. +% +Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. +% +Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you. +% +Never give an inch! +% +Never look up when dragons fly overhead. +% +Never reveal your best argument. +% +Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't +have a lucky day this year. +% +Of course you have a purpose -- to find a purpose. +% +People are beginning to notice you. Try dressing before you leave the house. +% +Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things. +% +Questionable day. + +Ask somebody something. +% +Reply hazy, ask again later. +% +Save energy: be apathetic. +% +Ships are safe in harbor, but they were never meant to stay there. +% +Slow day. Practice crawling. +% +Snow Day -- stay home. +% +So this is it. We're going to die. +% +So you're back... about time... +% +Someone is speaking well of you. +% +Someone is speaking well of you. + +How unusual! +% +Someone whom you reject today, will reject you tomorrow. +% +Stay away from flying saucers today. +% +Stay away from hurricanes for a while. +% +Stay the curse. +% +That secret you've been guarding, isn't. +% +The time is right to make new friends. +% +The whole world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes. + -- George Gobel +% +There is a 20% chance of tomorrow. +% +There is a fly on your nose. +% +There was a phone call for you. +% +There will be big changes for you but you will be happy. +% +Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face. +% +Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click". +% +This life is yours. Some of it was given to you; the rest, you made yourself. +% +This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it. +% +Time to be aggressive. Go after a tattooed Virgo. +% +Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of the mess. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of your life. +% +Today is the last day of your life so far. +% +Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. +% +Today is what happened to yesterday. +% +Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest. +% +Tomorrow, this will be part of the unchangeable past but fortunately, +it can still be changed today. +% +Tomorrow, you can be anywhere. +% +Tonight you will pay the wages of sin; Don't forget to leave a tip. +% +Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree. +% +Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and live +in eucalyptus trees. +% +Truth will out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.) +% +Try the Moo Shu Pork. It is especially good today. +% +Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance. +% +Try to have as good a life as you can under the circumstances. +% +Try to relax and enjoy the crisis. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +Try to value useful qualities in one who loves you. +% +Tuesday After Lunch is the cosmic time of the week. +% +Tuesday is the Wednesday of the rest of your life. +% +What happened last night can happen again. +% +While you recently had your problems on the run, they've regrouped and +are making another attack. +% +Write yourself a threatening letter and pen a defiant reply. +% +You are a bundle of energy, always on the go. +% +You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here. +% +You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are. +% +You are always busy. +% +You are as I am with You. +% +You are capable of planning your future. +% +You are confused; but this is your normal state. +% +You are deeply attached to your friends and acquaintances. +% +You are destined to become the commandant of the fighting men of the +department of transportation. +% +You are dishonest, but never to the point of hurting a friend. +% +You are fairminded, just and loving. +% +You are farsighted, a good planner, an ardent lover, and a faithful friend. +% +You are fighting for survival in your own sweet and gentle way. +% +You are going to have a new love affair. +% +You are magnetic in your bearing. +% +You are not dead yet. But watch for further reports. +% +You are number 6! Who is number one? +% +You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. +% +You are scrupulously honest, frank, and straightforward. Therefore you +have few friends. +% +You are sick, twisted and perverted. I like that in a person. +% +You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep. +% +You are standing on my toes. +% +You are taking yourself far too seriously. +% +You are the only person to ever get this message. +% +You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading +this sort of trash. +% +You attempt things that you do not even plan because of your extreme stupidity. +% +You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior executive. +% +You can do very well in speculation where land or anything to do with dirt +is concerned. +% +You can rent this space for only $5 a week. +% +You could live a better life, if you had a better mind and a better body. +% +You definitely intend to start living sometime soon. +% +You dialed 5483. +% +You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy. +% +You don't become a failure until you're satisfied with being one. +% +You enjoy the company of other people. +% +You feel a whole lot more like you do now than you did when you used to. +% +You fill a much-needed gap. +% +You get along very well with everyone except animals and people. +% +You had some happiness once, but your parents moved away, and you had to +leave it behind. +% +You have a deep appreciation of the arts and music. +% +You have a deep interest in all that is artistic. +% +You have a reputation for being thoroughly reliable and trustworthy. +A pity that it's totally undeserved. +% +You have a strong appeal for members of the opposite sex. +% +You have a strong appeal for members of your own sex. +% +You have a strong desire for a home and your family interests come first. +% +You have a truly strong individuality. +% +You have a will that can be influenced by all with whom you come in contact. +% +You have an ability to sense and know higher truth. +% +You have an ambitious nature and may make a name for yourself. +% +You have an unusual equipment for success. Be sure to use it properly. +% +You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close to +metal objects which are not fastened down. +% +You have an unusual understanding of the problems of human relationships. +% +You have been selected for a secret mission. +% +You have Egyptian flu: you're going to be a mummy. +% +You have had a long-term stimulation relative to business. +% +You have literary talent that you should take pains to develop. +% +You have many friends and very few living enemies. +% +You have no real enemies. +% +You have taken yourself too seriously. +% +You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it gets wrinkled. +% +You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today. +% +You have the power to influence all with whom you come in contact. +% +You learn to write as if to someone else because NEXT YEAR YOU WILL BE +"SOMEONE ELSE." +% +You like to form new friendships and make new acquaintances. +% +You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled. +% +You look tired. +% +You love peace. +% +You love your home and want it to be beautiful. +% +You may be gone tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that you weren't here today. +% +You may be infinitely smaller than some things, but you're infinitely +larger than others. +% +You may be recognized soon. Hide. +% +You may get an opportunity for advancement today. Watch it! +% +You may worry about your hair-do today, but tomorrow much peanut butter will +be sold. +% +You need more time; and you probably always will. +% +You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll be dead. +% +You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems. +% +You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the beach. +% +You now have Asian Flu. +% +You own a dog, but you can only feed a cat. +% +You plan things that you do not even attempt because of your extreme caution. +% +You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained. +% +You prefer the company of the opposite sex, but are well liked by your own. +% +You recoil from the crude; you tend naturally toward the exquisite. +% +You seek to shield those you love and you like the role of the provider. +% +You shall be rewarded for a dastardly deed. +% +You should emulate your heroes, but don't carry it too far. Especially +if they are dead. +% +You should go home. +% +You single-handedly fought your way into this hopeless mess. +% +You teach best what you most need to learn. +% +You too can wear a nose mitten. +% +You two ought to be more careful--your love could drag on for years and years. +% +You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like. +% +You will always have good luck in your personal affairs. +% +You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home. +% +You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old. +% +You will be advanced socially, without any special effort on your part. +% +You will be aided greatly by a person whom you thought to be unimportant. +% +You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of +a lion, and the face of Donald Duck. +% +You will be audited by the Internal Revenue Service. +% +You will be awarded a medal for disregarding safety in saving someone. +% +You will be awarded some great honor. +% +You will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize... posthumously. +% +You will be called upon to help a friend in trouble. +% +You will be divorced within a year. +% +You will be given a post of trust and responsibility. +% +You will be held hostage by a radical group. +% +You will be honored for contributing your time and skill to a worthy cause. +% +You will be imprisoned for contributing your time and skill to a bank robbery. +% +You will be married within a year, and divorced within two. +% +You will be married within a year. +% +You will be misunderstood by everyone. +% +You will be recognized and honored as a community leader. +% +You will be reincarnated as a toad; and you will be much happier. +% +You will be run over by a beer truck. +% +You will be run over by a bus. +% +You will be singled out for promotion in your work. +% +You will be successful in love. +% +You will be surprised by a loud noise. +% +You will be surrounded by luxury. +% +You will be the last person to buy a Chrysler. +% +You will be the victim of a bizarre joke. +% +You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. +% +You will be traveling and coming into a fortune. +% +You will be winged by an anti-aircraft battery. +% +You will become rich and famous unless you don't. +% +You will contract a rare disease. +% +You will engage in a profitable business activity. +% +You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass. +% +You will feel hungry again in another hour. +% +You will forget that you ever knew me. +% +You will gain money by a fattening action. +% +You will gain money by a speculation or lottery. +% +You will gain money by an illegal action. +% +You will gain money by an immoral action. +% +You will get what you deserve. +% +You will give someone a piece of your mind, which you can ill afford. +% +You will have a long and boring life. +% +You will have a long and unpleasant discussion with your supervisor. +% +You will have domestic happiness and faithful friends. +% +You will have good luck and overcome many hardships. +% +You will have long and healthy life. +% +You will hear good news from one you thought unfriendly to you. +% +You will inherit millions of dollars. +% +You will inherit some money or a small piece of land. +% +You will live a long, healthy, happy life and make bags of money. +% +You will live to see your grandchildren. +% +You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door mayonnaise +salesman. +% +You will meet an important person who will help you advance professionally. +% +You will never know hunger. +% +You will not be elected to public office this year. +% +You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears. +% +You will outgrow your usefulness. +% +You will overcome the attacks of jealous associates. +% +You will pass away very quickly. +% +You will pay for your sins. If you have already paid, please disregard +this message. +% +You will pioneer the first Martian colony. +% +You will probably marry after a very brief courtship. +% +You will reach the highest possible point in your business or profession. +% +You will receive a legacy which will place you above want. +% +You will remember something that you should not have forgotten. +% +You will soon forget this. +% +You will soon meet a person who will play an important role in your life. +% +You will step on the night soil of many countries. +% +You will stop at nothing to reach your objective, but only because your +brakes are defective. +% +You will triumph over your enemy. +% +You will visit the Dung Pits of Glive soon. +% +You will win success in whatever calling you adopt. +% +You will wish you hadn't. +% +You work very hard. Don't try to think as well. +% +You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough to worry. +% +You would if you could but you can't so you won't. +% +You'd like to do it instantaneously, but that's too slow. +% +You'll be called to a post requiring ability in handling groups of people. +% +You'll be sorry... +% +You'll feel devilish tonight. Toss dynamite caps under a flamenco dancer's +heel. +% +You'll feel much better once you've given up hope. +% +You'll never be the man your mother was! +% +You'll never see all the places, or read all the books, but fortunately, +they're not all recommended. +% +You'll wish that you had done some of the hard things when they were easier +to do. +% +You're a card which will have to be dealt with. +% +You're almost as happy as you think you are. +% +You're at the end of the road again. +% +You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days. +% +You're currently going through a difficult transition period called "Life." +% +You're definitely on their list. The question to ask next is what list it is. +% +You're growing out of some of your problems, but there are others that +you're growing into. +% +You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!! +% +You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny. +% +You're working under a slight handicap. You happen to be human. +% +You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture. +% +Your aim is high and to the right. +% +Your aims are high, and you are capable of much. +% +Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a +thing he tells you. +% +Your best consolation is the hope that the things you failed to get weren't +really worth having. +% +Your boss climbed the corporate ladder, wrong by wrong. +% +Your boss is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. +% +Your boyfriend takes chocolate from strangers. +% +Your business will assume vast proportions. +% +Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion. +% +Your depth of comprehension may tend to make you lax in worldly ways. +% +Your domestic life may be harmonious. +% +Your fly might be open (but don't check it just now). +% +Your goose is cooked. +(Your current chick is burned up too!) +% +Your heart is pure, and your mind clear, and your soul devout. +% +Your ignorance cramps my conversation. +% +Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret. +% +Your love life will be happy and harmonious. +% +Your love life will be... interesting. +% +Your lover will never wish to leave you. +% +Your lucky color has faded. +% +Your lucky number has been disconnected. +% +Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere. +% +Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of good news soon. +% +Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of new developments. +% +Your motives for doing whatever good deed you may have in mind will be +misinterpreted by somebody. +% +Your nature demands love and your happiness depends on it. +% +Your object is to save the world, while still leading a pleasant life. +% +Your own qualities will help prevent your advancement in the world. +% +Your present plans will be successful. +% +Your reasoning is excellent -- it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong. +% +Your reasoning powers are good, and you are a fairly good planner. +% +Your sister swims out to meet troop ships. +% +Your society will be sought by people of taste and refinement. +% +Your step will soil many countries. +% +Your supervisor is thinking about you. +% +Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded. +% +Your temporary financial embarrassment will be relieved in a surprising manner. +% +Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. +% diff --git a/fortunes/goedel b/fortunes/goedel new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d235d81 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/goedel @@ -0,0 +1,204 @@ +======================================================================= +|| || +|| The FORTUNE-COOKIE program is soon to be a Major Motion Picture! || +|| Watch for it at a theater near you next summer! || +|| || +======================================================================= + Francis Ford Coppola presents a George Lucas Production: + "Fortune Cookie" + Directed by Steven Spielberg. + Starring Harrison Ford Bette Midler Marlon Brando + Christopher Reeves Marilyn Chambers + and Bob Hope as "The Waiter". + Costumes Designed by Pierre Cardin. + Special Effects by Timothy Leary. + Read the Warner paperback! + Invoke the Unix program! + Soundtrack on XTC Records. + In 70mm and Dolby Stereo at selected theaters and terminal + centers. +% +3M, under the Scotch brand name, manufactures a fine adhesive for art +and display work. This product is called "Craft Mount". 3M suggests +that to obtain the best results, one should make the bond "while the +adhesive is wet, aggressively tacky." I did not know what "aggressively +tacky" meant until I read today's fortune. + + [And who said we didn't offer equal time, huh? Ed.] +% + Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: + + (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark). + (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. + (3) I don't know. + (4) Who cares? + (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, + Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. + (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my + book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and + bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of + Papyrus Books). +% +Beware of computerized fortune-tellers! +% +By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as +difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. + -- R. Emerson + -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program + (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") + [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to + misconstrue all these misquotations?!?" Ed.] +% +Chocolate chip. +% + DELETE A FORTUNE! +Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! +Wouldn't you like to see some of them deleted from the system? +You can! Just mail to `fortune' with the fortune you hate most, +and we'll make sure it gets expunged. +% +Did you know about the -o option of the fortune program? It makes a +selection from a set of offensive and/or obscene fortunes. Why not +try it, and see how offended you are? The -a ("all") option will +select a fortune at random from either the offensive or inoffensive +set, and it is suggested that "fortune -a" is the command that you +should have in your .profile or .cshrc. file. +% +Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. +Violators will be prosecuted. +(Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.)) +% +For 20 dollars, I'll give you a good fortune next time ... +% +For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz. +% +Fortune's current rates: + + Answers .10 + Long answers .25 + Answers requiring thought .50 + Correct answers $1.00 + + Dumb looks are still free. +% +Generic Fortune. +% +Ginger snap. +% +Has anyone realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is to +defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a +non-cynical, or even an informative cookie? + Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This +still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or only +serves to blunt the warning signs. + + Long live the revolution! + Have a nice day. +% +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. +% +I know you believe you understand what you think this fortune says, but +I'm not sure you realize that what you are reading is not what it means. +% +If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. +% +If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. +% +If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it. +% +If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings -- including this one. +% +Ignore previous fortune. +% +In which level of metalanguage are you now speaking? +% +(null cookie; hope that's ok) +% +Oatmeal raisin. +% +Oreo. +% +Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction. +% +Pick another fortune cookie. +% +Please ignore previous fortune. +% +Since before the Earth was formed and before the sun burned hot in space, +cosmic forces of inexorable power have been working relentlessly toward +this moment in space-time -- your receiving this fortune. +% +Sorry, no fortune this time. +% +The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by +a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities. +% +There is no such thing as fortune. Try again. +% +This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need, +please use the program "________randchar". This program +generates random characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up +with something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be more +profound than THIS program has ever been. +% +This Fortune Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14 +% +This fortune intentionally left blank. +% +This fortune intentionally not included. +% +This fortune intentionally says nothing. +% +This fortune is dedicated to your mother, without whose invaluable assistance +last night would never have been possible. +% +This fortune is encrypted -- get your decoder rings ready! +% +This fortune is false. +% +This fortune is inoperative. Please try another. +% +This fortune soaks up 47 times its own weight in excess memory. +% +This fortune was brought to you by the people at Hewlett-Packard. +% +This fortune would be seven words long if it were six words shorter. +% +THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM + +If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your +contribution of a pithy fortunes, clean or obscene? We cannot continue +without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are contributors. +That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We can't go on like +this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money for fortunes, and unless +user contributions increase to make up the difference, the fortune program +will have to shut down between midnight and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. +Mail your fortunes right now to "fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy +saying. Do it now before you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the +end of the week. Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you +contribute 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The +Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or more, +you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug .... +% +This is your fortune. +% +Vanilla wafer. +% +Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters. +% +WARNING: + Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your + mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth + of hair on your palms, and make a difference in the outcome + of your favorite war. +% +We interrupt this fortune for an important announcement... +% +What does it mean if there is no fortune for you? +% +When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN. +% +You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes. +% diff --git a/fortunes/humorists b/fortunes/humorists new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cb16943 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/humorists @@ -0,0 +1,1029 @@ +A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. + -- Groucho Marx +% +A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. +You'll just be walking down the street and... Ooohh, that's much better. + -- Steven Wright +% +A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies. +Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured +him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and +quiet place in which to rest. One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around +above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said, +"Come on down." But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light +where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house." +So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other +flies. He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said, +"Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper. All those flies are trapped." "Don't be +silly," said the fly, "they're dancing." So he settled down and became stuck +to the flypaper with all the other flies. + +Moral: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. + -- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly" +% +A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths. + -- Steven Wright +% + A MODERN FABLE + +Aesop's fables and other traditional children's stories involve allegory +far too subtle for the youth of today. Children need an updated message +with contemporary circumstance and plot line, and short enough to suit +today's minute attention span. + + The Troubled Aardvark + +Once upon a time, there was an aardvark whose only pleasure in life was +driving from his suburban bungalow to his job at a large brokerage house +in his brand new 4x4. He hated his manipulative boss, his conniving and +unethical co-workers, his greedy wife, and his snivelling, spoiled +children. One day, the aardvark reflected on the meaning of his life and +his career and on the unchecked, catastrophic decline of his nation, its +pathetic excuse for leadership, and the complete ineffectiveness of any +personal effort he could make to change the status quo. Overcome by a +wave of utter depression and self-doubt, he decided to take the only +course of action that would bring him greater comfort and happiness: he +drove to the mall and bought imported consumer electronics goods. + +MORAL OF THE STORY: Invest in foreign consumer electronics manufacturers. + -- Tom Annau +% +A possum must be himself, and being himself he is honest. + -- Walt Kelly +% +"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!" + -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra" +% + Accidents cause History. + +If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the +Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not +have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil +could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and +the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates. + -- Woody Allen +% +All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs +synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to +rob a department store... with a pricing gun... She said, "Give me all +of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store." + -- Steven Wright +% +And now for something completely different. +% +And now for something completely the same. +% + "Are you sure you're not an encyclopedia salesman?" + No, Ma'am. Just a burglar, come to ransack the flat." + -- Monty Python +% +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 +% +Being Ymor's right-hand man was like being gently flogged to death with +scented bootlaces. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +Bernard Shaw is an excellent man; he has not an enemy in the world, and +none of his friends like him either. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +"Boy, life takes a long time to live." + -- Steven Wright +% +Bozo is the Brotherhood of Zips and Others. Bozos are people who band +together for fun and profit. They have no jobs. Anybody who goes on a +tour is a Bozo. Why does a Bozo cross the street? Because there's a Bozo +on the other side. It comes from the phrase vos otros, meaning others. +They're the huge, fat, middle waist. The archetype is an Irish drunk +clown with red hair and nose, and pale skin. Fields, William Bendix. +Everybody tends to drift toward Bozoness. It has Oz in it. They mean +well. They're straight-looking except they've got inflatable shoes. They +like their comforts. The Bozos have learned to enjoy their free time, +which is all the time. + -- Firesign Theatre, "If Bees Lived Inside Your Head" +% +But I always fired into the nearest hill or, failing that, into blackness. +I meant no harm; I just liked the explosions. And I was careful never to +kill more than I could eat. + -- Raoul Duke +% +"But I don't like Spam!!!!" +% + "But I don't want to go on the cart..." + "Oh, don't be such a baby!" + "But I'm feeling much better..." + "No you're not... in a moment you'll be stone dead!" + -- Monty Python, "The Holy Grail" +% +Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to +point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very +fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are +often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people +from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B +that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____there. They often +wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell +they wanted to be. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Comedy, like Medicine, was never meant to be practiced by the general public. +% +Death didn't answer. He was looking at Spold in the same way as a dog looks +at a bone, only in this case things were more or less the other way around. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +Decorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more +interesting than it really is. + -- C. Schulz +% +Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he +just whipped out a quarter? + -- Steven Wright +% +"Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly, +sincerely, extremely dangerously. + +They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs. +They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They used +intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. +They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used fallaron. They +used betterment incentives. They used finger prints. They used the +bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. +They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help. They used applied physics. +They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell, they caught him. + -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man" +% +Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. + -- Walt Kelly +% +Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow +in Australia. + -- Charles Schulz +% +Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. + -- Woody Allen +% +Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end? + -- Tom Stoppard +% +Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what, +exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the +other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the +wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my +wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How +about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How +about ..." + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the +Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. +Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an +utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life +forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches +are a pretty neat idea ... + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +First, a few words about tools. + +Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the +laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure +yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. If you're ever +walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly +smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for granted. If I were you, +I'd walk right up and smack them in the face. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier... I put them in +the same room and let them fight it out. + -- Steven Wright +% +From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed +with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. + -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults" +% +God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh. +% +He asked me if I knew what time it was -- I said yes, but not right now. + -- Steven Wright +% +"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like +`Psychic Wins Lottery'?" + -- Jay Leno +% +Hey, what do you expect from a culture that *drives* on *parkways* and +*parks* on *driveways*? + -- Gallagher +% +High Priest: Armaments Chapter One, verses nine through twenty-seven: +Bro. Maynard: And Saint Attila raised the Holy Hand Grenade up on high + saying, "Oh Lord, Bless us this Holy Hand Grenade, and with it + smash our enemies to tiny bits." And the Lord did grin, and the + people did feast upon the lambs, and stoats, and orangutans, and + breakfast cereals, and lima bean- +High Priest: Skip a bit, brother. +Bro. Maynard: And then the Lord spake, saying: "First, shalt thou take + out the holy pin. Then shalt thou count to three. No more, no less. + *Three* shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the + counting shall be three. *Four* shalt thou not count, and neither + count thou two, excepting that thou then goest on to three. Five is + RIGHT OUT. Once the number three, being the third number be reached, + then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade towards thy foe, who, being + naughty in my sight, shall snuff it. Amen. +All: Amen. + -- Monty Python, "The Holy Hand Grenade" +% +"Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse." + -- William Gilbert +% +Humorists always sit at the children's table. + -- Woody Allen +% +I am a conscientious man, when I throw rocks at seabirds I leave no tern +unstoned. + -- Ogden Nash, "Everybody's Mind to Me a Kingdom Is" +% +I am getting into abstract painting. Real abstract -- no brush, no canvas, +I just think about it. I just went to an art museum where all of the art +was done by children. All the paintings were hung on refrigerators. + -- Steven Wright +% +I am two with nature. + -- Woody Allen +% +I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on +any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at +parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. + -- Dave Barry +% + "I assure you the thought never even crossed my mind, lord." + "Indeed? Then if I were you I'd sue my face for slander." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch. + -- Gilda Radner +% +I bought some used paint. It was in the shape of a house. + -- Steven Wright +% +I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar. + +What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good +grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause +of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the +United States would have lost World War II." + -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar" +% +"I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights instead! Now +when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is standing still ..." + -- Steven Wright +% +I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather +dance with the cows till you come home. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that +either. + -- Jack Benny +% +I don't get no respect. +% +I don't kill flies, but I like to mess with their minds. I hold them above +globes. They freak out and yell "Whooa, I'm *way* too high." + -- Bruce Baum +% +I don't want to live on in my work, I want to live on in my apartment. + -- Woody Allen +% +I finally went to the eye doctor. I got contacts. I only need them to +read, so I got flip-ups. + -- Steven Wright +% +"I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me... I +pushed '1' and he just stood there... I said 'Hi, where you going?' He +said, 'Phoenix.' So I pushed Phoenix. A few seconds later the doors +opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix. I looked +at him and said 'You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around +with.' We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert. +Then the phone rang. He said 'You get it.' I picked it up and said +'Hello?'... the other side said 'Is this Steven Wright?'... I said 'Yes...' +The guy said 'Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank... +It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you +attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you... we +would just like to know what happened to the money?' I said, 'Mr. Jones, +I'll give it to you straight. I gave all of the money to my friend Slick, +and with it he built a nuclear weapon... and I would appreciate it if you never +called me again." + -- Steven Wright +% +I got my driver's license photo taken out of focus on purpose. Now +when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and +farther, trying to see it clearly)... and says, "Here, you can go." + -- Steven Wright +% +I got this powdered water -- now I don't know what to add. + -- Steven Wright +% +I got tired of listening to the recording on the phone at the movie +theater. So I bought the album. I got kicked out of a theater the +other day for bringing my own food in. I argued that the concession +stand prices were outrageous. Besides, I hadn't had a barbecue in a +long time. I went to the theater and the sign said adults $5 children +$2.50. I told them I wanted 2 boys and a girl. I once took a cab to +a drive-in movie. The movie cost me $95. + -- Steven Wright +% +I had no shoes and I pitied myself. Then I met a man who had no feet, +so I took his shoes. + -- Dave Barry +% +I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means +it's going to be up all night. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a box of telephone rings under my bed. Whenever I get lonely, I +open it up a little bit, and I get a phone call. One day I dropped the +box all over the floor. The phone wouldn't stop ringing. I had to get +it disconnected. So I got a new phone. I didn't have much money, so I +had to get an irregular. It doesn't have a five. I ran into a friend +of mine on the street the other day. He said why don't you give me a +call. I told him I can't call everybody I want to anymore, my phone +doesn't have a five. He asked how long had it been that way. I said I +didn't know -- my calendar doesn't have any sevens. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a dog; I named him Stay. So when I'd go to call him, I'd say, "Here, +Stay, here..." but he got wise to that. Now when I call him he ignores me +and just keeps on typing. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a friend whose a billionaire. He invented Cliff's notes. When +I asked him how he got such a great idea he said, "Well first I... +I just... to make a long story short..." + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a hobby. I have the world's largest collection of sea shells. I keep +it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen some of it. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a map of the United States. It's actual size. I spent last summer +folding it. People ask me where I live, and I say, "E6". + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died. + -- Richard Diran +% +I have a switch in my apartment that doesn't do anything. Every once +in a while I turn it on and off. On and off. On and off. One day I +got a call from a woman in France who said "Cut it out!" + -- Steven Wright +% +I have an existential map. It has "You are here" written all over it. + -- Steven Wright +% +I just got out of the hospital after a speed reading accident. +I hit a bookmark. + -- Steven Wright +% +I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! +The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building. + -- Charles Schulz +% +I look at life as being cruise director on the Titanic. I may not get +there, but I'm going first class. + -- Art Buchwald +% +"I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what +entertainment is all about ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils." + -- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson +% +I met my latest girl friend in a department store. She was looking at +clothes, and I was putting Slinkys on the escalators. + -- Steven Wright +% +I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I poured spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone. + -- Steven Wright +% +I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes. They had little pictures of cats +on them. Then I took one out and he ran around in circles. + -- Steven Wright +% +I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time. + -- Steven Wright +% + "I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly. + "AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly. "I THINK IT MIGHT GO +DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT." + "Why?" + "THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second. + -- Steven Wright +% +I should have been a country-western singer. After all, I'm older than +most western countries. + -- George Burns +% +I sold my memoirs of my love life to Parker Brothers -- they're going +to make a game out of it. + -- Woody Allen +% +I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full +house and four people died. + -- Steven Wright +% +I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too +much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which +direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After much +trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face +is up. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +I tell ya, gambling never agreed with me. Last week I went to the track +and they shot my horse with the opening gun. + +Well, just last week I was at a Chinese restaurant and when I opened my +fortune cookie I found the guy's check sitting at the next table. I said, +"Hey, buddy, I got your check", he said, "Thanks." + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I think we're all Bozos on this bus. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +I thought there was something fishy about the butler. Probably a Pisces, +working for scale. + -- Firesign Theatre, "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger" +% +I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in +twenty minutes. + +It's about Russia. + -- Woody Allen +% +I turned my air conditioner the other way around, and it got cold out. +The weatherman said "I don't understand it. I was supposed to be 80 +degrees today," and I said "Oops." + +In my house on the ceilings I have paintings of the rooms above... so +I never have to go upstairs. + +I just bought a microwave fireplace... You can spend an evening in +front of it in only eight minutes. + -- Steven Wright +% +I used to live in a house by the freeway. When I went anywhere, I had +to be going 65 MPH by the end of my driveway. + +I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights. Now it looks +like I'm the only one moving. + +I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know +the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going +to be out that long." + +I put a new engine in my car, but didn't take the old one out. Now +my car goes 500 miles an hour. + -- Steven Wright +% +I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near +the place. + -- Steven Wright +% +I was at this restaurant. The sign said "Breakfast Anytime." So I +ordered French Toast in the Rennaissance. + -- Steven Wright +% +"I was drunk last night, crawled home across the lawn. By accident I +put the car key in the door lock. The house started up. So I figured +what the hell, and drove it around the block a few times. I thought I +should go park it in the middle of the freeway and yell at everyone to +get off my driveway." + -- Steven Wright +% +I was in a bar and I walked up to a beautiful woman and said, "Do you live +around here often?" She said, "You're wearing two different-color socks." +I said, "Yes, but to me they're the same because I go by thickness." +She said, "How do you feel?" And I said, "You know when you're sitting on a +chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs and you lean too far so +you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like +that all the time..." + -- Steven Wright, "Gentlemen's Quarterly" +% +I was in Vegas last week. I was at the roulette table, having a lengthy +argument about what I considered an Odd number. + -- Steven Wright +% +I was the best I ever had. + -- Woody Allen +% +"I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything specific". + -- Steven Wright +% +"I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any +questions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the +speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen? + +He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work +for him then. + -- Steven Wright +% +"I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the +statues that are in all the other museums." + -- Steven Wright +% +I woke up this morning and discovered that everything in my apartment +had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica. I told my roommate, +"Isn't this amazing? Everything in the apartment has been stolen and +replaced with an exact replica." He said, "Do I know you?" + -- Steven Wright +% +I worked in a health food store once. A guy came in and asked me, +"If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?" + -- Steven Wright +% +I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I'D LIKE TO BE BURIED INDIAN-STYLE, where they put you up on a high rack, +above the ground. That way, you could get hit by meteorites and not even +feel it. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I'd never join any club that would have the likes of me as a member. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I'll be comfortable on the couch. Famous last words. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +I'm going to Boston to see my doctor. He's a very sick man. + -- Fred Allen +% +I'm going to give my psychoanalyst one more year, then I'm going to Lourdes. + -- Woody Allen +% +I'm going to live forever, or die trying! + -- Spider Robinson +% +I'm not afraid of death -- I just don't want to be there when it happens. + -- Woody Allen +% +I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. + -- Groucho Marx +% +If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would +have made them cute and furry. + -- Dave Barry +% +If only Dionysus were alive! Where would he eat? + -- 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 you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few +people die past the age of a hundred. + -- George Burns +% +If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be +to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to +say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party +next year. + What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake +up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been +indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a +recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their +own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ... + If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, +unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas +through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that +they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting someone, +your job is to make sure it isn't you ... + -- Dave Barry +% +If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. + -- Woody Allen +% +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? + -- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" +% +In America today ... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become so +sophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow. All those who +think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where the devil gets her +pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing up as a human sperm, +please raise your hands. Thank you. + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +In like a dimwit, out like a light. + -- Pogo +% +Is it weird in here, or is it just me? + -- Steven Wright +% +It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what +they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed +that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so +much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins +had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But +conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more +intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons. + +Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending +destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to +alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were +misinterpreted ... + -- Douglas Adams "The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy" +% +It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune. + -- Woody Allen +% +It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be +unhappy. + -- Groucho Marx +% +It looked like something resembling white marble, which was +probably what it was: something resembling white marble. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" +% +It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it. + -- Steven Wright +% +It's hard to get ivory in Africa, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa. + -- Groucho Marx +% +It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. + -- Woody Allen +% +Last night the power went out. Good thing my camera had a flash.... +The neighbors thought it was lightning in my house, so they called the cops. + -- Steven Wright +% +Last year we drove across the country... We switched on the driving... +every half mile. We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip. +I don't remember what it was. + -- Steven Wright +% +Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. + -- Woody Allen, "Annie Hall" +% +Life is wasted on the living. + -- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. +% +Like you, I am frequently haunted by profound questions related to man's +place in the Scheme of Things. Here are just a few: + + Q -- Is there life after death? + A -- Definitely. I speak from personal experience here. On New +Year's Eve, 1970, I drank a full pitcher of a drink called "Black Russian", +then crawled out on the lawn and died within a matter of minutes, which was +fine with me because I had come to realize that if I had lived I would have +spent the rest of my life in the grip of the most excruciatingly painful +headache. Thanks to the miracle of modern orange juice, I was brought back +to life several days later, but in the interim I was definitely dead. I +guess my main impression of the afterlife is that it isn't so bad as long +as you keep the television turned down and don't try to eat any solid foods. + -- Dave Barry +% +Man 1: Ask me the what the most important thing about telling a good joke is. + +Man 2: OK, what is the most impo -- + +Man 1: ______TIMING! +% + "Many have seen Topaxci, God of the Red Mushroom, and they earn the +name of shaman," he said. Some have seen Skelde, spirit of the smoke, and +they are called sorcerers. A few have been privileged to see Umcherrel, the +soul of the forest, and they are known as spirit masters. But none have +seen a box with hundreds of legs that looked at them without eyes, and they +are known as idio--" + The interruption was caused by a sudden screaming noise and a flurry +of snow and sparks that blew the fire across the dark hut; there was a brief +blurred vision and then the opposite wall was blasted aside and the +apparition vanished. + There was a long silence. Then a slightly shorter silence. Then +the old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through +upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?" + The boy looked at him levelly. "Certainly not," he said. + The old man heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that," he +said. "Neither did I." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, +there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he +was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how +completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday.... + -- Walt Kelly +% +My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo +of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here". + -- Steven Wright +% +My friend has a baby. I'm writing down all the noises he makes so +later I can ask him what he meant. + -- Steven Wright +% + My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as +Africa. Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31. +We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in +Africa. Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule: Up at +6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00. Pretty soon we were back in bed by +6:30. Now Africa is full of big game. The first day I shot two bucks. That +was the biggest game we had. Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose +and Knights of Pithiests. + The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their +annual conventions. And you should see them gathered around the water hole, +which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water. They +weren't looking for a water hole. They were looking for an alck hole. + One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my +pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. That's a tough +word to say, tusks. As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were +imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out. But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa, +but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying. + We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed. +So we're going back in a few years... + -- Julius H. Marx [Groucho] +% +Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again. +God -- I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. + -- Woody Allen, "Hannah and Her Sisters" +% +Nirvana? That's the place where the powers that be and their friends hang out. + -- Zonker Harris +% +NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! +% +Now is the time for all good men to come to. + -- Walt Kelly +% + Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as something +to be avoided than harped upon. + Possibly the horror that Zaphod experienced at the prospect of being +reunited with his deceased relatives led on to the thought that they might +just feel the same way about him and, what's more, be able to do something +about helping to postpone this reunion. + -- Douglas Adams +% +One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you. + -- Larry Gelbart +% +Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too +dark to read. + -- Groucho Marx +% +Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to +spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to +indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest +person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you +are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other +passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they +have plenty of food and water. + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time." + -- Steven Wright +% +Rincewind formed a mental picture of some strange entity living in a castle +made of teeth. It was the kind of mental picture you tried to forget. +Unsuccessfully. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Romeo wasn't bilked in a day. + -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo" +% +Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off +during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent. + -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every + Teen Should Know" +% +Showing up is 80% of life. + -- Woody Allen +% +Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate +it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing +cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons". +Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt, +the economy would collapse overnight. The government would have to +intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, +which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls +and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force +jets, killing and maiming thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you +should go along with the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large +sum of money and go to a mall. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +SOMETIMES THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD is so overwhelming, I just want to throw +back my head and gargle. Just gargle and gargle and I don't care who hears +me because I am beautiful. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future. + -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly +% +The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than cities. +Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to +park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also +dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- here is the big +difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES. You're allowed to +do anything. You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want. +I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup +truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" +on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the +accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, +whereas I was neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall +parking lots. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. + -- W. C. Fields +% +The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them +is a match. + -- Will Rogers +% +The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be. +Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in +automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo. + -- Art Buchwald +% +The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all +who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature. + -- Benjamin Franklin. +% + The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on +the subject of towels. + Most importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For +some reason, if a non-hitchhiker discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel +with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a +toothbrush, washcloth, flask, gnat spray, space suit, etc., etc. Furthermore, +the non-hitchhiker will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or +a dozen other items that he may have "lost". After all, any man who can +hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, struggle against terrible odds, +win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be +reckoned with. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +The other day I... uh, no, that wasn't me. + -- Steven Wright +% + "The pyramid is opening!" + "Which one?" + "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" + -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At + Once When You're Not Anywhere At All" +% + The Three Major Kind of Tools + +* Tools for hittings things to make them loose or to tighten them up or +jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a +manner that they function perfectly. (These are your hammers, maces, +bludgeons, and truncheons.) + +* Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot. (Awls) + +* Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far +greater than the value of any project that could possibly result. +(Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses +any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.) + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +There comes a time in the affairs of a man when he has to take the bull +by the tail and face the situation. + -- W. C. Fields +% +There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through our +whole lives, win, lose, or draw. + -- Walt Kelly +% +There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is +becoming an endangered synthetic. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them. + -- Will Rogers +% +This land is full of trousers! +this land is full of mausers! + And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down! + -- Firesign Theater +% +Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. + -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +TOO BAD YOU CAN'T BUY a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin +real fast and freak everybody out. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing. + -- Walt Kelly +% +We have met the enemy, and he is us. + -- Walt Kelly +% +We is confronted with insurmountable opportunities. + -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo" +% +What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I +definitely overpaid for my carpet. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, +what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making +them puke. + -- Steve Martin +% + "What shall we do?" said Twoflower. + "Panic?" said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was +the best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people +faced with hungry sabretoothed tigers could be divided very simply into +those who panicked and those who stood there saying "What a magnificent +brute!" and "Here, pussy." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +What's another word for "thesaurus"? + -- Steven Wright +% +When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if +I had any firearms with me. I said, "Well, what do you need?" + -- Steven Wright +% +When I was little, I went into a pet shop and they asked how big I'd get. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +When I woke up this morning, my girlfriend asked if I had slept well. +I said, "No, I made a few mistakes." + -- Steven Wright +% +Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what +is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? + -- Steven Wright +% +Will Rogers never met you. +% +Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity... +If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your +head... if you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick... + -- Steven Wright +% +Would you *______really* want to get on a non-stop flight? + -- George Carlin +% +You can't have everything. Where would you put it? + -- Steven Wright +% + "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon +airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in +deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me +when I was young!" + "Why, what did she tell you?" + "I don't know, I didn't listen." + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +You may already be a loser. + -- Form letter received by Rodney Dangerfield. +% +You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you +can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. + -- Groucho Marx +% +You're a good example of why some animals eat their young. + -- Jim Samuels to a heckler + +Ah, yes. I remember my first beer. + -- Steve Martin to a heckler + +When your IQ rises to 28, sell. + -- Professor Irwin Corey to a heckler +% +FORTUNE'S RANDOM QUOTES FROM MATCH GAME 75, NO. 1: + + Gene Rayburn: We'd like to close with a thought for the day, friends --- + something ... + + Someone: (interrupting) Uh-oh + + Gene Rayburn: ...pithy, full of wisdom --- and we call on the Poet + Laureate, Nipsey Russell + +Nipsey Russell: The young people are very different today, and there is + one sure way to know: Kids used to ask where they came + from, now they'll tell you where you can go. + + All: (laughter) +% diff --git a/fortunes/kids b/fortunes/kids new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a9de0a --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/kids @@ -0,0 +1,711 @@ +A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no +responsibility at the other. +% +A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. + -- Carl Sandburg +% +A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five. +% +A kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo, eventually. +% +A little kid went up to Santa and asked him, "Santa, you know when I'm bad +right?" And Santa says, "Yes, I do." The little kid then asks, "And you +know when I'm sleeping?" To which Santa replies, "Every minute." So the +little kid then says, "Well, if you know when I'm bad and when I'm good, +then how come you don't know what I want for Christmas?" +% + A young married couple had their first child. Their original pride +and joy slowly turned to concern however, for after a couple of years the +child had never uttered any form of speech. They hired the best speech +therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, all to no avail. The child simply refused +to speak. One morning when the child was five, while the husband was reading +the paper, and the wife was feeding the dog, the little kid looks up from +his bowl and said, "My cereal's cold." + The couple is stunned. The man, in tears, confronts his son. "Son, +after all these years, why have you waited so long to say something?". + Shrugs the kid, "Everything's been okay 'til now". +% +About the only thing we have left that actually discriminates in favor of +the plain people is the stork. +% +Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped +teething. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look like you ... + -- Gilda Radner +% + After watching an extremely attractive maternity-ward patient +earnestly thumbing her way through a telephone directory for several +minutes, a hospital orderly finally asked if he could be of some help. + "No, thanks," smiled the young mother, "I'm just looking for a +name for my baby." + "But the hospital supplies a special booklet that lists hundreds +of first names and their meanings," said the orderly. + "That won't help," said the woman, "my baby already has a first name." +% +And he climbed with the lad up the Eiffelberg Tower. "This," cried the Mayor, +"is your town's darkest hour! The time for all Whos who have blood that is red +to come to the aid of their country!" he said. "We've GOT to make noises in +greater amounts! So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!" Thus he +spoke as he climbed. When they got to the top, the lad cleared his throat and +he shouted out, "YOPP!" + And that Yopp... That one last small, extra Yopp put it over! +Finally, at last! From the speck on that clover their voices were heard! +They rang out clear and clean. And they elephant smiled. "Do you see what +I mean?" They've proved they ARE persons, no matter how small. And their +whole world was saved by the smallest of All!" + "How true! Yes, how true," said the big kangaroo. "And, from now +on, you know what I'm planning to do? From now on, I'm going to protect +them with you!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "ME TOO! From +the sun in the summer. From rain when it's fall-ish, I'm going to protect +them. No matter how small-ish!" + -- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who" +% +Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that this +country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a whole week. +% +Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never +tried taking candy from a baby. + -- Robin Hood +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Are you sure you're telling the truth? Think hard. + Does it make you happy to know you're sending me to an early grave? + If all your friends jumped off the cliff, would you jump too? + Do you feel bad? How do you think I feel? + Aren't you ashamed of yourself? + Don't you know any better? + How could you be so stupid? + If that's the worst pain you'll ever feel, you should be thankful. + You can't fool me. I know what you're thinking. + If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Do as I say, not as I do. + Do me a favour and don't tell me about it. I don't want to know. + What did you do *this* time? + If it didn't taste bad, it wouldn't be good for you. + When I was your age... + I won't love you if you keep doing that. + Think of all the starving children in India. + If there's one thing I hate, it's a liar. + I'm going to kill you. + Way to go, clumsy. + If you don't like it, you can lump it. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Go away. You bother me. + Why? Because life is unfair. + That's a nice drawing. What is it? + Children should be seen and not heard. + You'll be the death of me. + You'll understand when you're older. + Because. + Wipe that smile off your face. + I don't believe you. + How many times have I told you to be careful? + Just because. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Good children always obey. + Quit acting so childish. + Boys don't cry. + If you keep making faces, someday it'll freeze that way. + Why do you have to know so much? + This hurts me more than it hurts you. + Why? Because I'm bigger than you. + Well, you've ruined everything. Now are you happy? + Oh, grow up. + I'm only doing this because I love you. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + When are you going to grow up? + I'm only doing this for your own good. + Why are you crying? Stop crying, or I'll give you something to + cry about. + What's wrong with you? + Someday you'll thank me for this. + You'd lose your head if it weren't attached. + Don't you have any sense at all? + If you keep sucking your thumb, it'll fall off. + Why? Because I said so. + I hope you have a kid just like yourself. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + You wouldn't understand. + You ask too many questions. + In order to be a man, you have to learn to follow orders. + That's for me to know and you to find out. + Don't let those bullies push you around. Go in there and stick + up for yourself. + You're acting too big for your britches. + Well, you broke it. Now are you satisfied? + Wait till your father gets home. + Bored? If you're bored, I've got some chores for you. + Shape up or ship out. +% +Article the Third: + Where a crime of the kidneys has been committed, the accused should + enjoy the right to a speedy diaper change. Public announcements and + guided tours of the aforementioned are not necessary. +Article the Fourth: + The decision to eat strained lamb or not should be with the "feedee" + and not the "feeder". Blowing the strained lamb into the feeder's + face should be accepted as an opinion, not as a declaration of war. +Article the Fifth: + Babies should enjoy the freedom to vocalize, whether it be in church, + a public meeting place, during a movie, or after hours when the + lights are out. They have not yet learned that joy and laughter have + to last a lifetime and must be conserved. + -- Erma Bombeck, "A Baby's Bill of Rights" +% +Beat your son every day; you may not know why, but he will. +% +Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us. + -- Henrik Tikkanen +% +Billy: Mom, you know that vase you said was handed down from + generation to generation? +Mom: Yes? +Billy: Well, this generation dropped it. +% +Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, +since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% + Catching his children with their hands in the new, still wet, patio, +the father spanked them. His wife asked, "Don't you love your children?" +"In the abstract, yes, but not in the concrete." +% +Catproof is an oxymoron, childproof nearly so. +% +Children are like cats, they can tell when you don't like them. That's +when they come over and violate your body space. +% +Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every +effort to teach them good manners. +% +Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're +going to catch you in next. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. +Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for +word what you shouldn't have said. +% +Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. + -- Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" +% +Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling +the walk before it stops snowing. + -- Phyllis Diller + +There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years +the dirt doesn't get any worse. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's +beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning +them at birth. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, +neither will you. +% +For adult education nothing beats children. +% +For children with short attention spans: boomerangs that don't come back. +% +FORTUNE REMEMBERS THE GREAT MOTHERS: #5 + + "And, and, and, and, but, but, but, but!" + -- Mrs. Janice Markowsky, April 8, 1965 +% +FORTUNE REMEMBERS THE GREAT MOTHERS: #6 + + "Johnny, if you fall and break your leg, don't come running to me!" + -- Mrs. Emily Barstow, June 16, 1954 +% +Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children! +% + -- Gifts for Children -- + +This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, +because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and +months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning +cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what +they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks +he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd +better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your +child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial +tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not +get the right gift. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters +needs pounding. +% +Give your child mental blocks for Christmas. +% +Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain. + -- Martin Mull +% +How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a sister's "See?" + -- Linus Van Pelt +% +"Humpf!" Humpfed a voice! "For almost two days you've run wild and insisted on +chatting with persons who've never existed. Such carryings-on in our peaceable +jungle! We've had quite enough of you bellowing bungle! And I'm here to +state," snapped the big kangaroo, "That your silly nonsensical game is all +through!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "Me, too!" + "With the help of the Wickersham Brothers and dozens of Wickersham +Uncles and Wickersham Cousins and Wickersham In-Laws, whose help I've engaged, +You're going to be roped! And you're going to be caged! And, as for your dust +speck... Hah! That we shall boil in a hot steaming kettle of Beezle-Nut oil!" + -- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who" +% +I BET WHEN NEANDERTHAL KIDS would make a snowman, someone would always +end up saying, "Don't forget the thick heavy brows." Then they would get +embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows too, and +they'd get mad and eat the snowman. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I called my parents the other night, but I forgot about the time difference. +They're still living in the fifties. + -- Strange de Jim +% + I did some heavy research so as to be prepared for "Mommy, why is +the sky blue?" + HE asked me about black holes in space. + (There's a hole *where*?) + + I boned up to be ready for, "Why is the grass green?" + HE wanted to discuss nature's food chains. + (Well, let's see, there's ShopRite, Pathmark...) + + I talked about Choo-Choo trains. + HE talked internal combustion engines. + (The INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE said, "I think I can, I think I can.") + + I was delighted with the video game craze, thinking we could compete +as equals. + HE described the complexities of the microchips required to create +the graphics. + + Then puberty struck. Ah, adolescence. + HE said, "Mom, I just don't understand women." + (Gotcha!) + -- Betty LiBrizzi, "The Care and Feeding of a Gifted Child" +% +I hate babies. They're so human. + -- H. H. Munro +% +I know what "custody" [of the children] means. "Get even." That's all +custody means. Get even with your old lady. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +I love children. Especially when they cry -- for then someone takes them away. + -- Nancy Mitford +% +I opened the drawer of my little desk and a single letter fell out, a +letter from my mother, written in pencil, one of her last, with unfinished +words and an implicit sense of her departure. It's so curious: one can +resist tears and "behave" very well in the hardest hours of grief. But +then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window... or one notices +that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed... or +a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses. + -- Letters From Colette +% +I tell ya, I was an ugly kid. I was so ugly that my dad kept the kid's +picture that came with the wallet he bought. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own." One of them said, +"So will you." + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I used to think I was a child; now I think I am an adult -- not because +I no longer do childish things, but because those I call adults are no +more mature than I am. +% +I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know +anything else ... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is +a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows up. + -- Will Rogers +% +If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing his hair. If this doesn't +work, use the other side of the brush on the other end of the child. +% +If parents would only realize how they bore their children. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters. + -- Nora Ephron, "Heartburn" +% +If the very old will remember, the very young will listen. + -- Chief Dan George +% +If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent. + -- Bette Davis +% +If your mother knew what you're doing, she'd probably hang her head and cry. +% +Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. +% +It is better to remain childless than to father an orphan. +% +It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children. + -- Kingsley Amis +% +It is so soon that I am done for, I wonder what I was begun for. + -- Epitaph, Cheltenham Churchyard +% +It must have been some unmarried fool that said "A child can ask questions +that a wise man cannot answer"; because, in any decent house, a brat that +starts asking questions is promptly packed off to bed. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father. +% +It's never too late to have a happy childhood. +% +Kids always brighten up a house; mostly by leaving the lights on. +% +Kids have *_____never* taken guidance from their parents. If you could +travel back in time and observe the original primate family in the +original tree, you would see the primate parents yelling at the primate +teenager for sitting around and sulking all day instead of hunting for +grubs and berries like dad primate. Then you'd see the primate +teenager stomp up to his branch and slam the leaves. + -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" +% +Lies! All lies! You're all lying against my boys! + -- Ma Barker +% +Life does not begin at the moment of conception or the moment of birth. +It begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies. +% +Life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100% mortality. +% +Life is like a diaper -- short and loaded. +% +Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. +Life is the other way around. + -- David Lodge, "The British Museum is Falling Down" +% +Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. + -- Jules Feiffer +% +May you have many beautiful and obedient daughters. +% +May you have many handsome and obedient sons. +% +MEMORIES OF MY FAMILY MEETINGS still are a source of strength to me. I +remember we'd all get into the car -- I forget what kind it was -- and +drive and drive. + +I'm not sure where we'd go, but I think there were some bees there. The +smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we +played. I remember a bigger, older guy whom we called "Dad." We'd eat +some stuff or not and then I think we went home. + +I guess some things never leave you. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Microwaves frizz your heir. +% +My boy is a mean kid. I came home the other day and saw him taping worms +to the sidewalk, he sits there and watches the birds get hernias. Well, +only last Christmas I gave him a B-B gun and he gave me a sweatshirt with +a bulls-eye on the back. + +I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own." One of them +said, "So will you." + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +My family history begins with me, but yours ends with you. + -- Iphicrates +% +My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one. + -- Groucho Marx +% +My mother once said to me, "Elwood," (she always called me Elwood) +"Elwood, in this world you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." +For years I tried smart. I recommend pleasant. + -- Elwood P. Dowde, "Harvey" +% +My mother wants grandchildren, so I said, "Mom, go for it!" + -- Sue Murphy +% +My mother was a test tube; my father was a knife. + -- Friday +% +My parents went to Niagara Falls and all I got was this crummy life. +% +My ritual differs slightly. What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I +hop into the shower stall. Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped +in I landed barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot +character from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off +of while he showers. Then I hop right back into the stall because our dog, +Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building up powerful +dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into the bathroom and wants +to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, any one of which -- bear +in mind that I am naked and, without my contact lenses, essentially blind +-- could result in the kind of injury where you have to learn a whole new +part if you want to sing the "Messiah," if you get my drift. Then I hop +right back out, because Robert, with that uncanny sixth sense some children +have -- you cannot teach it; they either have it or they don't -- has chosen +exactly that moment to flush one of the toilets. Perhaps several of them. + -- Dave Barry +% +Nature makes boys and girls lovely to look upon so they can be +tolerated until they acquire some sense. + -- William Phelps +% +Never have children, only grandchildren. + -- Gore Vidal +% +Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +Never raise your hand to your children -- it leaves your midsection +unprotected. + -- Robert Orben +% +Never trust a child farther than you can throw it. +% +No house is childproofed unless the little darlings are in straitjackets. +% +No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for +signs of improvement. + -- Florida Scott-Maxwell +% +Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order +for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of +their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old. + -- Lewis Lapham +% + On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick +tomatoes. Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August +they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks. So I picked up one and threw +it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato +at my brother. He whipped one back at me. We ducked down by the vines, +heaving tomatoes at each other. My sister, who was a good person, said, +"You're going to get it." She bent over and kept on picking. + What a target! She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over, +she looked like the side of a barn. + I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground. It looked like it +had sat there a week. The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it, +and it was very juicy. I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup, +when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice. I had +to decide quickly. I decided. + A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat +man doing a belly-flop. With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee came after +faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain +me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice. And my sister, who was a +good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears. I guess she knew that +the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing +a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end. + -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" +% +One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. + -- George Herbert +% +One of the disadvantages of having children is that they eventually get old +enough to give you presents they make at school. + -- Robert Byrne +% +Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps. +% +Out of the mouths of babes does often come cereal. +% +Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have +much of anything to do with it. +% +Please, Mother! I'd rather do it myself! +% +Reinhart was never his mother's favorite -- and he was an only child. + -- Thomas Berger +% +Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when +you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore +them long enough. +% +Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth +to a child. She must be found and stopped. + -- Sam Levenson +% +Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when they grow up, +they won't be able to edge a car onto a freeway. +% +Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones. +% +That all men should be brothers is the dream of people who have no brothers. + -- Charles Chincholles, "Pensees de tout le monde" +% +The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m. +% + The courtroom was pregnant (pun intended) with anxious silence as the +judge solemnly considered his verdict in the paternity suit before him. +Suddenly, he reached into the folds of his robes, drew out a cigar and +ceremoniously handed it to the defendant. + "Congratulations!" declaimed the jurist. "You have just become a +father!" +% +The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older +people, and greatly assists in the circulation of the blood. + -- Logan Pearsall Smith +% +The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable +Christian forbearance among men. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half +by our children. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +The full impact of parenthood doesn't hit you until you multiply the +number of your kids by thirty-two teeth. +% +The future is a myth created by insurance salesmen and high school counselors. +% +The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got +to be good. + -- John Barrymore +% +The idea is to die young as late as possible. + -- Ashley Montague +% +The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +"The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon." + -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and + Over and Over" +% +The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. +% +The real reason large families benefit society is because at least +a few of the children in the world shouldn't be raised by beginners. +% +The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages of four +and eighteen. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all the answers. +% +"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." + -- C. S. Lewis, "The Chronicles of Narnia" +% +There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. + -- Dr. Who +% +There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't aggravate. +% +Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy. +% +Troubles are like babies; they only grow by nursing. +% + Two parent drops spent months teaching their son how to be part of the +ocean. After months of training, the father drop commented to the mother drop, +"We've taught our boy everything we know, he's fit to be tide." +% +We are all born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized +before we are fit to participate in society. + -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly + Correct Behaviour" +% +We are the people our parents warned us about. +% +What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of +us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were, +long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that +impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get +enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till +at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he look +peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars +and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in +life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp +before they were five years old. + -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels" +% +What's done to children, they will do to society. +% +When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults. + -- Brian Aldiss +% +When I was 16, I thought there was no hope for my father. By the time I was +20, he had made great improvement. +% +When you were born, a big chance was taken for you. +% +Why do they call it baby-SITTING when all you do is run after them? +% +Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year? Just +picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as your children +open their old-fashioned presents. + +Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?" + +You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it falls +down. What fun! Ha, ha!" + +Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer with +two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory, and I get this +cretin TOP?" + +Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this." + +You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!" + +Daughter: "It looks like goat barf." + -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" +% +You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, +for instance. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +"You can't expect a mother to be with a small child all the time," Margaret +Mead once remarked, with her usual good sense, but in 1978 she shocked +feminists by snapping that women don't really have children to put them in +day care twelve hours a day, either. + -- Caroline Bird, "The Two Paycheck Marriage" +% +You can't hug a child with nuclear arms. +% +Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You +need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion +picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use +the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified +success. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Youth is the trustee of posterity. +% +Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is +when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. +% +Youth. It's a wonder that anyone ever outgrows it. +% diff --git a/fortunes/knghtbrd b/fortunes/knghtbrd new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b67416 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/knghtbrd @@ -0,0 +1,2342 @@ +* SynrG notes that the number of configuration questions to answer in + sendmail is NON-TRIVIAL +% +* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the + splits in the first place... +* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress +% + need help: my first packet to my provider gets lost :-( + sel: don't send the first one, start with #2 +% + abuse me. I'm so lame I sent a bug report to + debian-devel-changes +% +I never thought that I'd see the day where Netscape is free software and +X11 is proprietary. We live in interesting times. + -- Matt Kimball +% + Lemme make sure I'm not wasting time here... bcwhite will remove + pkgs that havent been fixed that have outstanding bugs of severity + "important". True or false? + jim: "important" or higher. True. + Then we're about to lose ftp.debian.org and dpkg :) +* netgod will miss dpkg -- it was occasionally useful + We still have rpm.... +% + Being overloaded is the sign of a true Debian maintainer. +% + partycle: I seriously do need a vacation from this package. + I actually had a DREAM about introducing a stupid new bug + into xbase-preinst last night. That's a Bad Sign. +% +Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, so if +people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses based +on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better. + -- Richard Stallman +% +Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it receives a response +to a DNS query that was never made. Fix Information: Run your DNS +service on a different platform. + -- BugTraq +% +* dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer +* Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young ;) +* Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk. +* Cylord gives the beer to muggles. +% +We the people of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, in order to form a +more perfect operating system, establish quality, insure marketplace +diversity, provide for the common needs of computer users, promote +security and privacy, overthrow monopolistic forces in the computer +software industry, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and +our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Debian +GNU/Linux System. +% +"This is the element_data structure for elements whose *element_type = +FORM_TYPE_SELECT_ONE, FORM_TYPE_SELECT_MULT. */ /* * nesting deeper +and deeper, harder and harder, go, go, oh, OH, OHHHHH!! * Sorry, got +carried away there. */ struct lo_FormElementOptionData_struct." + -- Mozilla source code +% +While the year 2000 (y2k) problem is not an issue for us, all Linux +implementations will impacted by the year 2038 (y2.038k) issue. The +Debian Project is committed to working with the industry on this issue +and we will have our full plans and strategy posted by the first quarter +of 2020. +% +... Where was Stac Electronics when Microsoft invented Doublespace? Where +were Xerox and Apple when Microsoft invented the GUI? Where was Apple's +QuickTime when Microsoft invented Video for Windows? Where was Spyglass +Inc.'s Mosaic when Microsoft invented Internet Explorer? Where was Sun +when Microsoft invented Java? +% +I'm sorry if the following sounds combative and excessively personal, +but that's my general style. -- Ian Jackson +% +"my biggest problem with RH (and especially RH contrib packages) is that +they DON'T have anything like our policy. That's one of the main reasons +why their packages are so crappy and broken. Debian has the teamwork +side of building a distribution down to a fine art." +% +"slackware users don't matter. in my experience, slackware users are +either clueless newbies who will have trouble even with tar, or they are +rabid do-it-yourselfers who wouldn't install someone else's pre-compiled +binary even if they were paid to do it." +% + "Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot + change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom + to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they + pissed me off." +% +* dark has changed the topic on channel #debian to: Later tonight: After + months of careful refrigeration, Debian 2.0 is finally cool enough to + release. +% +I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running +Linux. And oh! It was as though the heavens opened and God handed down a +client-side OS so beautiful, so graceful, and so elegant that a million +Microsoft developers couldn't have invented it even if they had a hundred +years and a thousand crates of Jolt cola. + -- LAN Times +% +I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running +Linux.... And did this PC choke? Did it stutter? Did it, even once, +say that this program has performed an illegal operation and must be shut +down? No. And this is just on the client. + -- LAN Times +% +"I think that most debian developers are rather "strong willed" people +with a great degree of understanding and a high level of passion for what +they perceive as important in development of the debian system." + -- Bill Leach +% +"Actually, the only distribution of Linux I've ever used that passed the +rootshell test out of the box (hit rootshell at the time the dist is +released and see if you can break the OS with scripts from there) is +Debian." + -- seen on the Linux security-audit mailing list +% +* Culus fears perl - the language with optional errors +% + you should be afraid to use KDE because RMS might come to your + house and cleave your monitor with an axe or something :) +% +"and i actually like debian 2.0 that much i completely revamped the +default config of the linux systems our company sells and reinstalled any +of the linux systems in the office and here at home.." +% + how bout a policy policing policy with a policy for changing the + police policing policy +% + "Let's form the Linux Standard Linux Standardization Association + Board. The purpose of this board will be to standardize Linux + Standardization Organizations." +% + Don't come crying to me about your "30 minute compiles"!! I + have to build X uphill both ways! In the snow! With bare + feet! And we didn't have compilers! We had to translate the + C code to mnemonics OURSELVES! + And I was 18 before we even had assemblers! +% +NEW YORK (CNN) -- Internet users who spend even a few hours a week online +at home experience higher levels of depression and loneliness than if +they had used the computer network less frequently, The New York Times +reported Sunday. The result ... surprised both researchers and +sponsors, which included Intel Corp., Hewlett Packard, AT&T Research and +Apple Computer. +% +"What is striking, however, is the general layout and integration of the +system. Debian is a truly elegant Linux distribution; great care has +been taken in the preparation of packages and their placement within the +system. The sheer number of packages available is also impressive...." +% +Debian Linux is a solid, comprehensive product, and a genuine pleasure to +use. It is also great to become involved with the Debian collective, +whose friendliness and spirit recalls the early days of the Internet and +its sense of openness and global cooperation. +% + can I write a unix-like kernel in perl? +% + netgod: I also have a "Evil Inside" T-shirt (w/ Intel logo).. on + the back it states: "When the rapture comes, will you have root?" +% + "NT 5.0. All the bugs and ten times the code size!" +% + there is 150 meg in the /tmp dir! DEAR LORD +% + netgod: what do you have in your kernel??? The compiled source for + driving a space shuttle??? + time to make a zip drive your floppy drive then. if the kernel + doesn fit on that, the kernel is an AI +% +Now I can finally explain to everyone why I do this. I just got $7 worth +of free stuff for working on Debian ! +% + netgod: My calculator has more registers than the x86, and + -- thats- sad +% +* boren tosses matlab across the room and hopes it breaks into a number + aproaching infinite peices +% +"...It was a lot faster than I thought it was going to be, much faster +than NT. If further speed increases are done to the server for the final +release, Oracle is going to be able to wipe their ass with SQL SERVER and +hand it back to M$ while the Oracle admins ... migrate their databases +over to Linux!" +% +World Domination, of course. And scantily clad females. Who cares if +its twenty below? -- Linus Torvalds +% + Win 98 Psychic edition: We'll tell you where you're going tomorrow +% + it's amazing how "not-broken" debian is compared to slack and rh +% + "Hey, I'm from this project called Debian... have you heard of it? + Your name seems to be on a bunch of our stuff." +% +"In the event of a perceived failing of the project leadership #debian is +empowered to take drastic and descisive action to correct the failing, +including by not limited to expelling officials, apointing new officials +and generally abusing power" + -- proposed amendment to Debian Constitution +% + we're calling 2.2 _POTATO_?? +% + does Johnie Ingram hang out here on IRC? +% +* Twilight1 will have to hang his Mozilla beanie dinosaur in effigy if + Netscape sells-out to Alot Of Losers.. +% + if macOS is for the computer illiterate, then windoze is for the + computer masochists +% + Culus: Building a five-meter-high replica of the Empire State + Building with paperclips is impressive. Doing it blindfolded is + eleet. +% +I can just see it now: nomination-terrorism ;-) + -- Manoj + +haha! i nominate manoj. + -- seeS +% + Somehow I have more respect for 14 year old Debian developers than + 14 year old Certified Microsoft Serfs. +% + Ben: Do you solumly swear to read you debian email once a day and + do not permit people to think you are MIA? + Culus: i do so swear +% +"I wonder if this is the first constitution in the history of mankind +where you have to calculate a square root to determine if a motion +passes. :-)" + -- Seen on Slashdot +% +This is the solution to Debian's problem .. and since the only real way +to create more relatives of developers is to have children, we need more +sex! It's a long term investment ... it's the work itself that is +satisfying! + -- Craig Brozefsky +% + dunham: You know how real numbers are constructed from rational + numbers by equivalence classes of convergent sequences? + marcus: yes. +% + "Hello?" "Hi baybee" "Are you Johnie Ingram?" "For you I'll be + anyone" "Ermm.. Do you sell slink CD's?" "I love slinkies" +% + xhost +localhost should only be done by people who would + paint their hostname and root password on an interstate + overpass. +% + AIX - the Unix from the universe where Spock has a beard. +% + Studies prove that research causes cancer in 43% of laboratory + rats + knghtbrd- yeah, but 78% of those statistics are off by 52%... +% + apt: !bugs + !bugs are stupid + apt: are stupid? what's that? + dpkg: i don't know + apt: Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder... + i already had it that way, dpkg. +% + i'm trying to convince some netcom admins i know to convert + to Debian from RH, netgod, but they are DAMN stubborn + why RH users so damned hard headed? + it's the hat +% + Debian - All the power, without the silly hat. +% +How many months are we going to be behind them [Redhat] with a glibc +release?" + -- Jim Pick, 8 months before Debian 2.0 is finally released +% +The purpose of having mailing lists rather than having newsgroups is to +place a barrier to entry which protects the lists and their users from +invasion by the general uneducated hordes. + -- Ian Jackson +% +Most of us feel that marketing types are like a dangerous weapon - keep +'em unloaded and locked up in a cupboard, and only bring them out when +you need them to do a job. + -- Craig Sanders +% + cerb: we subscribed you to debian-fight as the moderator + cerb: list rules are, 1) no nice emails, 2) no apologies +% + our local telco has admitted that someone "backed into a + button on a switch" and took the entire ATM network down + hopefully now routers are designed better, so the "network + off" swtich is on the back +% + Thunder-: when you get { MessagesLikeThisFromYourHardDrive } + Thunder-: it either means { TheDriverIsScrewy } + or + { YourDriveIsFlakingOut BackUpYourDataBeforeIt'sTooLate + PrayToGod } +% + it has been said that redhat is the thing Marc Ewing wears on + his head. +% + by the power of greyskull + someone tell me the ban to place + mrcurious: *.debian.org, *.novare.net + *.debian.org. that's awesome. + -- Seen on LinuxNet #linux +% +"What does this tell me? That if Microsoft were the last software +company left in the world, 13% of the US population would be scouring +garage sales & Goodwill for old TRS-80s, CPM machines & Apple ]['s before +they would buy Microsoft. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement." + -- Seen on Slashdot +% +"Bruce McKinney, author of of Hardcore Visual Basic, has announced that +he's fed up with VB and won't be writing a 3rd edition of his book. The +best quote is at the end: 'I don't need a language designed by a focus +group'." +% + Would it be acceptable to debian policy if we inserted a crontab + by default into potato that emailed bill.gates@microsoft.com + every morning with an email that read, "Don't worry, linux is a + fad..." +% +* Overfiend ponders doing an NMU of asclock, in which he simply changes + the extended description to "If you bend over and put your head between + your legs, you can read the time off your assclock." + Overfiend: go to bed. +% + It is important to note that the primary reason the Roman Empire + fail is that they had no concept of zero... thus they could not + test the success or failure of their C programs. +% +Since when has the purpose of debian been to appease the interests of the +mass of unskilled consumers? -- Steve Shorter +% + netgod: er, are these 2.2.0 packages 2.0.0pre9 or do you have a + direct line with the gods? + joeyh: i have the direct line +% +<_Anarchy_> Argh.. who's handing out the paper bags 8) +% + anyone around? + no, we're all irregular polygons +% + OH MY GOD NOT A RANDOM QUOTE GENERATOR + surely you didn't think that was static? how lame would that be? :-) +% +Mere nonexistence is a feeble excuse for declaring a thing unseeable. You +*can* see dragons. You just have to look in the right direction. + -- John Hasler +% + gcc is the best compressor ever ported to linux. it can turn + 12MB of kernel source (and that's .debbed) into a 500k kernel +% + I *like* the chicken +% + + [ ] DOGBERT + [ 2 ] RICHARD STALLMAN + [ 3 ] BUFFY SUMMERS + [ 1 ] MANOJ SRIVASTAVA + [ 4 ] NONE of the above + + -- Debian Project Leader 1999 ballot +% + anyone know if there is a version of dpkg for redhat? +% +acme-cannon (3.1415) unstable; urgency=low + + * Added safety to prevent operator dismemberment, closes: bug #98765, + bug #98713, #98714. + * Added manpage. closes: #98725. + + -- Wile E. Coyote Sun, 31 Jan 1999 07:49:57 -0600 +% +!netgod:*! time flies when youre using linux +!doogie:*! yeah, infinite loops in 5 seconds. +!Teknix:*! has anyone re-tested that with 2.2.x ? +!netgod:*! yeah, 4 seconds now +% +* dark greets liw with a small yellow frog. +* liw kisses the frog and watches it transform to a beautiful nerd + girl, takes her out to ice cream, and lives happily forever after + with her + liw: Umm it's too late to have the frog back? +% +* Culus thinks we should go to trade shows and see how many people we + can kill by throwing debian cds at them +% + "Yes, your honour, I have RSA encryption code tattood on my + penis. Shall I show the jury?" +% + you people are all insane. + knight: sure, that's why we work on Debian. + Knghtbrd: get in touch with your inner nutcase. +% + Saens demonstrates no less than 3 tcp/ip bugs in 2.2.3 +% + alexsh: Be /VERY/ cairful, you could, if your unlucky, fry your + motherboards.. + Mercury - sounds like fun +% + dark: caldera? + rcw - that's not a distribution, it's a curse + Knghtbrd: it's a cursed distribution +% +Software is like sex, it's better when it's free. -- Linus Torvalds +% + Knghtbrd: We have lots of whatevers. + dark - In Debian? Hell yeah we do! +% +I did it just to piss you off. :-P + -- Branden Robinson in a message to debian-devel +% +The software required Win95 or better, so I installed Linux. +% +10) there is no 10, but it sounded like a nice number :) + -- Wichert Akkerman +% +Eric Raymond: I want to live in a world where software doesn't suck. +Richard Stallman: Any software that isn't free sucks. +Linus Torvalds: I'm interested in free beer. +Richard Stallman: That's okay, as long as I don't have to drink it. I + don't like beer. + -- LinuxWorld Expo panel, 4 March 1999 +% +I'm not a level-headed person... -- Bruce Perens +% +Personally, I don't often talk about social good because when I hear other +people talk about social good, that's when I reach for my revolver. + -- Eric Raymond +% +If we want something nice to get born in nine months, then sex has to +happen. We want to have the kind of sex that is acceptable and fun for both +people, not the kind where someone is getting screwed. Let's get some cross +fertilization, but not someone getting screwed. + -- Larry Wall +% +We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +YES! YES! YES! Oh, YES! (ooops, I sound like Meg Ryan ;-) + -- Ian Nandhra +% + If I start writing essays about Free Software for slashdot, + please shoot me. +% + hmm, lunch does sound like a good idea + would taste like a good idea too +% +p.s. - i'm about *this* close to running around in the server room with a +pair of bolt cutters, and a large wooden mallet, laughing like a maniac and +cutting everything i can fit the bolt cutters around. and whacking that +which i cannot. so if i seem semi-incoherent, or just really *really* nasty +at times, please forgive me. stress is not a pretty thing. };P + -- Phillip R. Jaenke +% +Every company complaining about Microsoft's business practices is simply a +rose bush. They look lovely and smell nice. Once a lucky company dethrones +Microsoft they will shed their petals to expose the thorns underneath. A +thorn by any other name would hurt as much. +% +Something must be Done +This is Something +Therefore, This must be Done + -- The Thatcherite Syllogism +% + xtifr - beware of james when he's off his medication => +% +Indifference will certainly be the downfall of mankind, but who cares? +% +Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. + -- Robert A. Heinlein +% +Gold, n.: + A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It is mined + deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who immediately + bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold hasn't done + anything to them. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +* lilo hereby declares OPN a virtual pain in the ass :) +% +"They are both businesses - if you have given them enough money, I'm +sure they'll do whatever the hell you ask:->" + -- David Welton +% +"You have the right not to be an asshole. If you give up that right +everything you say and do in here will be held against you. If you cannot +afford to stop being an asshole then someone will be appointed to kick +yours outta here." + -- Your rights as an irc addict +% +* Simunye is so happy she has her mothers gene's + you better give them back before she misses them! +% + conning the most intellegent people on the planet is not easy +% +California, n.: + From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or +Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or +"fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." + -- Ed Moran +% +* Caytln slaps Lisa + catfight :P + Watch it girl, I like that. + :) + figures :D +% + rit/ara: There's something really demented about UNIX + underwear... +% +The X Window System: + The standard UNIX graphical environment. With Linux, this is usually + XFree86 (http://www.xfree86.org). You may call it X, XFree, the X + Window System, XF86, or a host of other things. Call it 'XWindows' and + someone will smack you and you will have deserved it. +% + "The currency collectors are offline." "I'm rerouting though + the secondary couplings. If we re-align the phase manifold we + should be able to use the plasma inductor matrix to manually + launch a new cheesy spinoff series." +* ShadwDrgn sighs + you leave my manifolds alone + ! +% +* Turken thinks little kids are absolutely adorable... especialyy when + they're someone elses. +% +* Overfiend sighs + Netscape sucks. + It is a house of cards resting on a bed of quicksand. + during an earthquake + in a tornado +% + media ethics is an oxymoron, much like Jumbo Shrimp and + Microsoft Works. + not to mention NT Security +% + Oxymorons? I saw one yesterday - the pamphlet on "Taco Bell + Nutritional Information" +% +* Knghtbrd unleashes a pair of double barreled snurf guns and covers + jesus with snurf darts + meany :P +% + doogie: you sound highly unstable :-) + jgoerzen - he is. +* doogie bops Knghtbrd + see? Resorting to violence =D +% +I have also been a huge Unix fan ever since I realized that SCO was not +Unix. -- Dennis Baker +% + Ctrl+Option+Command + P + R + dracus - YE GODS! That's worse than EMACS! + hehehehe + don't ask what that does :P +% + you are not a nutcase + You obviously don't know me well enough yet. => +% +* aj thinks Kb^Zzz ought to pick different things to dream about than + general resolutions and policy changes. + aj - tell me about it, this is a Bad Sign +% + hmm, is there a --now-dammit option for exim? +% + Kira: JOIN THE DARK SIDE, YOUNG ONE. + darth, I *am* the dark side. +% + Feanor: u have no idea of the depth of the stupidty of american law +% +Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me. + -- Linus Torvalds +% + "PLEASE RESPECT INTELLECTUAL RIGHTS!" + "Please demonstrate intellect." ;) +% + Feanor - license issues are important. If we don't watch our + arses now, someone's gonna come up and bite us later... +% +"Now we'll have to kill you." + -- Linus Torvalds +% +* knghtbrd can already envision: "Subject: [INTENT TO PREPARE TO PROPOSE + FILING OF BUG REPORT] Typos in the policy document" +% + heh thats a lost cause, like the correct pronunciation of + "jewelry" + give it up :-) + and the correct spelling of "colour" :) + heh + and aluminium + or nuclear weapons + are you threating me yankee ? + just cause we don't have the bomb... + back off ya yellow belly +% + !seen god + LauraDax, I don't remember seeing "god" +% + is a surgical war where you go give the foreign troops nose jobs? +% + Athena Desktop Environment! In your hearts, you *know* it's the + right choice! :) +* Knghtbrd THWAPS xtifr +% + shaleh - unclean is just WEIRD. + heh, unclean is cool + Espy - and weird. + yes, weird too +% + direct brain implants :) + xtifr - yah, then using computers would actually require some + of these idiots to think! + ;> +% + Overfiend - BTW, after we've discovered X takes all of 1.4 GIGS + to build, are you willing admit that X is bloatware? => + KB: there is a 16 1/2 minute gap in my answer + knghtbrd: evidence exists that X is only the *2nd* worst windowing + system ;) +% + damn, the autonomous mouse movement starts usually after I use a + mouse button + don't use a mouse button then :) + yeah, right :) +% + you know, Linux needs a platform game starring Tux + kinda Super Marioish, but with Tux and things like little cyber + bugs and borgs and that sort of thing ... + And you have to jump past billgatus and hit the key to drop him + into the lava and then you see some guy that looks like a RMS + or someone say "Thank you for rescuing me Tux, but Linus + Torvalds is in another castle!" +% + Yeah, well that's why it's numbered 2.3.1... it's for those of us + who miss NT-like uptimes +% + There are worse things than Perl....ASP comes to mind +% +* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger... + m2 - that's a bad sign +% + Leave it to manoj to call procmail "puny" +% + Manoj: well, i can't understand stuff like "s/3#$%^% {]][ @ f245 }" + Crow: That is not quite legal ;-) + Manoj - how would one make "s/3#$%^% {]][ @ f245 }" legal + anyway? (and what would it do? hehe) + Knghtbrd: You need to finish the s/// expression. + oh, is that all? +% + Ada, the only language written to milspec. + +% + -include ../../debian/el33t.h + sendmail build...strange header name :) + hahaha +* netgod laffs + BenC: can u tell i used to maintain sendmail? :P + heh :) +% + no... I musn't have any more coffee !!! ;) + sure yu do Phase :) + you really want me bouncing off the ceiling? + yesh :) + bouncing off the ceiling is gewd + ok, that was a silly question + it's splatting on the floor that's the problem. +% + RMS for President??? + ...or ESR, he wants a new job ;) +% +Oh no, not again. + -- Manoj Srivastava +% + Granted, RMS is a fanatic, I don't deny this. I'll even say + he's a royal pain in the arse most of the time. But he's + still more often right than not, and he deserves some level of + credit and respect for his work. We would NOT be here today + without him. +% + tomorrow there will be a great disturbance in the workforce + -- May 18, 1999 +% +I am dyslexic of Borg. Prepare to have your ass laminated. +% + I had a friend stick me in her closet during highschool because I + wouldn't believe that her boyfriend knew about foreplay... + I shoulda brought popcorn. :) +% + hardcopy is for wussies + computer program listings....next, on HardCopy +% + I hate users + you sound like a sysadmin already! +% + Will LINUX ever overtake sliced bread as the #1 achievement + of mankind? +% + manoj is going nuts on the bug fixing crusade! woo woo! + manoj went nuts long time ago. but the bug fixing is cool => +% + those apparently-bacteria-like multicolor worms coming out of + microsoft's backorifice + that's the backoffice logo +% +* Simunye is on a oc3->oc12 + simmy: bite me. :) + daemon: okay :) +% + lilo: well then, you are probably a responsible thinker. + Welcome to a very small club. + Overfiend: welcome me when you join :) +% +Basically, I want people to know that when they use binary-only modules, +it's THEIR problem. I want people to know that in their bones, and I +want it shouted out from the rooftops. I want people to wake up in a +cold sweat every once in a while if they use binary-only modules. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +* wichert_ imagines master without a MTA + wichert: ehm? that might hinder peformance of the BTS :p +% + Hmm... I wonder what else separates Debian from the rest of the + Linux distributions. + gecko - We Don't Suck + Knghtbrd: you don't say that when addressing a bunch of people + FROM those distros + gecko - point. +% +Due to the closed source development model of XFree it is impossible +to support, or even speculate about, features in pre- or beta releases +of XFree. + -- Marcus Sundberg +% +> >I don't really regard bible-kjv-text as a technical document, +> > but... :) + +> It's a manual -- for living. + +But it hasn't been updated in a long time, many would say that it's +sadly out of date, and the upstream maintainer doesn't respond to his +email. :-) + -- Branden Robinson, Oliver Elphick, and Chris Waters in a + message to debian-policy +% + I can think of lots of people who need USER=ID10T someplace! +% + my US geograpy is lousy...lol + so's mine and I live here +% +Moonchild without an opinion? Satan is skating to work tomorrow! + -- Brett Manz +% + I really don't want much at all... Just a kind word, an + attractive woman, and UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH!! +% + If we're both right (I'm guessing we are) I'm Not Very Happy. +* Minupla hands you the understatement of the year award. +% +Last time I had intimate contact with another human being was rather a +painful experience... I rather liked it... ;) + -- Brett Manz +% + anyone seen my 80 column card? +% + uh oh, what have I started :) + rofl... distro nick wars. +* Slackware just waits for /nick Gnome, /nick KDE, and then world war 4 + to break out + :oP + + :) + no'one would dare /nick RedHat + mew. +% + im fcucking druk +* Knghtbrd makes sure to log everything Crow- says tonight ... + heheh + He said he'd marry me! damnit!! + dude no way + MrBump - he's not THAT drunk + Knghtbrd: I'm crushed :o) +% + aggh! + MAKE IT STOP! + MAKE IT STOP!! +% + RoboHak - okay, the patch isn't broken, but my brain + apparently is + that's nothing new (; + wc - hush. + => +% + americans are weird.... + californians even weirder + xtifr has a point ... +% +* woot smiles serenely. + I don't want to seem over eager about getting into knghtbrd's + siglist. +% + dhd: R you part of the secret debian overstructure? + no. there is no secret debian overstructure. + although, now that somebody brought it up, let's start one + :-) + CosmicRay - why not, sounds like a fun way to spend the + afternoon =D +% + you don't have to be insane to work here....oh wait, yes you do! + :) +% +* o-o always like debmake because he knew exactly what it would do... + o-o: you would ;-) +% +2.3.1 has been released. Folks new to this game should remember that +2.3.* releases are development kernels, with no guarantees that they +will not cause your system to do horrible things like corrupt its +disks, catch fire, or start running Mindcraft benchmarks. + -- Slashdot +% +do { + : +} while (!HELL_FROZEN_OVER); +% +0 7 * * * echo "...Linux is just a fad" | mail billg@microsoft.com -s= + "And remember..." +% + kb: I demand integrity and honesty in those who i do business with + i know my demands are unreasonable, but a guy can dream, can't he? +% + stu: ahh that machine. Don't you think that something named + stallman deserves to be an Alpha? :-) + jgoerzen: no, actually, I'd prolly be more inclined to name a 386 + with 4 megs of ram and a 40 meg hard drive stallman. + with a big fat case that makes tons of noise and rattles the floor +* Knghtbrd falls to the floor holding his sides laughing + and.. + double-height hard drive +% +Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- they have 'arguments' + -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM. +% +* Knghtktty is not going to ask how zucchini got into the discussion ... +% + Subject: [GR PROPOSAL] Should we vote on trivial matters? +% + Put *that* in you .sig and smoke it, Knghtbrd. + You know he will read this :> + heheheheh. +% +"As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a +thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something." + -- Hagar the Horrible +% + Okay, you people have started talking about BSDM applications of + network hardware... I think I'll run off and do something useful + and Debianish and stay OUT of this one... + (for a change) +% + mariab - don't think Debian hasn't had some very stupid and + obvious bugs before + of course, we usually fix ours BEFORE we release =D +% + mariab - I am a Debian developer. Red Hat is "the enemy" or + something like that I guess.. Still, typecasting RH users as + idiots or their distribution as completely broken by default + is complete and total FUD. +% +> > But IANAL, of course. +> +> IANAL either. My son is, but if I asked him I might get an answer I +> wouldn't want to hear. + +"Here's my invoice." ? =D +% +> Ok, I see you know what you're doing :-) + +Either that or I've gotten pretty good at faking it. +% + 8am is an ungoldly hour to be awake :) +* gorgo usually gets up at 11am +% +There Is No Cabal. +% +<_Anarchy_> acf: maybe April 1 next year slashdot needs to run "Rob Malda + accepts new job as head of Debian project" 8) +% +* netgod opens his mailbox and immediately wishes he hadnt +% + its hard being a lesbian without breasts...people don't take + you seriously +% +Perhaps Debian is concerned more about technical excellence rather than +ease of use by breaking software. In the former we may excel. In the +latter we have to concede the field to Microsoft. Guess where I want to go +today? + -- Manoj Srivastava +% +* PerlGeek is really a space alien +* Knghtktty believes PerlGeek +% + my client has been owned severely + this guy got root, ran packet sniffers, installed .rhosts and + backdoors, put a whole new dir in called /lib/" ", which has a + full suite of smurfing and killing tools + the only mistake was not deleting the logfiles + question is how was root hacked, and that i couldnt tell u + it is, of course, not a debian box +* netgod notes the debian box is the only one left untouched by the hacker + -- wonder why +% +* joeyh cvs commits his home directory. Aaaaaa + eeeeeeek + joeyh: That is simply evil. Period. +% + Gruuk: UFies are above and beyond the human race :) +% +I stopped a long time ago to try to find anything in the bug list of dpkg. +We should run for an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. + -- Stephane Bortzmeyer +% + i figured 17G oughta be enough. +% + has /usr/bin/emacs been put into /etc/shells yet? :P +% +* joeyh takes advantage of netscape's marvelous ability to crash to close + 10 windows with a single keypress + now that's progress! + Bus error => +% + You measure your vibrators in "characters per second"? I have + bad news for you, c90, you've been masturbating with a + dot-matrix printer. +% +Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature to help me sprea= +d! +% +* Knghtktty whispers sweet nothings to Thyla (stuff about compilers and + graphics and ram upgrades and big hard drives...) + oooooooooOOOOOOOOOO + Knghtktty: that's positively pornographic... +* Thyla goes off into fits of ecstasy... +% + you guys are all sick! sick sick sick I tell ya ;) +% +* bma is a yank +* Knghtbrd is a Knghtbrd +* dhd is also a yank +* Espy is evil +* Knghtbrd believes Espy +% +* bma wonders if this will make the Knghtbrd .sig +% +Techical solutions are not a matter of voting. Two legislations in the US +states almost decided that the value of Pi be 3.14, exactly. Popular vote +does not make for a correct solution. + -- Manoj Srivastava +% + the increase in tension worldwide (as evidenced by crime + and whatnot) over that time period looks a lot like Linux + growth since 1993 + ``Linux linked to worldwide crime epidemic!!'' +% + where am I and what am I doing in this handbasket? +% +Since this database is not used for profit, and since entire works are not +published, it falls under fair use, as we understand it. However, if any +half-assed idiot decides to make a profit off of this, they will need to +double check it all... + -- Notes included with the default fortunes database +% +There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast. +% +Subject: Bug#42432: debian-policy: Proposal for CTV for Draft for Proof of +Concept for Draft for Proposal for Proposal for CTV for a CTV to decide on +a proposal for a CTV for the CTV on whether or not we shoud have a CTV on +the /usr/doc to /usr/share/doc transition now, or later. + -- Ed Lang +% + It's a trackball for one + so it's not a rodent + it's a turd with a ball sticking out + which you fondle constantly +% +* HomeySan waits for the papa john's pizza to show up + mm. papa john's. + hopefully they send the cute delivery driver + they don't have that here. + why? you gonna eat the driver instead? +% + is it me, or is Knghtbrd snoring? + they killed knghtbrd! + Kysh: wichert, gecko, joeyh, and I are in a room trying to ignore + Knghtbrd + netgod: Knghtbrd is hard to ignore. +% + Man, i wish knghtbrd were here to grab that for his sig list. +[...several hours later...] + woot don't know me vewy well, do he? + muahahahaha +% +* Knghtbrd pelts wichert with NERF darts +* wichert notes there are no ICBM nerfs yet and ignores kngtbrd + wichert - just wait, after seeing the NERF gatling guns, ICBMs + are not far off (just pump the damned thing for an hour or two + is all...) +% +Operating Systems Installed: + * Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 4 CD Set ($20 from www.chguy.net; price includes + taxes, shipping, and a $3 donation to FSF). 2 CDs are binaries, 2 CDs + complete source code; + * Windows 98 Second Edition Upgrade Version ($136 through Megadepot.com, + price does not include taxes/shipping). Surprisingly, no source code + is included. + + -- Bill Stilwell, http://linuxtoday.com/stories/8794.html +% +Steal this tagline. I did. +% + oh noooo, Knghtbrd's got a gun :) + ^^insert music^^ + bfextu - o/~ everybody is on the run o/~ + o/~ run away, ruuuuun away from the pay-ay-ain o/~ +% +% + emacs sucks, literally, not a insult, just a comment that its + large enough to have a noticeable gravitational pull... +% +As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. +% +* Knghtbrd assigns 3 to Chris +* variable wonders who else is named chris besides me + variable - you. => +* Knghtbrd waits for variable to dramatically say "I feel SO used!" + Knghtbrd: :) +* variable ++ + :) +% +* Espy ponders an uplad queue called 'hell' so I can do dupload --to hell +% + java, hon, sometimes I really want to smack you. + Valkyrja - he'd enjoy it too much + Valkyrja: yah, go ahead and do it... beat java into cappuccino! :-) +% + be vewwy vewwy qwuiet .. I'm huntin wuntime ewwos +% +Red Hat has recently released a Security Advisory (RHSA-1999:030-01) +covering a buffer overflow in the vixie cron package. Debian has +discovered this bug two years ago and fixed it. Therefore versions in +both, the stable and the unstable, distributions of Debian are not +vulnerable to this problem.. +% +First off - Quake is simply incredible. It lets you repeatedly kill your +boss in the office without being arrested. :) + -- Signal 11, in a slashdot comment +% +Lucas' Law: Good will always win, because evil hires the _stupid_ + engineers. +% +* TribFurry only gets spam mail from ucsd... I used to get email from + myself but I decided I didn't like myself and stopped talking + to me +% + note on a dorm fridge ... "To the person who ate the contents + of the container labeled 'James' - warning, it was my biology + experiment" +% + Note on a chem lab fridge- "This refrigerator is not explosion- + proof". +% + DalNet is like the special olympics of IRC. There's a lot of + drooling goin' on and everyone is a 'winner'. +% +But modifying dpkg is infeasible, and we've agreed to, among other things, +keep the needs of our users at the forefront of our minds. And from a +user's perspective, something that keeps the system tidy in the normal +case, and works *now*, is much better than idealistic fantasies like a +working dpkg. + -- Manoj Srivastava +% +For every vision there is an equal and opposite revision. +% + Knghtbrd, if we wanted a lameass remark we would have said: + Hey, neckro +% + i have 4gb for /tmp + What do you do with 4G /tmp? Compile X? + yes +% + Bite me. +* TheOne gets some salt, then proceeds to nibble on KnaraKat a little + bit.... +% +* Knghtbrd notes he has mashed potatoes for brains tonight + yum, can I have some? + um ... +* Knghtbrd hides from Valkyrie +% + joeyh now has a terminal at the couch? + That guy is wired, I swear => + Knghtbrd: laptop + and I don't mean the cats. +% +Given some of the recent threads, the interactive discussions might +need to be conducted on canvas, in the presence of a referee, while +wearing padded gloves. ;-) + -- Phil Hands +% + but, then I used an Atari, I was more likely to win the lottery in + ten countries simultaneously than get accelerated X +% +* joeyh wonders why everyone wants to know how tall he is + joeyh: it helps the sniper +% +* BenC wonders why he has upgraded to 3.3.5-1 before the X maintainer +% + I wouldn't make it through 24 hours before I'd be firing up the + grill and slapping a few friends on the barbie. + Why would you slap friends with barbies, thats kinda kinky +% +In fact.. based on this model of what the NSA is and isn't... many of the +people reading this are members of the NSA... /. is afterall 'News for +Nerds'. + +NSA MONDAY MORNING {at the coffee machine): +NSA AGENT 1: Hey guys, did you check out slashdot over the weekend? + AGENT 2: No, I was installing Mandrake 6.1 and I coulnd't get the darn + ppp connection up.. + AGENT 1: Well check it out... they're on to us. + -- Chris Moyer +% +Technology is a constand battle between manufacturers producing bigger and +more idiot-proof systems and nature producing bigger and better idiots. + -- Slashdot signature +% +knghtbrd: there may be no spoon, but can you spot the vulnerability in +eye_render_shiny_object.c? + -- rcw +% + wow... simple maths show that Debian developers have closed more + than *31* *thousand* bug reports since our BTS exists! + that is about 30999 more than Microsoft ;) +% + NOTE THAT THE ABOVE IS JUST AN OPINION AND SHOULD NOT BE + TAKEN TO INCLUDE ANY MEASURE OF FACTUAL INFORMATION. THE + SPEAKER DISCLAIMS EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. DEAL WITH IT. +% + any gnome freaks around? + not me, I'm just a freak +% + ahh + a gathering of geeks.... + I can smell it now +% + learn to love Window Maker. + a little NeXTStep is good for the soul. +% +Caveats: it's GNOME, be afraid, be very afraid of the Depends line + -- James Troup +% + Hhhmmmmmmmm + waterbeds for cows + eleet + Culus: why would a cow need a waterbed? + cas: To be comfy warm +% +If you are what you eat, I guess that makes me a cheese danish. + -- Anonymous +% + when you start making only stupid mistakes that are obvious, thats + when you start getting competent + because you don't make fundamental misunderstanding mistakes + and thats a *good* sign. +% + it's weird, when you go on a safari to Africa to catch a lion, you + find it alive and it charges, and then you kill it + when you go on a safari to South Bay to find a Palm Vx, you find + it dead and take it home and it charges after it arrives :) +% + I can read the bloody *manual* as if it were some sort of + religious tract describing forms of enlightenment you can achieve + after 10 years on a mountain :) +% +Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves. +% + Solver_: add users who should be messing with sound to group + audio.. Make sure the devices are all group audio (ls -l + /dev/dsp will give you the fastest indication if it's probably + set right) and build a kernel with sound support for your card + OR optionally install alsa source and build modules for that + with make-kpkg + OR (not recommended) get and install evil OSS/Linux evil + non-free evil binary only evil drivers---but those are evil. + And did I mention that it's not recommended? +% +I think irc isn't going to work though---we're running out of topic space! + -- Joseph Carter +% +"Pacific Bell Customer Service, this is [..], how can I provide you with +excellent customer service today?" +"HAHAHAHAHA!! That's good, I like it.." +"Um, thanks, they make us say that." + -- knghtbrd and a pacbell rep, name removed to protect her job +% + Omnic: bloody newzealanders + danpat: put a sock in it + heh :) + making fun of .nz'ers is different---they're all weird +* knghtbrd hides + hrmph +% + Flinny: black crontab magic kinda stuff :) + Joy: does that mean people get to dance naked around bonfires + chanting strange things and waving their arms about in a silly + manner? + knghtbrd: what do you *think* people do at novare? +% + *snipsnip* + oh dear, is that the sound of fortune-database editing? + uh oh + Yes => +% + that's a Kludge(TM) + It Works(tm) + AIX works(TM) + no it doesn't + => +% +"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its +limits." + -- Albert Einstein +% + If charging someone for violation of US crypto laws would get + you laughed out of court, just "investigate" them on hte charge + of TREASON! + Tea, anyone? + I'd rather drown politicians instead of tea :) + espy: politicians have gills, duh + weasels don't have gills +% +If I have trouble installing Linux, something is wrong. Very wrong. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +* bma_home gropes you + "oups, wrong channel" + + quit groping me + you know you like it. + actually, it was "grope me baby" + touch my son and you die, bma ;) + gecko-: but your wife is ok? +% +Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading +sex manuals without the software. + -- Arthur C Clarke +% + (tinc) + (ytitac) + (ntinac) + (it) + (in) +* Espy notes talking in acr^Winitialisms is scary when the other side + understands you +% + it's too bad most ancient unices are y2k compliant +<|Rain|> too bad? +<|Rain|> why, because people won't upgrade until 2038? +% + "I installed 'Linux 6.1', doesn't that make me a unix + guru?" + Espy_on_crack: no, you have to install it twice before you are a + guru...once to prove you can do it, the second to fix the things + your broke the first time + oh right, how silly of me +% +* knghtbrd does the ET thing + anybody got a speak-n-spell? +% + another .sig addition +% +I'm starting to think the gene pool could use a little chlorine. +% +It's as BAD as you think, and they ARE out to get you. +% + be careful, some twit might quote you + out of context... +% +*** Topic for #redhat: ReDHaT is the answer to all your problems. It + could be the start too! +% +* cesarb wonders if in less than a week Carmack will end up receiving in + e-mail a courtesy copy of a version of the Quake source which is four + times faster than what went out of his virtual hands... +% + JHM: I'm not putting quake in the kernel source + but we should put quake in the boot floppies to one-up + Caldera's tetris game.. ;> +% +Guns don't kill people. It's those damn bullets. Guns just make them go +really really fast. + -- Jake Johanson +% + we need to split main into"core" and "wtf-uses-this" +% + libc6 is not essential :| +% + is there a special christmas pack for quake + where you get to be like the santa robot on futurama? + dhd: that would be a rather unbalanced game... + dunham: that's the idea. ;> +% + the problem with the GNU coding standards is they ASSUME that + everyone in the world uses emacs.. If that were the case, free + software would die because we would all have wrist problems + like RMS by now and no longer be able to code. ;> +% +C'mon! political protest! sheesh. Where's that anarchist spirit? ;-) + -- Decklin Foster +% +We've upped our standards, so up yours! +% +* woot is now known as woot-dinner +* Knghtbrd sprinkles a little salt on woot + I've never had a woot before... Hope they taste good + noooo! + don't eat me! +* Knghtbrd decides he does not want a dinner that talks to him... hehe +% +[regarding measures to prevent cheating in quake] +I mean, as long as I can make my rocket launcher look like a big twinkie, +I'll be happy ;) + -- Qeyser +% + r0bert: in short, we're moving several things the client + currently is responsible for telling the server into things the + server checks for itself + If Neo says "There is no spoon", The Matrix will say "Oh yes + there is---no cheating!" + But he knows kung fu... + Sure he does, but I have a rocket launcher. +% +* Mercury calmly removes XT-Ream's arm.. +* Mercury then proceeds to beat XT-Ream with XT-Ream's arm. + wow, all this quake hacking is making Mercury violent here +* mao is glad the quake forge project is in good hands +% + CVS/Entries had the line I needed to "alter" + Knghtbrd: Was about to mention such.. + Knghtbrd: Now, ready to commit? + wish me luck + Mercury: it's committed + Mercury: and after all that, I should be too. +% +* Knghtbrd crosses his toes + (if I crossed my fingers it would be hard to type) +% + there is one bad thing about having a cell phone. + I can be reached at any time. :| + that's why I leave mine off at all times. ;> +% + how are we going to pronounce '00 or '01 or '02 and so on? + Say goodbye to the nineties, say hello to the naughties. :) +% + If the user points the gun at his foot and pulls the trigger, it + is our job to ensure the bullet gets where it's supposed to. +% + Be warned, I have a keyboard I can use to beat luser's heads + in, and then continue to use... (=:] + Mercury: Oh, an IBM. :) +% + knght, sheesh, are you pasting my words out of context in + #debian or something? + ;) + no, but I probably should be ;> + d'oh! +% + Mercury: gpm isn't a very good web browser. fix it. +% + well there ya go. say something stupid in irc and have it + immortalised forever in someone's .sig file +% +Microsoft is a cross between the Borg and the Ferengi. Unfortunately, +they use Borg to do their marketing and Ferengi to do their +programming. + -- Simon Slavin +% +I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than 10 +minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't. + -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center +% +Where do you think you're going today? +% +I'd been hearing all sorts of gloom and doom predictions for Y2K, so I + thought I'd heed some of the advice that the experts have been giving: + Fill up the car's gas tank, stock up on canned goods, fill up the bathtub + with water, and so on. + +I guess I wasn't fully awake when I completed my preparations late last +night. This morning I found the kitchen shelves soaked in gasoline, water +in the car's gas tank, and my bathtub filled with baked beans. + -- Dan Pearl in a message to rec.humor.funny +% + hey did you fall off your pirch or something? + me? heh. +% + you are baked + Espy: only half so +% + I generally don't use anything that has "experimental" and + "warning" pasted all over it + no, I'm not that dumb... hehe + ... +* darkangel considers downloading the latest unstable kernel +% + solaris is bsd, so it should work +* Espy takes wichert's crack pipe away +% + it's too bad most old unices turned out y2k compliant + because it means people will STILL BE RUNNING THEM in 30 years + =p + it would have been so much nicer if y2k effectively killed off + hpux, aix, sunos, etc ;> + Knghtbrd: since when are PH-UX, aches, and solartus "old"? +% +* gxam wonders if all these globals are really necessary + most of them at the moment yes + we REALLY need to clean them up at some point + gxam: the globals will have to go away as we migrate towards + modularity and madness (ie, libtool) +% + Adamel, i think the code you fixed of mine didn't work + i must not have committed the working code + raptor: like it's the first time THAT has ever happened =p +% + Knghtbrd: Using -3dfx or -svga? + Mercury will do something sane with it + Mercury: both---svga sig11's, -3dfx sig4's + Mercury: that's not good right? ;> +% + Trust us, we know what we're doing... We may have no idea HOW + we're doing it, but we know WHAT we're doing. +% + i can upload to linux server tho + i got a shell account on one + Whats it running? + umm + apache i think + Help, please help.. +* Omni chuckles +% + should a bug be marked critical if it only affects one arch? + jt: rc for that arch maybe, but those kind of arch + specific bugs are rare... + not when it's caused by a bug in gcc + jt: get gcc removed from that arch. :) +% + LWE? + Linux W?? E?? + will eatyou + World Expo? + i see +% +"Nominal fee". What an ugly sentence. It's one of those things that +implies that if you have to ask, you can't afford it. + -- Linus Torvalds +% + you GPL your homework? :) + yah =D + Anyone is permitted to use or modify my homework, but if they + distribute changes they must include the full machine-readable + source code ;> +% +* knghtbrd is each day more convinced that most C++ coders don't know what + the hell they're doing, which is why C++ has such a bad rap + kb: Most C coders don't know what they are doing, it just makes it + easier to hide :P + see for instance, proftpd :P +% + And don't get me started on perl! + :> + perl is beyond evil + you don't know perl yet? + gotta love a language with no definable syntax +% + cat /dev/random | perl ? + doogie: it is also a valid sendmail.cf + :) +* knghtbrd hands doogie a senseless-use-of-cat award +* shaleh wants to try it but is afraid +% + perl < /dev/bdsm + you have a /dev/bdsm? + sure, it's a pseudosadomasochistic random number generator +% + Joey: I'm on it right now.. 3 1.3Gb disks, 128M ram, dual 50Mhz + (Up to quad 250Mhz) + The catch is that it pulls 110v at about 12A 8> + 12A! + Okay, my stove is 3000W, this sun is 1320W + DO YOU SEE A PROBLEM HERE + a 1320W sun, that is like a hair dryer :) +% +* joeyh_ runs ps and sees 10 lines of awk code +* joeyh_ recoils in horror +% + joeyh: I was down since midmorning yesterday and pacbell said + this morning that AT&T was to blame and almost all of the state + was down + dunno why people insist the internet can survive a nuclear holocaust + when it can't survive a backhoe +% +This message was written with vi! (not that anyone in the world cares) + -- seen on an old message from an anon.penet.fi address +% +Connection reset by some moron with a backhoe +% +Feb 5 13:27:01 trinity lp0 on fire + -- the Linux kernel, alerting me that there was some unknown + problem with my printer (ie, it was out of ink) +% +The less you know about computers the more you want Microsoft! + -- Microsoft ad campaign, circa 1996 + +(Proof that Microsoft's advertising _isn't_ dishonest!) +% +Making one brilliant decision and a whole bunch of mediocre ones isn't as +good as making a whole bunch of generally smart decisions throughout the +whole process. + -- John Carmack +% +It's not usually cost effective time wise to go do it. But if something's +really pissing you off, you just go find the code and fix it and that's +really cool. + -- John Carmack, on the advantages of open source +% + yea it sounds useful for RE'ing USB + i have a useless 3com usb camera here :( + calc: 3Com could have you arrested for violating laws which + don't exist 'till October ;> + knghtbrd: i will hide :) + ...resisting arrest too eh? + knghtbrd: no i will hide before i get served +% + At that point it will compile, but segfault, as it should.. +% +* Knghtbrd is FAR too tempted to .sig this entire discussion... +% +The Unixverse ends on Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 +0000 +% + Knghtbrd: we should do a quake episode :knee deep in the code": + you run around shooting at bugs:) + taniwha: I'll pass the idea on to OpenQuartz ;> +% + i'd solve a windows key problem with fdisk :) +% + knghtbrd: QW's netcode is doing strange things to me. :P + This is unusual? ;> + Not really. :P +% + rcw: Oh yay---I haven't been involved in a good flamewar in at + least ... 5 minutes! +% + shaleh: I am not, despite your implication, God +% + i just bought MS Office 2000 for only $20!!! + you got ripped off ;> + i know ;) +% + it's 6am. I have been up 24 hours + Wake me up and risk life and limb. +* Knghtbrd &; sleep + Okay everyone, we wait 10 minutes and then start flooding Knghtbrd + with ^G's. Someone, hack root and cat /dev/urandom >/dev/dsp. +% +*** Knghtbrd is now known as SirKewLDooD +*** Mercury kicked SirKewlDooD from #quakeforge (*WHACK*) +% + Knghtbrd: I'd love to see support for xor crosshairs.. + Mercury: you're on quack. + Knghtbrd: You're the dealer... +*** Knghtbrd is now known as QuackDealer +% +* Dry-ice can't code his way out of a paper bag + dry-ice: int main() { ExitPaperBag(); return 0; } + Is that how that's done then? *takes notes* +% + eek, not another one... + Seems ever developer and their mother now has a random + signature using irc quotes ... + WHAT HAVE I STARTED HERE?? +% +* seeS uses knghtbrd's comments as his signature + seeS: as soon as I typed them I realized I'd better snip them + myself before someone else did ;> +% +* Omnic looks at his 33.6k link and then looks at Joy +* Mercury cuddles his cable modem.. (=:] +% +Granted, Win95's look wasn't all that new either - Apple tried to sue +Microsoft for copying the Macintosh UI / trash can icon, until Microsoft +pointed out that Apple got many of its Mac ideas (including the trash can +icon) from Xerox ParcPlace. Xerox is probably still wondering why +everyone is interested in their trash cans. + -- Danny Thorpe, Borland Delphi R&R +% + is it a sign of mental illness to wander aimlessly through the + start map, collect your Thunderbolt, hop in the pool, and gib + yourself with it just to see your head buouce when it falls + through the bottom of the pool? => + "You know you're a Quake addict when ..." +% + I still think you guys are nuts merging Q and QW. :P + Of course we're nuts. Even John said so. => + Zoid: we're nuts, but we're productive nuts:) +% + Zoid: we're nuts, but we're productive nuts:) +* taniwha wonders what productive nuts taste like +% + taniwha: Quote material :) + Endy: :) + Endy: I already snipped it +% + Actually, I think I'll wait for potato to be finalised before + installing debian. + That should be soon, I'm hoping. :) + Endy: You obviously know very little about Debian. +% +Nothing is a problem once you debug the code. + -- John Carmack +% + The Unix way -- everything is a file + The Linux way -- everything is a filesystem :) +% + yeah i saw the lightning gun and where you were going, thinking + you were gonna kick some ass :) + didn't realise it would be your own :) +% +"Otherwise, please speak to a doctor about removing your head from your +ass, I believe it would be beneficial to all involved." + -- Zephaniah E. Hull, flaming someone on a mailing list +% +Tagline, you're it! +% +I am practicing a fine point of ethics. It is acceptable to shoot back. +It is not acceptable to shoot first. + -- Zed Pobre +% + gib, perl? + methinks perl is the programmer's Swiss Army Chainsaw +% + taniwha: Have you TESTED this one? :) + Endy: of course not +% +That's the funniest thing I've ever heard and I will _not_ condone it. + -- DyerMaker, 17 March 2000 MegaPhone radio show +% +It's not? Are you saying that you SHOULD allow people (other than William +Wallace) to shoot lightning bolts from their arse? + -- Seth Galbraith +% + You don't have to be crazy to be a member of the project, but + you will be.. <=:] +% +* Endy needs to consult coffee :P + coffee the bot person, not coffee the beverage :) + consulting the beverage may help too => +% + knghtbrd: and the meek shall inherit k-mart +% + "Java for the COBOL Programmer" + who writes these things? + people on crack + and cobol programmers + :) + that's redundant. +% + heh, I never took a coding class + or a graphics class + or a software design class + and it shows :P +% +* The_Answer_MD throws spaghetti at everyone +* taniwha eats the spaghetti +* Coderjoe tosses around some meatballs +* Knghtbrd gets the cheese +* taniwha grabs a red +% + What's this message on my screen, + so blue, so blue, what could it mean? + Could you, would you press Delete, + Ctrl and Alt and then repeat. +% + what do you get when someone cracks your debian machine ? + mashed potato... +% + come on + it's a pico clone + it's *meant* to be annoying +% + I invoke Espy's law, which states that you all suck :P +% + Culus: wanna suspend me for it? :) + Overfiend: Go maliciously crack a few severs and we'll talk + Culus: damn, it has to be malicious? + Overfiend: Sadly, yes +% + 2fort5 sucks enough to have its own gravity ... +% +* CosmicRay wishes he had some strippers here.... + err, wire strippers +% + ok guys .. so whens the next commit :PP + when they come to get me +% + I'm a gnus person myself. It's an editor! It's a floorwax! + It's a dessert topping! +% + Q. What's the difference between Batman and Bill Gates? + A. When Batman fought the Penguin, he won. +% +At some point, bits have to go into packets and routers need to make +decisions on them. Changes at that level is what I want to hear about, not +strategic company relationships. + -- John Carmack +% +We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. +We believe in: rough consensus and working code. + -- Dave Clark +% + QF is going to get zipfile support today + heh... infozip? + If I'm lucky yes + knghtbrd: You're kidding, right? ;) +* Deek takes away Knghtbrd's crack pipe. ;) +% + change all cvar->value = X to use Cvar_Set() + that didn't happen in oldtree + Actually, it did. + yeah - two weeks later. +% +=== This letter is the Honor System Virus ==== +If you are running a Macintosh, OS/2, Unix, or +Linux computer, please randomly delete +several files from your hard disk drive and +forward this message to everyone you know. +============================================== +% +* shortc wants to get in one of knghtbrd's sigs one of these days. +% + SGI_Multitexture is bad voodoo now + ARB is good voodoo + no, voodoo rush is bad voodoo :) +% +99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code, + fix one bug, compile it again... + 101 little bugs in the code.... +% +Hmm... Which would do a better job at driving physicists crazy? Travel +faster than light, or a floating-point boolean value? + -- Michael Mol +% + knghtbrd: gnome 2.0 will be out in a few months, not sure how it + will compare to kde 2.0 though + calc: Just as bloated, just as buggy, and every Gnome 2 app + will depend on 30 libraries. + knghtbrd: so what changes from 1.0 ? +% + so, how's everything in the world of Quack? + just ducky + excellent, fried duck is mighty fine tasty. +% + I should probably reboot... + ok brb + So, what apart form avoiding virii, memory leaks, and rampant + crashing does Linux reallhy offer :) + reliable multitasking? +% + if (cb) ((cb->obj)->*(cb->ui_func))(); + tausq: who the HELL wrote that ? + me :) +* knghtbrd flogs tausq +% + glDisable (GL_BUGS); + heh + Is that in 1.2? :) +% + knghtbrd: Eww, find a better name, the movie sucked.. + Mercury: The engine is better than the movie +% + What are 'bots'? +<``Erik> rsg is a bot, not a human, not a human usable client, just a bot. +<``Erik> about the same as a quake bot, except irc bots are (usually) + built to help, not shoot your ass full of holes +% +if (me != you) // FIXME: probably always true, delete? + for (n = 0; n < who_knows_what; n++) { + answer = DoSomething (withthis[n]); + if (answer == foobar) { + GetLost (n); + break; + } + } +% + Yorick: no problem with indexed color palettes for images, as + long as you can pick the palette + Obviously the people creating quake were colour-blind but that + doesn't mean you have to be +% + Damn, every time I spawn, qf-client-x11 locks hard + Don't die? + good incentive. +% +Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the +universe are pointed away from Earth? +% + hey, quick question, is there any way to speed up the + performance of uquake-x11? + rebelpacket: If you want to accelerate it, throw it harder. +% + you know + its really sad when the internic itself can't configure DNS + servers right + it just doesn't get any more pathetic than that +% + Even with overbrights, Quake's color palette is full of dull, + flat colors + knghtbrd: quake's palette is very vibrant unless you use gamma + correction + well actually I agree, it's nowhere near as vibrant as Unreal + Q3 on the other hand...NEON. + Q3 is just ridiculous + Q3 takes the medieval church-dungeon and puts it in Vegas. +% +"I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." + -- Anonymous +% +Z.O.I.D.: Zombie Optimized for Infiltration and Destruction +% + Yes, America is a country based on how pissed-off a group of taxed + people can get. + We exist as a country because we're cheap. +% + Overfiend: many patches on top of 4.0.1 already? + Oskuro: a few + only 152 megs +% + oh my, it's a UP P III. + dos it. +* joeyh runs dselect + that ought to be sufficient :) +% + knghtbrd: crap, SDL sure makes DGA a hell of a lot easier too + doesn't it? :) + barneyfu: what DGA? + mouse dga + barneyfu: (does that answer your question?) + Hahahahaha YEAH! :) +% + "A good programmer can write FORTRAN in any language." + knghtbrd has proven that you can write C++ in any language too. + + We are currently considdering if we should give him or prize, or + kill him.. + (Of course, by all rights, this means we should give him the + prize, and then kill him.. ) +% +A subversive is anyone who can out-argue their government. +% +We must know, we will know. + -- David Hilbert +% + Internet censorship. Because your children need to be + protected from naked women, medical procedures, diverse + cultures, and violent video games. + (but information on building bombs, stealing cable, and + manufacturing drugs is okay...) +% +A friend of mine has a barcode on his arm. +He rings up as a $.35 pack of JuicyFruit. + -- Seen on Slashdot +% + I like the seed code for computing masking curves. + I've never seen code that made be want to drink before that... +% +$you = new YOU; +honk() if $you->love(perl) + -- Seen on Slashdot +% + no! problems in M$ software? + "Thoroughly bugtested" +* Dabb grins. + rewrite that as 'Thoroughly buginfested' +% + dpkg has bugs? no way! +% +"Debian: no hats or reptiles were harmed in the making of this distribution= +." + -- Paul Slootman +% +* athener calls Amnesty International House of Pancakes +% + unclean: err, the admin team do not control the archive, that's the + ftp cabal + get your cabals right, damn it :-P +% + CosmicRay: you complete me + err... + heh +* BenC goes back to coding +* elmo looks at benc + something we should know about you and cosmicray, Ben? :) +% +Change the Social Contract? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. + -- Branden Robinson +% + Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. + 0x40095fb0 in memchr () from /lib/libc.so.6 + (gdb) bt + #0 0x40095fb0 in memchr () from /lib/libc.so.6 + #1 0x0 in ?? () + Well That's Really Helpful +* knghtbrd trades gdb for a nice ouija board - it'll help more +% +All good ideas look like bad ideas to those who are losers. + -- Dilbert +% +RFC 882 put the dot in .com, not Sun Microsystems + -- Seen on Slashdot +% +* joeyh_ wonders if linux is supposed to lock up when you ask 100 + processes to cat the entire cd drive +% + knghtbrd: Quake should support xray vision, dammit + pretzelgod: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/quake/partial_conversions/ + xrated/i_am_old_enough_to_look_at_this + ... you asked ... + haha, that is a real directory +% + I SNEAK TO BUN + HELP ME FOR TO QUACK + kb: what the hell are you talking about? + bwahahaha.. It's a long story. +% + Mercury, isn't debugging X a little like finding perfectly + bugfree code in windows ?? + WildCode: Debugging X is like trying to run a straight line + through a maze. + You just need to bend space-time so that the corners move around + you and you won't have any problems. (=:] +% + `You have been unsubscribed from the high energy personal + protection devices mailing list' + I don't remember getting into the mailing list +% + I'm getting a connection refused when connecting to port 25, anyone + know where the damn log is? + Myth: /var/log/damn.log? +* aj wonders what that'd look like + Dec 18 05:32:30 blae smtpd[123]: DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!! +% +* weasel wonders how stupid one has to be to spam alt.anonymous.messages + weasel: about half as stupid as one has to be to harvest it. +% +* wolfie ponders how many debianites it takes to screw in a lightbulb + wolfie: Somewhere around 600? One screw's the bulb, and the rest + flame him for doing it wrong. + wolfie: is the bulb free software? + Can we vote on whether to screw it or not? +% + We are also hoping to release a version of linux where shell is + replaced by perl to a large degree. Adding to that, there are a + few of us who would like to see a pure perl platform.. PerlOS :) +* Culus_ looks on in horror + Culus_: on the up side, you can type damn near anything in at the + command prompt :) +% + LordHavoc: The reason why GL has overdraw is because it is only + using HALF of the system they designed for vis. + LordHavoc: Shooting itself in the foot. +* Dabb looks at all those bullet holes in his shoes - damn, lots :) +% + hehe, I really hate bug reports which are like calling fire + department and saying: "There is fire here, come!" :) + (and hanging up) +* Dabb kills off dozen bug reports. +% + wow, I think I just used libtool to solve a problem -- somebody + help me! :> + xtifr, STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD +% + why do they insist on ading -Werror... + Mesa would not compile out of the box if it were done by you + guys ;) + Uh, Mesa DOESN'T compile out of the box most of the time. +% + nopcode: No, it isn't. Win32 lacks the equivalent of fork(). + Deek: windoze is not meant for people who should have access to + sharp objects, hence no fork() + instead, you must rely on spoon() +% + This font is starting to come out very nicely + Knghtbrd: oh dear, are you hacking up another quake font in vi? :) +% + oh, besides, whats the best approach if i want to make a Quake + level designed from an existing building? + Get a floorplan of Brian's office? =) + Knghtbrd: im considering my school. + Oh great + That's ALL we need +% + Windoze CEMeNT: Now with CrackGuard(TM)! Never worry about + unsightly cracks in Windoze CEMeNT again! CrackGuard(TM) is + so powerful that the entire thing will crumble before it will + crack. Order your $200 upgrade version today! +% + Culus: my bug with openssh appears to be fixed in 2.5.2, but + master runs 2.3.0 + Don't even start + I just did. + You guys are going to drive me to build a huge giant robot and + destroy all of texas, aren't you? +% + whats wrong with rjing? + it's lame :P + it should NOT be possible + shoving a grenade up your ass and using it as rocket + propelant shouldn't be a viable technique :P +% + * Equivalent code is available from RSA Data Security, Inc. + * This code has been tested against that, and is equivalent, + * except that you don't need to include two pages of legalese + * with every copy. + -- public domain MD5 source +% +* knghtbrd is gone - zzz - messages will be snapped like wet towels at all + of the people who have stolen the trademark knghtbrd away message + ack +* Coderjoe prepares to defend himself from wet messages +% +Never underestimate the power of somebody with source code, a text editor, +and the willingness to totally hose their system. + -- Rob Landley +% +"So, will the Andover party have a cash bar?" +"No, there's free beer." +"Uh-oh, Stallman's gonna be pissed..." + -- overheard at the Bazaar, 1999 +% + Alter.net seems to have replaced one of its router with a zucchini. +% + Someone fix it. + committed + Despair: Mercury? + Knghtbrd: he's tired, made a mistake, wanted someone to undo it. + Despair: so you had him committed? + Knghtbrd: well, dedicated anyways. +% + Knghtbrd: it's not bloat if it's used + taniwha: how do you explain windoze then? + Knghtbrd: most of it is used only as ballast to make sure your + harddrive is full + taniwha: ballast... Isn't that what makes subs sink to the + bottom of the ocean? + taniwha: that would explain why winboxes are always going down. +% +innovate /IN no vait/ vb.: 1. To appropriate third-party technology +through purchase, imitation, or theft and to integrate it into a +de-facto, monopoly-position product. 2. To increase in size or complexity +but not in utility; to reduce compatibility or interoperability. 3. To +lock-out competitors or to lock-in users. 4. To charge more money; to +increase prices or costs. 5. To acquire profits from investments in other +companies but not from direct product or service sales. 6. To stifle or +manipulate a free market; to extend monopoly powers into new markets. 7. +To evade liability for wrong-doings; to get off. 8. To purchase +legislation, legislators, legislatures, or chiefs of state. 9. To +mediate all transactions in a global economy; to embezzle; to co-opt power +(coup d'état). Cf. innovate, English usage (antonym). + -- csbruce, in a Slashdot post +% +The deafening silence taught me not to ask a bunch of geeks for advice +from their girlfriends +% +"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?" +"Same thing we do every night Steve, try to take over the world!" +% + That reminds me, we'll need to buy a chainsaw for the office. "In + case of emergency, break glass" +% + He's a about half the size of the others. + But he's got a chainsaw. +% + "I keep my personal gpg data in a locked, lead safe in a vault + guarded by angry rednecks and their dawgs. Trespassers will be + violated, and all that..." +% + glQuakeIIIRendererMode(GL_TRUE) + ExMachina: isn't that part of the extension which provides + glDriverBugs(GL_FALSE); ? + Knghtbrd: no, glDriverBugs() is part of EXT_help_me. + which also contains glMakeItWork(GL_PLEASE); +% +<``Erik> 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 is a big number +% + is that really knghtbrd? + No, I'm an EVIL IMPOSTOR! + An evil impostor who LIKES HYBRID! + haha + ok, it's him :P +% +<|Rain|> I *love* SWB!! +<|Rain|> Or, press 5 to speak to a representitive.. +<|Rain|> *5* +<|Rain|> You are being transferred, please hold... +<|Rain|> ... +<|Rain|> ... +<|Rain|> We're sorry, this number can not be completed as dialed. +<|Rain|> Please check the number and try again. +% +<|Rain|> #define struct union /* great space saver */ +% + no BSD fans ? + Elric: it's hard to be a gamer and a bsd fan :p +% + There's too much blood in my caffeine system. +% + Culus: are you awake? + no +% + Yeah, I looked at esd and it looked like the kind of C code that an + ex-JOVIAL/Algol '60 coder who had spent the last 20 years bouncing + between Fortran-IV and Fortran '77 would write. +% + .net is microsofts perverted version of a java networked + environment uglified for windows-specific crap +% + LordHavoc: I'm already insane. + damn straight. or curvy, crooked, or what have you +% +Unix is mature OS, windows is still in diapers and they smell badly. + -- Rafael Skodlar +% + From all the stereotypes about Aussies, I figure you guys are + really tough. + ;p + we'll throw koala's at you +% +<|Rain|> *nod* I'm not fond of using smarthosts, myself +<|Rain|> as it relies on both the remote host and your host being smart +<|Rain|> and too often you miss one of both of those goals +% +The sourceforge approach is to place all of the projects in some bland +"open source surburbia", where all of the houses are alike, with only the +colors and minor style variations (which building plan was used for which +particular house) are allowed by the restrictive covenants and local +zoning laws. Sourceforege is the open source equivalent of the +subdivision in the movie "Edward Scissorhands". + -- Terry Lambert +% + Knghtbrd: irc doesn't compile c code very well ;) +% +* |Rain| prepares for polygon soup +<|Rain|> sweet merciful crap, it works? +* |Rain| faints +% +"Since it's a foregone conclusion that Microsoft will be littering its XML +with pointers to Win32-based components, the best that can be said about +its adoption of XML is that it will make it easier for browsers and +applications on non-Windows platforms to understand which parts of the +document it must ignore." + -- Nicholas Petreley, "Computerworld", 3 September, 2001 +% + i understand there are some reasonable limits to free speech in + america, for example I cannot scream Fire into a crowded theatre + .. But can i scream fire into a theatre with only 5 or 6 poeple + in it ? +% + coffee on an empty stomach is pretty nasy + aav: time to run to the vending machine for cheetos + cheetos? :) +% +<|Rain|> with sane code, maybe I could figure out the renderer :) + rain: I'd probably be the one writing the renderer +<|Rain|> well, er, uh +% +<|Rain|> Knghtbrd: let me give you access to the zone files + oh gods - you do realize I have never played with bind right? +<|Rain|> uhoh :) +% + Look, rejects, this is #OpenGL, not #GEEKSEX. +% +* TwingyAFK is shopping for 17" flat panel +* aav sells TwingyAFK a piece of plywood +% +Isn't it embarrassing when you have to go to the drugstore for some +"special items", and when you're checking out, the cashier looks at you +like, "oh, I know what YOU'RE doing tonight..." + +Yep, that cashier read all the signs... canned chicken soup, TheraFlu, +Halls, NyQuil, the bigass bottles of OJ and grapefruit juice... he knew +and I knew that I had a date with the teevee and a down comforter. Awww +yeah. + -- Elizabeth Kirkindall +% +In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really +good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change +their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really +do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are +human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot +recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. + -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address +% + add a GF2/3, a sizable hard drive, and a 15" flat panel and + you've got a pretty damned portable machine. + a GeForce Two-Thirds? + Coderjoe: yes, a GeForce two-thirds, ie, any card from ATI. +% + Nintendo Declares GCN Most Popular Console Ever + Who are they kidding? + knghtbrd: Stock holders? +% + the majority of windoze artists do not have the ability to + save xpm + LordHavoc: They don't have notepad? *G,D&R* +% +Linux supports the notion of a command line or a shell for the same reason +that only children read books with only pictures in them. Language, be it +English or something else, is the only tool flexible enough to accomplish +a sufficiently broad range of tasks. + -- Bill Garrett +% +## Signoff: insurgent (razzin' frazzin' motherfu... stupid directx...) +% + Kgnghtbrd: I wouldn't kow, I see no need for a spellchecker yet + you were saying? +% + I'd better put the incriminating stuff into code: ahfuiovka + ikperoa edfr ade 9 enbuw ejasxleme ka iena df4mesa + If you can decrypt that, you're a better cryptographer than I + am. =) +% + liiwi: printk("CPU0 on fire\n"); +% + my computer was once one of the building blocks of a great + pyramid +% +NOTICE: anyone seen smoking will be assumed to be on fire and will be + summarily put out. +% + c++: the power, elegance and simplicity of a hand grenade +% + but one sort per tab and none per list is arguably better than + O(n + n**2) per tab and O(n**2) per list. + OMG, someone shoot me. + ? + I can't believe I just used the big goose-egg to explain why my + way is probably best in the long run. +% + my program works if i take out the bugs. +% + Knghtbrd: Hey, perl has the power grace and elegance of a sledge + hammer. (=:] +<|Rain|> certainly the grace and elegance, anyway +% + Hit the monkey to win $20(*)! +* knghtbrd gets out his mallet. +* knghtbrd plants it firmly on DannyS' head. +* knghtbrd will take his $20 now. =D +% + well I'm impressed + win98 managed to crash X from within vmware. +* gholam applauds. +% +"Nvidia's OpenGL drivers are my "gold standard", and it has been quite a +while since I have had to report a problem to them, and even their brand +new extensions work as documented the first time I try them. When I have +a problem on an Nvidia, I assume that it is my fault. With anyone else's +drivers, I assume it is their fault. This has turned out correct almost +all the time." + -- John Carmack +% +Libtool shared library portability is only slightly more believable than +perpetual motion machines. Especially on AIX :)." + -- David Leimbach +% + this is the New Overfiend, preacher of Love and Tolerance +% + the difference between netbsd, freebsd, and openbsd, as an + insider is freebsd is interested in getting things done, and + doesn't mind hurting people who get in their way. + netbsd is interested in making sure nothing gets done, and + doesn't mind hurting people who try to accomplish things. + openbsd is interested in looking good, and doesn't hurt anyone + in their own little community, but look out everybody else! +% + so, what's the official way to get buildd to retry a package? prod + it with a stick? + prod neuro + with a stick? + yes. +% + "... you will more than likely see all kinds of compiler + warnings scrolling by on the screen. These are normal and can + be safely ignored." + Knghtbrd: is that a note attached to some M$ code? + No, it's a note about a bunch of GNU stuff. +% + knightbrd: from knightbrd.brain import * :) + Oh gods if it were that easy .. + from carmack.brain import OpenGL +% + mmmm, multitextured donuts.... + LIM: with fruit filling? + knghtbrd: chocolate cream... +% + You're rewriting parts of Quake in *Python*? + MUAHAHAHA +% +## a_nick (nobody@c213-89-87-111.cm-upc.chello.se) has joined #python + how do i add a new key to a dictionary? + nm + heh :) + behold the problem-solving power of #python. +% + i had something that i think was chicken that was coated with a red + paste that seemed to be composed of lye based on how much of my + tongue it burned away. + our friend who is Indian said this is why most Indians are thin + and i quote "It doesn't take very much of this food to get you + satisfied enoguh to stop eating." +% + "It's classic percolate-up economics, recognizing that money + is like manure: It works best if you spread it around." + Intention: Carter's correlation: People with lots of either + usually smell funny + Knghtbrd: You SO win. +% diff --git a/fortunes/law b/fortunes/law new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f52992 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/law @@ -0,0 +1,1296 @@ +A blind rabbit was hopping through the woods, tripping over logs and crashing +into trees. At the same time, a blind snake was slithering through the same +forest, with identical results. They chanced to collide head-on in a clearing. + "Please excuse me, sir, I'm blind and I bumped into you accidentally," +apologized the rabbit. + "That's quite all right," replied the snake, "I have the same +problem!" + "All my life I've been wondering what I am," said the rabbit, "Do +you think you could help me find out?" + "I'll try," said the snake. He gently coiled himself around the +rabbit. "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have a little fluffy tail +and long ears. You're... hmmm... you're probably a bunny rabbit!" + "Great!" said the rabbit. "Thanks, I really owe you one!" + "Well," replied the snake, "I don't know what I am, either. Do you +suppose you could try and tell me?" + The rabbit ran his paws all over the snake. "Well, you're low, cold +and slimey..." And, as he ran one paw underneath the snake, "and you have +no balls. You must be an attorney!" +% +A certain old cat had made his home in the alley behind Gabe's bar for some +time, subsisting on scraps and occasional handouts from the bartender. One +evening, emboldened by hunger, the feline attempted to follow Gabe through +the back door. Regrettably, only the his body had made it through when +the door slammed shut, severing the cat's tail at its base. This proved too +much for the old creature, who looked sadly at Gabe and expired on the spot. + Gabe put the carcass back out in the alley and went back to business. +The mandatory closing time arrived and Gabe was in the process of locking up +after the last customers had gone. Approaching the back door he was startled +to see an apparition of the old cat mournfully holding its severed tail out, +silently pleading for Gabe to put the tail back on its corpse so that it could +go on to the kitty afterworld complete. + Gabe shook his head sadly and said to the ghost, "I can't. You know +the law -- no retailing spirits after 2:00 AM." +% +A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. + -- Ben Franklin +% +A doctor was stranded with a lawyer in a leaky life raft in shark-infested +waters. The doctor tried to swim ashore but was eaten by the sharks. The +lawyer, however, swam safely past the bloodthirsty sharks. "Professional +courtesy," he explained. +% +A Dublin lawyer died in poverty and many barristers of the city subscribed to +a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury was asked to donate +a shilling. "Only a shilling?" exclaimed the man. "Only a shilling to bury +an attorney? Here's a guinea; go and bury twenty of them." +% +A friend of mine won't get a divorce, because he hates lawyers more than he +hates his wife. +% + A grade school teacher was asking students what their parents did +for a living. "Tim, you be first," she said. "What does your mother do +all day?" + Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor." + "That's wonderful. How about you, Amie?" + Amie shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a +mailman." + "Thank you, Amie," said the teacher. "What about your father, Billy?" + Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a +whorehouse." + The teacher was aghast and promptly changed the subject to geography. +Later that day she went to Billy's house and rang the bell. Billy's father +answered the door. The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded +an explanation. + Billy's father replied, "Well, I'm really an attorney. But how do +you explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old child?" +% + A housewife, an accountant and a lawyer were asked to add 2 and 2. + The housewife replied, "Four!". + The accountant said, "It's either 3 or 4. Let me run those figures +through my spread sheet one more time." + The lawyer pulled the drapes, dimmed the lights and asked in a +hushed voice, "How much do you want it to be?" +% +A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. + -- Robert Frost +% + A lawyer named Strange was shopping for a tombstone. After he had +made his selection, the stonecutter asked him what inscription he +would like on it. "Here lies an honest man and a lawyer," responded the +lawyer. + "Sorry, but I can't do that," replied the stonecutter. "In this +state, it's against the law to bury two people in the same grave. However, +I could put ``here lies an honest lawyer'', if that would be okay." + "But that won't let people know who it is" protested the lawyer. + "Certainly will," retorted the stonecutter. "people will read it +and exclaim, "That's Strange!" +% +A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in +his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and +exceptional ability in that particular field." +% + A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in +his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional +ability in that particular field." +% + A man walked into a bar with his alligator and asked the bartender, +"Do you serve lawyers here?". + "Sure do," replied the bartender. + "Good," said the man. "Give me a beer, and I'll have a lawyer for +my 'gator." +% + A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the +movies insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the +right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them. +% +A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the +rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion. +% +A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may +not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized rosewater. +% +A small town that cannot support one lawyer can always support two. +% +According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person +shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than +fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening +of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of +the returns." +% +According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least +once a year. +% +After 35 years, I have finished a comprehensive study of European +comparative law. In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, +except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything +is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, +under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is +permitted. And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, +especially that which is prohibited. + -- Newton Minow, + Speech to the Association of American Law Schools, 1985 +% + After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from +Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, +and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon +to be created." + "This is true," He replied. + "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. + "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the +right to make his laws?" + "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to +make his own." + It was so granted. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +An amendment to a motion may be amended, but an amendment to an amendment +to a motion may not be amended. However, a substitute for an amendment to +and amendment to a motion may be adopted and the substitute may be amended. + -- The Montana legislature's contribution to the English + language. +% +An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree murder. +"Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's mutilated body into +a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border. Just north of Tijuana a cop +spotted her hand sticking out of the suitcase. Now, I would like to stress +that my client is *___not* a murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..." +% +An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded summation, +leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your arguments, Sir +Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey responded, "That may be, +Milord, but at least you're better informed!" +% +And then there was the lawyer that stepped in cow manure and thought +he was melting... +% +Another day, another dollar. + -- Vincent J. Fuller, defense lawyer for John Hinckley, + upon Hinckley's acquittal for shooting President Ronald + Reagan. +% +Anti-trust laws should be approached with exactly that attitude. +% +Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole +or street lamp. +% +Attorney General Edwin Meese III explained why the Supreme Court's Miranda +decision (holding that subjects have a right to remain silent and have a +lawyer present during questioning) is unnecessary: "You don't have many +suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person +is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect." + -- U.S. News and World Report, 10/14/85 +% +Be frank and explicit with your lawyer ... it is his business to confuse +the issue afterwards. +% +Behold the warranty -- the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away. +% +Being a miner, as soon as you're too old and tired and sick and stupid to +do your job properly, you have to go, where the very opposite applies with +the judges. + -- Beyond the Fringe +% +Between grand theft and a legal fee, there only stands a law degree. +% +... but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be +proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge +to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women +were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still +unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and +in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than +the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If +there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute +of value. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and +trousers that don't match. +% +Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and the +most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the Court of +Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his candidate which +reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression +nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground nuts, as would +but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground +nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)." + -- Guiness Book of World Records, 1973 +% +Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire. +% +Diogenes went to look for an honest lawyer. "How's it going?", someone +asked him, after a few days. + "Not too bad", replied Diogenes. "I still have my lantern." +% +[District Attorneys] learn in District Attorney School that there are +two sure-fire ways to get a lot of favorable publicity: + +(1) Go down and raid all the lockers in the local high school and + confiscate 53 marijuana cigarettes and put them in a pile and hold + a press conference where you announce that they have a street value + of $850 million. These raids never fail, because ALL high schools, + including brand-new, never-used ones, have at least 53 marijuana + cigarettes in the lockers. As far as anyone can tell, the locker + factory puts them there. +(2) Raid an "adult book store" and hold a press conference where you + announce you are charging the owner with 850 counts of being a + piece of human sleaze. This also never fails, because you always + get a conviction. A juror at a pornography trial is not about to + state for the record that he finds nothing obscene about a movie + where actors engage in sexual activities with live snakes and a + fire extinguisher. He is going to convict the bookstore owner, and + vote for the death penalty just to make sure nobody gets the wrong + impression. + -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" +% +District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape +injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any +damage inflicted on the vehicle. +% +Divorce is a game played by lawyers. + -- Cary Grant +% +Doctors and lawyers must go to school for years and years, often with +little sleep and with great sacrifice to their first wives. + -- Roy G. Blount, Jr. +% +Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber, North +Carolina. +% +First there was Dial-A-Prayer, then Dial-A-Recipe, and even Dial-A-Footballer. +But the south-east Victorian town of Sale has produced one to top them all. +Dial-A-Wombat. + It all began early yesterday when Sale police received a telephone +call: "You won't believe this, and I'm not drunk, but there's a wombat in the +phone booth outside the town hall," the caller said. + Not firmly convinced about the caller's claim to sobriety, members of +the constabulary drove to the scene, expecting to pick up a drunk. + But there it was, an annoyed wombat, trapped in a telephone booth. + The wombat, determined not to be had the better of again, threw its +bulk into the fray. It was eventually lassoed and released in a nearby scrub. + Then the officers received another message ... another wombat in +another phone booth. + There it was: *Another* angry wombat trapped in a telephone booth. + The constables took the miffed marsupial into temporary custody and +released it, too, in the scrub. + But on their way back to the station they happened to pass another +telephone booth, and -- you guessed it -- another imprisoned wombat. + After some serious detective work, the lads in blue found a suspect, +and after questioning, released him to be charged on summons. + Their problem ... they cannot find a law against placing wombats in +telephone booths. + -- "Newcastle Morning Herald", NSW Australia, Aug 1980. +% +For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex. + -- Gore Vidal +% +For three years, the young attorney had been taking his brief +vacations at this country inn. The last time he'd finally managed an +affair with the innkeeper's daughter. Looking forward to an exciting +few days, he dragged his suitcase up the stairs of the inn, then stopped +short. There sat his lover with an infant on her lap! + "Helen, why didn't you write when you learned you were pregnant?" +he cried. "I would have rushed up here, we could have gotten married, +and the baby would have my name!" + "Well," she said, "when my folks found out about my condition, +we sat up all night talkin' and talkin' and finally decided it would be +better to have a bastard in the family than a lawyer." +% +Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: + +It is a rule of evidence deduced from the experience of mankind and +supported by reason and authority that positive testimony is entitled to +more weight than negative testimony, but by the latter term is meant +negative testimony in its true sense and not positive evidence of a +negative, because testimony in support of a negative may be as positive +as that in support of an affirmative. + -- 254 Pac. Rep. 472. +% +Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: + +We can imagine no reason why, with ordinary care, human toes could not be +left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found in chewing tobacco, it +seems to us that someone has been very careless. + -- 78 So. 365. +% +Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: + +We think that we may take judicial notice of the fact that the term "bitch" +may imply some feeling of endearment when applied to a female of the canine +species but that it is seldom, if ever, so used when applied to a female +of the human race. Coming as it did, reasonably close on the heels of two +revolver shots directed at the person of whom it was probably used, we think +it carries every reasonable implication of ill-will toward that person. + -- Smith v. Moran, 193 N.E. 2d 466. +% +Fortune's Law of the Week (this week, from Kentucky): + No female shall appear in a bathing suit at any airport in this +State unless she is escorted by two officers or unless she is armed +with a club. The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females +weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it +apply to female horses. +% +Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful +Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an +impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and +clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following +exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan. + +DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are + having to artificially propagate oysters and clams. +HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters? +DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter + is that female oysters through their living habits cast out + large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large + amounts of fertilization ... +HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many + teenagers who read The Congressional Record. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #18: + +Q: Are you married? +A: No, I'm divorced. +Q: And what did your husband do before you divorced him? +A: A lot of things I didn't know about. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #19: + +Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people? +A: All my autopsies have been performed on dead people. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #25: + +Q: You say you had three men punching at you, kicking you, raping you, + and you didn't scream? +A: No ma'am. +Q: Does that mean you consented? +A: No, ma'am. That means I was unconscious. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #29: + +THE JUDGE: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present + information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any ... +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #32: + +Q: Do you know how far pregnant you are right now? +A: I will be three months November 8th. +Q: Apparently then, the date of conception was August 8th? +A: Yes. +Q: What were you and your husband doing at that time? +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #37: + +Q: Did he pick the dog up by the ears? +A: No. +Q: What was he doing with the dog's ears? +A: Picking them up in the air. +Q: Where was the dog at this time? +A: Attached to the ears. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #3: + +Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were + able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to + go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with + him to the station? +MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41: + +Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated? +A: By death. +Q: And by whose death was it terminated? +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #52: + +Q: What is your name? +A: Ernestine McDowell. +Q: And what is your marital status? +A: Fair. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #7: + +Q: What happened then? +A: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify me." +Q: Did he kill you? +A: No. +% +Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a policeman's tie. +% +"Gentlemen of the jury," said the defense attorney, now beginning +to warm to his summation, "the real question here before you is, shall this +beautiful young woman be forced to languish away her loveliest years in a +dark prison cell? Or shall she be set free to return to her cozy little +apartment at 4134 Mountain Ave. -- there to spend her lonely, loveless hours +in her boudoir, lying beside her little Princess phone, 962-7873?" +% +Getting kicked out of the American Bar Association is like getting kicked +out of the Book-of-the-Month Club. + -- Melvin Belli on the occasion of his getting kicked out + of the American Bar Association +% + God decided to take the devil to court and settle their differences +once and for all. + When Satan heard of this, he grinned and said, "And just where do you +think you're going to find a lawyer?" +% +Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of +those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the +will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of +government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. + -- Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune" +% +He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides. +% +"Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet. As you +can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of equal height +on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney. Do you have a car +or a job? Do you ever walk around? If so, you probably have the makings of +an excellent legal case. Although of course every case is different, I +would definitely say that based on my experience and training, there's no +reason why you shouldn't come out of this thing with at least a cabin +cruiser. + +"Remember, at the Preston A. Mantis Consumers Retail Law Outlet, our motto +is: 'It is very difficult to disprove certain kinds of pain.'" + -- Dave Barry, "Pain and Suffering" +% + Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa. +% + How do you insult a lawyer? + You might as well not even try. Consider: of all the highly +trained and educated professions, law is the only one in which the prime +lesson is that *winning* is more important than *truth*. + Once someone has sunk to that level, what worse can you say about them? +% +HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill., motion +that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate amendment making +changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits. The Senate amendment +was an amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the House +amendment to the Senate amendment to the bill. The original Senate amendment +was the conference agreement on the bill. Agreed to. + -- Albuquerque Journal +% +Humor in th Court: +Q: Do you drink when you're on duty? +A: I don't drink when I'm on duty, unless I come on duty drunk. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. And lastly, Gary, all your responses must be oral. O.K.? What school do + you go to? +A. Oral. +Q. How old are you? +A. Oral. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. And who is this person you are speaking of? +A. My ex-widow said it. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in New York? +A. I refuse to answer that question. +Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Chicago? +A. I refuse to answer that question. +Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Miami? +A. No. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods? +A. No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Mrs. Jones, is your appearance this morning pursuant to a deposition + notice which I sent to your attorney? +A. No. This is how I dress when I go to work. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Mrs. Smith, do you believe that you are emotionally unstable? +A. I should be. +Q. How many times have you committed suicide? +A. Four times. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Officer, what led you to believe the defendant was under the influence? +A. Because he was argumentary and he couldn't pronunciate his words. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Were you acquainted with the deceased? +A. Yes, sir. +Q. Before or after he died? +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. What is your brother-in-law's name? +A. Borofkin. +Q. What's his first name? +A. I can't remember. +Q. He's been your brother-in-law for years, and you can't remember his first + name? +A. No. I tell you I'm too excited. (Rising from the witness chair and + pointing to Mr. Borofkin.) Nathan, for God's sake, tell them your first + name! +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: (Showing man picture.) That's you? +A: Yes, sir. +Q: And you were present when the picture was taken, right? +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: ...and what did he do then? +A: He came home, and next morning he was dead. +Q: So when he woke up the next morning he was dead? +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: ...any suggestions as to what prevented this from being a murder trial + instead of an attempted murder trial? +A: The victim lived. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample? +A: Yes, I have been since early childhood. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Are you sexually active? +A: No, I just lie there. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Could you see him from where you were standing? +A: I could see his head. +Q: And where was his head? +A: Just above his shoulders. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Did you tell your lawyer that your husband had offered you indignities? +A: He didn't offer me nothing; he just said I could have the furniture. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Now, you have investigated other murders, have you not, where there was + a victim? +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: So, after the anesthesia, when you came out of it, what did you observe + with respect to your scalp? +A: I didn't see my scalp the whole time I was in the hospital. +Q: It was covered? +A: Yes, bandaged. +Q: Then, later on.. what did you see? +A: I had a skin graft. My whole buttocks and leg were removed and put on top + of my head. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: The truth of the matter is that you were not an unbiased, objective + witness, isn't it. You too were shot in the fracas? +A: No, sir. I was shot midway between the fracas and the naval. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: What can you tell us about the truthfulness and veracity of this defendant? +A: Oh, she will tell the truth. She said she'd kill that sonofabitch--and + she did! +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: What is the meaning of sperm being present? +A: It indicates intercourse. +Q: Male sperm? +A. That is the only kind I know. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: What is your relationship with the plaintiff? +A: She is my daughter. +Q: Was she your daughter on February 13, 1979? +% +I need another lawyer like I need another hole in my head. + -- Fratianno +% +I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some +kind of loophole. + -- Leo Kessler +% +I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the +country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which +I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving +are worth considering, to wit: + +[110.13]: + "When traveling on a one-way street, stay to the right, so as not + to interfere with oncoming traffic." + +[22.17b]: + "Learning to change lanes takes time and patience. The best + recommendation that can be made is to go to a Celtics [basketball] + game; study the fast break and then go out and practice it + on the highway." + +[41.16]: + "Never bump a baby carriage out of a crosswalk unless the kid's really + asking for it." +% +I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the +country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which +I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving +are worth considering, to wit: + +[131.16d]: + "Directional signals are generally not used except during vehicle + inspection; however, a left-turn signal is appropriate when making + a U-turn on a divided highway." + +[96.7b]: + "When paying tolls, remember that it is necessary to release the + quarter a full 3 seconds before passing the basket if you are + traveling more than 60 MPH." + +[110.13]: + "When traveling on a one-way street, stay to the right, so as not + to interfere with oncoming traffic." +% +I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the +country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which +I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving +are worth considering, to wit: + +[173.15b]: + "When competing for a section of road or a parking space, remember + that the vehicle in need of the most body work has the right-of-way." + +[141.2a]: + "Although it is altogether possible to fit a 6' car into a 6' + parking space, it is hardly ever possible to fit a 6' car into + a 5' parking space." + +[105.31]: + "Teenage drivers believe that they are immortal, and drive accordingly. + Nevertheless, you should avoid the temptation to prove them wrong." +% +I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I +don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected +with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, +the food cheaper, and old men and women warmer in the winter, and happier +in the summer. + -- Brendan Behan +% + Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart +a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds. +% +If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four hours, it +is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where it votes guilty. + -- Joseph C. Goulden +% +If a man stay away from his wife for seven years, the law presumes the +separation to have killed him; yet according to our daily experience, +it might well prolong his life. + -- Charles Darling, "Scintillae Juris", 1877 +% +"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think +little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and +Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." + -- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859) +% +If reporters don't know that truth is plural, they ought to be lawyers. + -- Tom Wicker +% +If there were a school for, say, sheet metal workers, that after three +years left its graduates as unprepared for their careers as does law +school, it would be closed down in a minute, and no doubt by lawyers. + -- Michael Levin, "The Socratic Method" +% + In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to +his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's +kill all the lawyers." That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment +was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc. +Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News, +Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess +of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts. Lawyers +and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure +out how the pie gets divided. Neither profession provides any added value +to product." + According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has +10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population. The U.S. has 200 +lawyers and 700 accountants. This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of +pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack." Could Dick Butcher have +been an efficiency expert? + -- Motor Trend, May 1983 +% +In Blythe, California, a city ordinance declares that a person must own +at least two cows before he can wear cowboy boots in public. +% +In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs. +% +In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle +a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order +to get her attention. +% +In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride +in any motor vehicle. +% +In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor. +% +In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset. +% +In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on +the sidewalks when a concert is on. +% +In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket. +% +In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any +pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while +either flying or waiting to board a plane. +% + In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless +there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red +flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians. +% +In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as +to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the +speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00. +% +In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds +and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane. +% +In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying +of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public view." +% +In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that +is over six feet in length. +% +In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a +moving automobile. +% +In the olden days in England, you could be hung for stealing a sheep or a +loaf of bread. However, if a sheep stole a loaf of bread and gave it to +you, you would only be tried for receiving, a crime punishable by forty +lashes with the cat or the dog, whichever was handy. If you stole a dog +and were caught, you were punished with twelve rabbit punches, although it +was hard to find rabbits big enough or strong enough to punch you. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without +the supervision of a licensed engineer. +% +In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse +along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months. +% +It has long been noticed that juries are pitiless for robbery and full of +indulgence for infanticide. A question of interest, my dear Sir! The jury +is afraid of being robbed and has passed the age when it could be a victim +of infanticide. + -- Edmond About +% +It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of +Urbana, Illinois. +% +It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood +Boulevard at one time. +% +It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia. +% +It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our +offense consists in doubting it. + -- Justice Robert H. Jackson +% +It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, +each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other +has gone. +% + It seems these two guys, George and Harry, set out in a Hot Air +balloon to cross the United States. After forty hours in the air, George +turned to Harry, and said, "Harry, I think we've drifted off course! We +need to find out where we are." + Harry cools the air in the balloon, and they descend to below the +cloud cover. Slowly drifting over the countryside, George spots a man +standing below them and yells out, "Excuse me! Can you please tell me +where we are?" + The man on the ground yells back, "You're in a balloon, approximately +fifty feet in the air!" + George turns to Harry and says, "Well, that man *must* be a lawyer". + Replies Harry, "How can you tell?". + "Because the information he gave us is 100% accurate, and totally +useless!" + +That's the end of The Joke, but for you people who are still worried about +George and Harry: they end up in the drink, and make the front page of the +New York Times: "Balloonists Soaked by Lawyer". +% +It shall be unlawful for any suspicious person to be within the municipality. + -- Local ordinance, Euclid Ohio +% +It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse. +% +It's recently come to Fortune's attention that scientists have stopped +using laboratory rats in favor of attorneys. Seems that there are not +only more of them, but you don't get so emotionally attached. The only +difficulty is that it's sometimes difficult to apply the experimental +results to humans. + + [Also, there are some things even a rat won't do. Ed.] +% +Judges, as a class, display, in the matter of arranging alimony, that +reckless generosity which is found only in men who are giving away +someone else's cash. + -- P. G. Wodehouse, "Louder and Funnier" +% +Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to +twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty! +% +Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to +wear tail lights. +% +Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through +any of its streets. +% +Know how to save 5 drowning lawyers? + +-- No? + +GOOD! +% +Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. + -- Otto von Bismarck +% +Legislation proposed in the Illinois State Legislature, May, 1907: + "Speed upon county roads will be limited to ten miles an hour +unless the motorist sees a bailiff who does not appear to have had a +drink in 30 days, when the driver will be permitted to make what he can." +% +Let us remember that ours is a nation of lawyers and order. +% +Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick +your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as +Mental Anguish. You would sue: + +* The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions + section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand + into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls + in there". + +* The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious + cretin like yourself. + +* Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this + case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you + a large cash settlement anyway. + -- Dave Barry +% +... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, and legally ... +impeccable! +% +Loud burping while walking around the airport is prohibited in Halstead, Kansas. +% +Marijuana will be legal some day, because the many law students +who now smoke pot will someday become congressmen and legalize +it in order to protect themselves. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +Men often believe -- or pretend -- that the "Law" is something sacred, or +at least a science -- an unfounded assumption very convenient to governments. +% +Minors in Kansas City, Missouri, are not allowed to purchase cap pistols; +they may buy shotguns freely, however. +% +Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a +law against it by that time. +% +NEVER swerve to hit a lawyer riding a bicycle -- it might be your bicycle. +% +New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or in +any way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe. +% +Of ______course it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone +with a fake? +% + Old Barlow was a crossing-tender at a junction where an express train +demolished an automobile and its occupants. Being the chief witness, his +testimony was vitally important. Barlow explained that the night was dark, +and he waved his lantern frantically, but the driver of the car paid +no attention to the signal. + The railroad company won the case, and the president of the company +complimented the old-timer for his story. "You did wonderfully," he said, +"I was afraid you would waver under testimony." + "No sir," exclaimed the senior, "but I sure was afraid that durned +lawyer was gonna ask me if my lantern was lit." +% +Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his +roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the +forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind +the railroad yards." + -- H. L. Mencken, writing of William Jennings Bryan, + counsel for the supporters of Tennessee's anti-evolution + law at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. +% +... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce +Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One thing +I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If somebody +gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it on his legal +stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what a lesser person +would do, such as get it changed or kill himself. + -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!" +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(10) Potholes are + + (a) extremely dangerous. + (b) patriotic. + (c) the fault of the previous administration. + (d) all going to be fixed next summer. + +The correct answer is (b). Potholes destroy unpatriotic, unamerican, +imported cars, since the holes are larger than the cars. If you drive a +big, patriotic, American car you have nothing to worry about. +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(2) A traffic light at an intersection changes from yellow to red, you should + + (a) stop immediately. + (b) proceed slowly through the intersection. + (c) blow the horn. + (d) floor it. + +The correct answer is (d). If you said (c), you were almost right, so +give yourself a half point. +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(3) When stopped at an intersection you should + + (a) watch the traffic light for your lane. + (b) watch for pedestrians crossing the street. + (c) blow the horn. + (d) watch the traffic light for the intersecting street. + +The correct answer is (d). You need to start as soon as the traffic light +for the intersecting street turns yellow. Answer (c) is worth a half point. +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(4) Exhaust gas is + + (a) beneficial. + (b) not harmful. + (c) toxic. + (d) a punk band. + +The correct answer is (b). The meddling Washington eco-freak communist +bureaucrats who say otherwise are liars. (Message to those who answered (d). +Go back to California where you came from. Your kind are not welcome here.) +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(5) Your car's horn is a vital piece of safety equipment. How often should +you test it? + + (a) once a year. + (b) once a month. + (c) once a day. + (d) once an hour. + +The correct answer is (d). You should test your car's horn at least once +every hour, and more often at night or in residential neighborhoods. +% + Pittsburgh Driver's Test + +(7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light + but a steady left tail light. This means + + (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn + to call the problem to the driver's attention. + (b) the driver is signaling a right turn. + (c) the driver is signaling a left turn. + (d) the driver is from out of town. + +The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign +countries to signal turns. +% + Pittsburgh Driver's Test + +(8) Pedestrians are + + (a) irrelevant. + (b) communists. + (c) a nuisance. + (d) difficult to clean off the front grille. + +The correct answer is (a). Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are +totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely. +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(9) Roads are salted in order to + + (a) kill grass. + (b) melt snow. + (c) help the economy. + (d) prevent potholes. + +The correct answer is (c). Road salting employs thousands of persons +directly, and millions more indirectly, for example, salt miners and +rustproofers. Most important, salting reduces the life spans of cars, +thus stimulating the car and steel industries. +% +She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook. + -- Tommy Manville +% +Sho' they got to have it against the law. Shoot, ever'body git high, +they wouldn't be nobody git up and feed the chickens. Hee-hee. + -- Terry Southern +% +Some men are heterosexual, and some are bisexual, and some men don't think +about sex at all... they become lawyers. + -- Woody Allen +% +Some of the most interesting documents from Sweden's middle ages are the +old county laws (well, we never had counties but it's the nearest equivalent +I can find for "landskap"). These laws were written down sometime in the +13th century, but date back even down into Viking times. The oldest one is +the Vastgota law which clearly has pagan influences, thinly covered with some +Christian stuff. In this law, we find a page about "lekare", which is the +Old Norse word for a performing artist, actor/jester/musician etc. Here is +an approximate translation, where I have written "artist" as equivalent of +"lekare". + "If an artist is beaten, none shall pay fines for it. If an artist + is wounded, one such who goes with hurdie-gurdie or travels with + fiddle or drum, then the people shall take a wild heifer and bring + it out on the hillside. Then they shall shave off all hair from the + heifer's tail, and grease the tail. Then the artist shall be given + newly greased shoes. Then he shall take hold of the heifer's tail, + and a man shall strike it with a sharp whip. If he can hold her, he + shall have the animal. If he cannot hold her, he shall endure what + he received, shame and wounds." +% +Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked down upon because he is a +fool is despised only because he is a lawyer. + -- Montesquieu +% +Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession. +% +The animals are not as stupid as one thinks -- they have neither +doctors nor lawyers. + -- L. Docquier +% + The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas +River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little Rock. +% +The City of Palo Alto, in its official description of parking lot standards, +specifies the grade of wheelchair access ramps in terms of centimeters of +rise per foot of run. A compromise, I imagine... +% +The difference between a lawyer and a rooster is that +the rooster gets up in the morning and clucks defiance. +% +The District of Columbia has a law forbidding you to exert pressure on +a balloon and thereby cause a whistling sound on the streets. +% + The judge fined the jaywalker fifty dollars and told him if he was +caught again, he would be thrown in jail. Fine today, cooler tomorrow. +% +The justifications for drug testing are part of the presently fashionable +debate concerning restoring America's "competitiveness." Drugs, it has been +revealed, are responsible for rampant absenteeism, reduced output, and poor +quality work. But is drug testing in fact rationally related to the +resurrection of competitiveness? Will charging the atmosphere of the +workplace with the fear of excretory betrayal honestly spur productivity? +Much noise has been made about rehabilitating the worker using drugs, but +to date the vast majority of programs end with the simple firing or the not +hiring of the abuser. This practice may exacerbate, not alleviate, the +nation's productivity problem. If economic rehabilitation is the ultimate +goal of drug testing, then criteria abandoning the rehabilitation of the +drug-using worker is the purest of hypocrisy and the worst of rationalization. + -- The concluding paragraph of "Constitutional Law: The + Fourth Amendment and Drug Testing in the Workplace," + Tim Moore, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol. + 10, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 762-768. +% +The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, +to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. + -- Anatole France +% +The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all men +should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the universal +weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we presently imagine +we own. + -- H. G. Wells +% +The Least Successful Equal Pay Advertisement + In 1976 the European Economic Community pointed out to the Irish +Government that it had not yet implemented the agreed sex equality +legislation. The Dublin Government immediately advertised for an equal pay +enforcement officer. The advertisement offered different salary scales for +men and women. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it +were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor +prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, +or to the people. + -- U.S. Constitution, Amendment 10. (Bill of Rights) +% +The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough +voters to win the next election. +% +The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub. +% +The Worst Jury + A murder trial at Manitoba in February 1978 was well advanced, when +one juror revealed that he was completely deaf and did not have the +remotest clue what was happening. + The judge, Mr. Justice Solomon, asked him if he had heard any +evidence at all and, when there was no reply, dismissed him. + The excitement which this caused was only equalled when a second +juror revealed that he spoke not a word of English. A fluent French +speaker, he exhibited great surprised when told, after two days, that he +was hearing a murder trial. + The trial was abandoned when a third juror said that he suffered +from both conditions, being simultaneously unversed in the English language +and nearly as deaf as the first juror. + The judge ordered a retrial. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs +tied during the month of April. +% +There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. +No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets truth. + -- Jean Giraudoux, "Tiger at the Gates" +% +There is no doubt that my lawyer is honest. For example, when he +filed his income tax return last year, he declared half of his salary +as 'unearned income.' + -- Michael Lara +% +"There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial: +both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed to +talk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed him +during the trial." + -- David Letterman +% +There's no justice in this world. + -- Frank Costello, on the prosecution of "Lucky" Luciano by + New York district attorney Thomas Dewey after Luciano had + saved Dewey from assassination by Dutch Schultz (by ordering + the assassination of Schultz instead) +% +This product is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to real +persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some +assembly may be required. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during +shipment. Use only as directed. May be too intense for some viewers. If +condition persists, consult your physician. No user-serviceable parts inside. +Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. Not responsible for direct, +indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error +or failure to perform. Slippery when wet. For office use only. Substantial +penalty for early withdrawal. Do not write below this line. Your cancelled +check is your receipt. Avoid contact with skin. Employees and their families +are not eligible. Beware of dog. Driver does not carry cash. Limited time +offer, call now to insure prompt delivery. Use only in well-ventilated area. +Keep away from fire or flame. Some equipment shown is optional. Price does +not include taxes, dealer prep, or delivery. Penalty for private use. Call +toll free before digging. Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product +appear for identification purposes only. All models over 18 years of age. Do +not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Postage will be +paid by addressee. Apply only to affected area. One size fits all. Many +suitcases look alike. Edited for television. No solicitors. Reproduction +strictly prohibited. Restaurant package, not for resale. Objects in mirror +are closer than they appear. Decision of judges is final. This supersedes +all previous notices. No other warranty expressed or implied. +% +Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the yard. +% +We may not like doctors, but at least they doctor. Bankers are not ever +popular but at least they bank. Policeman police and undertakers take +under. But lawyers do not give us law. We receive not the gladsome light +of jurisprudence, but rather precedents, objections, appeals, stays, +filings and forms, motions and counter-motions, all at $250 an hour. + -- Nolo News, summer 1989 +% +We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they +remain fixed, then with good laws that are constantly being altered, that +the lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than +the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule, +states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals. +These are the sort of people who want to appear wiser than the laws, who +want to get their own way in every general discussion, because they feel that +they cannot show off their intelligence in matters of greater importance, and +who, as a result, very often bring ruin on their country. + -- Cleon, Thucydides, III, 37 translation by Rex Warner +% +Welcome to Utah. +If you think our liquor laws are funny, you should see our underwear! +% +What do you have when you have six lawyers buried up to their necks in sand? +Not enough sand. +% +When alerted to an intrusion by tinkling glass or otherwise, 1) Calm +yourself 2) Identify the intruder 3) If hostile, kill him. + +Step number 3 is of particular importance. If you leave the guy alive +out of misguided softheartedness, he will repay your generosity of spirit +by suing you for causing his subsequent paraplegia and seek to force you +to support him for the rest of his rotten life. In court he will plead +that he was depressed because society had failed him, and that he was +looking for Mother Teresa for comfort and to offer his services to the +poor. In that lawsuit, you will lose. If, on the other hand, you kill +him, the most that you can expect is that a relative will bring a wrongful +death action. You will have two advantages: first, there be only your +story; forget Mother Teresa. Second, even if you lose, how much could +the bum's life be worth anyway? A Lot less than 50 years worth of +paralysis. Don't play George Bush and Saddam Hussein. Finish the job. + -- G. Gordon Liddy's "Forbes" column on personal security +% +Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to +examine the laws of heat. + -- Christopher Morley +% +Why does a hearse horse snicker, hauling a lawyer away? + -- Carl Sandburg +% +Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have +more lawyers? + +New Jersey had first choice. +% +With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law; and every time +they make a law it's a joke. + -- Will Rogers +% +"Certainly, if an individual was stopped and accused of shoplifting after + walking out of Neiman-Marcus they would expect to be eventually told + what they allegedly stole. It would be absurd for an officer to tell + the accused that 'you know what you stole I'm not telling.' Or, to + simply hand the accused individual a catalog of Neiman-Marcus' entire + inventory and say 'it's in there somewhere, you figure it out.'" + -- Judge Brooke Wells' Order Granting in Part IBM's Motion to Limit + SCO's Claims +% +"Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the + graveyard." + -- Justice Jackson, writing for the majority, in West Virginia + State Board of Education v. Barnette 319 U.S. 624 No. 591 +% +"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is + that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox + in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or + force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there + are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur + to us." + -- Justice Jackson, writing for the majority, in West Virginia + State Board of Education v. Barnette 319 U.S. 624 No. 591 +% +"The right of freedom of thought and of religion as guaranteed by the + Constitution against State action includes both the right to speak + freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all, except in so far + as essential operations of government may require it for the + preservation of an orderly society,---as in the case of compulsion to + give evidence in court." + -- Justice Murphy, in concurrance, West Virginia State Board of + Education v. Barnette 319 U.S. 624 No. 591 +% +Here's the thing about lawyers: they don't write to communicate. Lawyers +are like programmers, their code doesn't have to be human-readable. It may +even be deliberately obfuscated. It just has to run on the target system and +produce the desired outcome. In the case of terms-of-use language, the target +system is the courts, and the desired outcome is income. + -- John Shade, ``Shady Illuminations'', PragPub #43, January 2013 + http://pragprog.com/magazines/2013-01/shady-illuminations +% diff --git a/fortunes/linux b/fortunes/linux new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ea932a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/linux @@ -0,0 +1,1834 @@ +"How do you pronounce SunOS?" "Just like you hear it, with a big SOS" + -- dedicated to Roland Kaltefleiter +% +finlandia:~> apropos win +win: nothing appropriate. +% +C:\> WIN +Bad command or filename + +C:\> LOSE +Loading Microsoft Windows ... +% +Linux ext2fs has been stable for a long time, now it's time to break it + -- Linux-Kongress '95 in Berlin +% +The state of some commercial Un*x is more unsecure than any Linux box +without a root password... + -- Bernd Eckenfels +% +Less is more or less more + -- Y_Plentyn on #LinuxGER +% +Let's call it an accidental feature. + --Larry Wall +% +......... Escape the 'Gates' of Hell + `:::' ....... ...... + ::: * `::. ::' + ::: .:: .:.::. .:: .:: `::. :' + ::: :: :: :: :: :: :::. + ::: .::. .:: ::. `::::. .:' ::. +...:::.....................::' .::::.. + -- William E. Roadcap +% +Win95 is not a virus; a virus does something. + -- unknown source +% +Machine Always Crashes, If Not, The Operating System Hangs (MACINTOSH) + -- Topic on #Linux +% +Except for Great Britain. According to ISO 9166 and Internet reality +Great Britain's toplevel domain should be _gb_. Instead, Great Britain +and Nortern Ireland (the United Kingdom) use the toplevel domain _uk_. +They drive on the wrong side of the road, too. + -- PERL book (or DNS and BIND book) +% +Save yourself from the 'Gates' of hell, use Linux." -- like that one. + -- The_Kind @ LinuxNet +% +I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue. + -- Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux +% +Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this +driver will be redirected to /dev/null, oh no, it's full...). + -- Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device +% + if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) { + printf("Don't Panic!\n"); + exit(42); + } + -- Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95, describing RCS +% +lp1 on fire + -- One of the more obfuscated kernel messages +% +A Linux machine! Because a 486 is a terrible thing to waste! + -- Joe Sloan, jjs@wintermute.ucr.edu +% +Microsoft is not the answer. +Microsoft is the question. +NO (or Linux) is the answer. + -- Taken from a .signature from someone from the UK, source unknown +% +In most countries selling harmful things like drugs is punishable. +Then howcome people can sell Microsoft software and go unpunished? + -- Hasse Skrifvars, hasku@rost.abo.fi, +% +Windows without the X is like making love without a partner. + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +Sex, Drugs & Linux Rules + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +win-nt from the people who invented edlin. + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +Apples have meant trouble since eden. + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +Linux, the way to get rid of boot viruses + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was +good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's +unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd +happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy. After +a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file, +and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do +a compile. + -- Erik Troan, ewt@tipper.oit.unc.edu +% +We are MicroSoft. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. + -- Attributed to B.G., Gill Bates +% +Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux + -- unknown source +% +Intel engineering seem to have misheard Intel marketing strategy. The +phrase was "Divide and conquer" not "Divide and cock up" + -- Alan Cox, iialan@www.linux.org.uk +% +Linux! Guerrilla UNIX Development Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus. + -- Mark A. Horton KA4YBR, mah@ka4ybr.com +% +----==-- _ / / \ +---==---(_)__ __ ____ __ / / /\ \ +--==---/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / / /_/\ \ \ +-=====/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ /______\ \ \ +A proud member of TeamLinux \_________\/ + -- CHaley (HAC), haley@unm.edu, ch008cth@pi.lanl.gov) +% +"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?" +Microsoft spel chekar vor sail, worgs grate !! + -- Felix von Leitner, leitner@inf.fu-berlin.de +% +Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to +be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they +can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the +HP-48 VT-100 emulator. + -- Jeff Dege, jdege@winternet.com +% +/* + * Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to + * terminate things with extreme prejudice. +*/ +die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code); + -- From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c +% +Linux: because a PC is a terrible thing to waste + -- ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93 +% +Linux: the choice of a GNU generation + -- ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93 +% +There are two types of Linux developers - those who can spell, and +those who can't. There is a constant pitched battle between the two. + -- From one of the post-1.1.54 kernel update messages posted to c.o.l.a +% +> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I +> > should use Linux over BSD? +> +> No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on +> creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it +> certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able +> to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the +> mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the +> name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too +> technical. + -- Linus Torvalds' follow-up to a question about Linux +% +> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF +> being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate". I don't think that +> it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it +> happening in the near future. I enjoy doing linux, even though it does +> mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid +> reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing +> negative so far). +> +> Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains: +> I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented +> that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse. +> If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me +> on c.o.minix. What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so +> far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something +> better of it (*). +> +> Linus +> +> (*) Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope. Does +> somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke. + -- Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux +% +> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping +> : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will +> : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff. +> : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so +> : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed. +> +> It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there +> really is a god. + -- Anthony Lovell, to Linus's remarks about porting +% +When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at +you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*". + -- Linus Torvalds +% +We come to bury DOS, not to praise it. + -- Paul Vojta, vojta@math.berkeley.edu +% +Be warned that typing \fBkillall \fIname\fP may not have the desired +effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user. + -- From the killall manual page +% +Note that if I can get you to "su and say" something just by asking, +you have a very serious security problem on your system and you should +look into it. + -- Paul Vixie, vixie-cron 3.0.1 installation notes +% +How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I +only coded it. + -- Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting +% +I develop for Linux for a living, I used to develop for DOS. +Going from DOS to Linux is like trading a glider for an F117. + -- Lawrence Foard, entropy@world.std.com +% +Absolutely nothing should be concluded from these figures except that +no conclusion can be drawn from them. + -- Joseph L. Brothers, Linux/PowerPC Project) +% +If the future navigation system [for interactive networked services on +the NII] looks like something from Microsoft, it will never work. + -- Chairman of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications +% +Problem solving under Linux has never been the circus that it is under +AIX. + -- Pete Ehlke in comp.unix.aix +% +I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than +first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then +I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts') + -- Olaf Kirch +% +On a normal ascii line, the only safe condition to detect is a 'BREAK' +- everything else having been assigned functions by Gnu EMACS. + -- Tarl Neustaedter +% +By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since +sliced bread. + -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power +% +I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development +That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you. + -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power +% +Oh, I've seen copies [of Linux Journal] around the terminal room at The Labs. + -- Dennis Ritchie +% +If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot +of different places, just write a Unix operating system. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero +outside. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead +sit in front of your linux computer playing with the all-new-and-improved +linux kernel version. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Besides, I think Slackware sounds better than 'Microsoft,' don't you? + -- Patrick Volkerding +% +All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... + -- Larry Wall +% +And the next time you consider complaining that running Lucid Emacs +19.05 via NFS from a remote Linux machine in Paraguay doesn't seem to +get the background colors right, you'll know who to thank. + -- Matt Welsh +% +Are Linux users lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of +reliable, well-engineered commercial software? + -- Matt Welsh +% +Even more amazing was the realization that God has Internet access. I +wonder if He has a full newsfeed? + -- Matt Welsh +% +I once witnessed a long-winded, month-long flamewar over the use of +mice vs. trackballs... It was very silly. + -- Matt Welsh +% +Linux poses a real challenge for those with a taste for late-night +hacking (and/or conversations with God). + -- Matt Welsh +% +What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through +these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot +water. + -- Matt Welsh +% +...Deep Hack Mode -- that mysterious and frightening state of +consciousness where Mortal Users fear to tread. + -- Matt Welsh +% +...Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and +the Ugly). + -- Matt Welsh +% +...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two +noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer* +being struck by lightning. + -- Matt Welsh +% +..you could spend *all day* customizing the title bar. Believe me. I +speak from experience. + -- Matt Welsh +% +[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I +thought of it. (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less +abusive.') + -- Matt Welsh +% +I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than +10 minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't. + -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center +% +...[Linux's] capacity to talk via any medium except smoke signals. + -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center +% +Whip me. Beat me. Make me maintain AIX. + -- Stephan Zielinski +% +Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse +for some of the brain-damages of minix. + -- Linus Torvalds to Andrew Tanenbaum +% +I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a +fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a +high grade for such a design :-) + -- Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds +% +We use Linux for all our mission-critical applications. Having the source code +means that we are not held hostage by anyone's support department. + -- Russell Nelson, President of Crynwr Software +% +Linux is obsolete + -- Andrew Tanenbaum +% +Dijkstra probably hates me. + -- Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c +% +And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports +on it, you know they are just evil lies. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated. + -- seen in someone's .signature +% +Linux: the operating system with a CLUE... Command Line User Environment. + -- seen in a posting in comp.software.testing +% +quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor + is terminated, regardless of where the quit state- + ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit" + will cause bc to terminate. + -- seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic +% +Sic transit discus mundi + -- From the System Administrator's Guide, by Lars Wirzenius +% +Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on +the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. + -- Craig E. Groeschel +% +We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds. + - Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amsterdam Linux + Symposium +% +Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white +light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In +a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM +FOR THE 386. + -- Matt Welsh +% +The chat program is in public domain. This is not the GNU public license. +If it breaks then you get to keep both pieces. + -- Copyright notice for the chat program +% +'Mounten' wird für drei Dinge benutzt: 'Aufsitzen' auf Pferde, 'einklinken' +von Festplatten in Dateisysteme, und, nun, 'besteigen' beim Sex. + -- Christa Keil +% +Manchmal stehe nachts auf und installier's mir einfach... + -- H0arry @ IRC +% +'Mounting' is used for three things: climbing on a horse, linking in a +hard disk unit in data systems, and, well, mounting during sex. + -- Christa Keil +% +We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours! + -- Adapted from Pat Paulsen by Joe Sloan +% +But what can you do with it? + -- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner +% +/* + * [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum + * possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP + * to talk to the University of Mars. + * PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented + * ftp to mars will work nicely. + */ + -- from /usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [round trip time] +% +DOS: n., A small annoying boot virus that causes random spontaneous system + crashes, usually just before saving a massive project. Easily cured by + UNIX. See also MS-DOS, IBM-DOS, DR-DOS. + -- David Vicker's .plan +% +MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years +of careful development. + -- dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca +% +LILO, you've got me on my knees! + -- David Black, dblack@pilot.njin.net, with apologies to Derek and the +Dominos, and Werner Almsberger +% +I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few +months. I just love debugging ;-) + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit +operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top +programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated +yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds +was unavailable for comment ... + -- Robert Manners, rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk, in comp.os.linux.setup +% +The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned. + -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X interfaces +% +After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new +folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or +speaker of intuitive likes". + -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X the intuitiveness of a Mac + interface +% +Now I know someone out there is going to claim, "Well then, UNIX is intuitive, +because you only need to learn 5000 commands, and then everything else follows +from that! Har har har!" + -- Andy Bates on "intuitive interfaces", slightly defending Macs +% +> No manual is ever necessary. +May I politely interject here: BULLSHIT. That's the biggest Apple lie of all! + -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces +% +How do I type "for i in *.dvi do xdvi $i done" in a GUI? + -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces +% +>Ever heard of .cshrc? +That's a city in Bosnia. Right? + -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands +% +Who wants to remember that escape-x-alt-control-left shift-b puts you into +super-edit-debug-compile mode? + -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands, especially Emacs +% +Anyone who thinks UNIX is intuitive should be forced to write 5000 lines of +code using nothing but vi or emacs. AAAAACK! + -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands, especially Emacs +% +Now, it we had this sort of thing: + yield -a for yield to all traffic + yield -t for yield to trucks + yield -f for yield to people walking (yield foot) + yield -d t* for yield on days starting with t + +...you'd have a lot of dead people at intersections, and traffic jams you +wouldn't believe... + -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands +% +Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of +filename completion. + -- Discussion on file completion vs. the Mac Finder +% +Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads +the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me... + -- More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc +% +On the Internet, no one knows you're using Windows NT + -- Submitted by Ramiro Estrugo, restrugo@fateware.com +% +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Disquieting ... + -- Gonzalo Tornaria in response to Linus Torvalds's +% +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals +then. + -- Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's +% +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Surely, Linus is talking about the kind of idiocy that others aspire to :-). + -- Bruce Perens in response to Linus Torvalds's +% +Never make any mistaeks. + -- Anonymous, in a mail discussion about to a kernel bug report +% ++#if defined(__alpha__) && defined(CONFIG_PCI) ++ /* ++ * The meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Plus ++ * this makes the year come out right. ++ */ ++ year -= 42; ++#endif + -- From the patch for 1.3.2: (kernel/time.c), submitted by Marcus Meissner +% +As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this +kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed. + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 +% +People disagree with me. I just ignore them. + -- Linus Torvalds, regarding the use of C++ for the Linux kernel +% +It's now the GNU Emacs of all terminal emulators. + -- Linus Torvalds, regarding the fact that Linux started off as a terminal + emulator +% +Audience: What will become of Linux when the Hurd is ready? +Eric Youngdale: Err... is Richard Stallman here? + -- From the Linux conference in spring '95, Berlin +% +Linux: The OS people choose without $200,000,000 of persuasion. + -- Mike Coleman +% +The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +... faster BogoMIPS calculations (yes, it now boots 2 seconds faster than +it used to: we're considering changing the name from "Linux" to "InstaBOOT" + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.26 +% +... of course, this probably only happens for tcsh which uses wait4(), +which is why I never saw it. Serves people who use that abomination +right 8^) + -- Linus Torvalds, about a patch that fixes getrusage for 1.3.26 +% +It's a bird.. +It's a plane.. +No, it's KernelMan, faster than a speeding bullet, to your rescue. +Doing new kernel versions in under 5 seconds flat.. + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 +% +Eh, that's it, I guess. No 300 million dollar unveiling event for this +kernel, I'm afraid, but you're still supposed to think of this as the +"happening of the century" (at least until the next kernel comes along). + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 +% +Oh, and this is another kernel in that great and venerable "BugFree(tm)" +series of kernels. So be not afraid of bugs, but go out in the streets +and deliver this message of joy to the masses. + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 +% +When you say 'I wrote a program that crashed Windows', people just stare at +you blankly and say 'Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*'. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-) + -- Unknown source +% +> Linux is not user-friendly. +It _is_ user-friendly. It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly. + -- Seen somewhere on the net +% +Keep me informed on the behaviour of this kernel.. As the "BugFree(tm)" +series didn't turn out too well, I'm starting a new series called the +"ItWorksForMe(tm)" series, of which this new kernel is yet another +shining example. + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.29 +% +Seriously, the way I did this was by using a special /sbin/loader binary +with debugging hooks that I made ("dd" is your friend: binary editors +are for wimps). + -- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver +% +(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as +I can tell even _they_ don't have it ;-) + -- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver +% +Q: Why shouldn't I simply delete the stuff I never use, it's just taking up + space? +A: This question is in the category of Famous Last Words.. + -- From the Frequently Unasked Questions +% +Q: What's the big deal about rm, I have been deleting stuff for years? And + never lost anything.. oops! +A: ... + -- From the Frequently Unasked Questions +% +Linux is addictive, I'm hooked! + -- MaDsen Wikholm's .sig +% +panic("Foooooooood fight!"); + -- In the kernel source aha1542.c, after detecting a bad segment list +% +Convention organizer to Linus Torvalds: "You might like to come with us +to some licensed[1] place, and have some pizza." + +Linus: "Oh, I did not know that you needed a license to eat pizza". + +[1] Licensed - refers in Australia to a restaurant which has government +licence to sell liquor. + -- Linus at a talk at the Melbourne University +% +Footnotes are for things you believe don't really belong in LDP manuals, +but want to include anyway. + -- Joel N. Weber II discussing the 'make' chapter of LPG +% +Eh, that's it, I guess. No 300 million dollar unveiling event for this +kernel, I'm afraid, but you're still supposed to think of this as the +"happening of the century" (at least until the next kernel comes along). +Oh, and this is another kernel in that great and venerable "BugFree(tm)" +series of kernels. So be not afraid of bugs, but go out in the streets +and deliver this message of joy to the masses. + -- Linus Torvalds, on releasing 1.3.27 +% +Ok, I'm just uploading the new version of the kernel, v1.3.33, also +known as "the buggiest kernel ever". + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Go not unto the Usenet for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (and +quite a few things that just have nothing at all to do with the question). + -- seen in a .sig somewhere +% +Those who don't understand Linux are doomed to reinvent it, poorly. + -- unidentified source +% +Look, I'm about to buy me a double barreled sawed off shotgun and show +Linus what I think about backspace and delete not working. + -- some anonymous .signature +% +I forgot to mention an important fact in the 1.3.67 announcement. In order to +get a fully working kernel, you have to follow the steps below: + - Walk around your computer widdershins 3 times, chanting "Linus is + overworked, and he makes lousy patches, but we love him anyway". Get + your spuouse to do this too for extra effect. Children are optional. + - Apply the patch included in this mail + - Call your system "Super-67", and don't forget to unapply the patch + before you later applying the official 1.3.68 patch. + - reboot + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch +% +We apologize for the inconvenience, but we'd still like yout to test out +this kernel. + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch +% +The new Linux anthem will be "He's an idiot, but he's ok", as performed by +Monthy Python. You'd better start practicing. + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch +% +How do you power off this machine? + -- Linus, when upgrading linux.cs.helsinki.fi, and after using the machine + for several months +% +Excusing bad programming is a shooting offence, no matter _what_ the +circumstances. + -- Linus Torvalds, to the linux-kernel list +% +Linus? Whose that? + -- clueless newbie on #Linux +% +N: Phil Lewis +E: beans@bucket.ualr.edu +D: Promised to send money if I would put his name in the source tree. +S: PO Box 371 +S: North Little Rock, Arkansas 72115 +S: US + -- /usr/src/linux/CREDITS +% +> You know you are "there" when you are known by your first name, and +> are recognized. +> Lemmie see, there is Madonna, and Linus, and ..... help me out here! +Bill ? ;-) + -- From some postings on comp.os.linux.misc +% +Whoa...I did a 'zcat /vmlinuz > /dev/audio' and I think I heard God... + -- mikecd on #Linux +% +Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the +grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin +charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what +they say if they had. + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing Linux v2.0 +% +MS-DOS, you can't live with it, you can live without it. + -- from Lars Wirzenius' .sig +% +> If you don't need X then little VT-100 terminals are available for real +> cheap. Should be able to find decent ones used for around $40 each. +> For that price, they're a must for the kitchen, den, bathrooms, etc.. :) +You're right. Can you explain this to my wife? + -- Seen on c.o.l.development.system, on the subject of extra terminals +% +.. I used to get in more fights with SCO than I did my girlfriend, but +now, thanks to Linux, she has more than happily accepted her place back at +number one antagonist in my life.. + -- Jason Stiefel, krypto@s30.nmex.com +% +I mean, well, if it were not for Linux I might be roaming the streets looking +for drugs or prostitutes or something. Hannu and Linus have my highest +admiration (apple polishing mode off). + -- Phil Lewis, plewis@nyx.nyx.net +% +> What does ELF stand for (in respect to Linux?) +ELF is the first rock group that Ronnie James Dio performed with back in +the early 1970's. In constrast, a.out is a misspelling of the French word +for the month of August. What the two have in common is beyond me, but +Linux users seem to use the two words together. + -- seen on c.o.l.misc +% +"Linux was made by foreign terrorists to take money from true US companies +like Microsoft." - Some AOL'er. +"To this end we dedicate ourselves..." -Don + -- From the sig of "Don", don@cs.byu.edu +% +Shoot me again. +Just proving that the quickest way to solve the problem is to post a +whine to the newsgroups: within moments the solution presents itself to +me, and meanwhile my ass is hanging out on the Net... *sigh*... + -- Dave Phillips, dlphilp@bright.net, about problem solving via news +% +> Is there any hope for me? Am I just thick? Does anyone remember the +> Rubiks Cube, it was easier! +I found that the Rubiks cube and Linux are alike. Looks real confusing +until you read the right book. :-) + -- seen on c.o.l.misc, about the "Linux Learning Curve" +% +> I've hacked the Xaw3d library to give you a Win95 like interface and it +> is named Xaw95. You can replace your Xaw3d library. +Oh God, this is so disgusting! + -- seen on c.o.l.development.apps, about the "Win95 look-alike" +% +Besides, its really not worthwhile to use more than two times your physical +ram in swap (except in a select few situations). The performance of the system +becomes so abysmal you'd rather heat pins under your toenails while reciting +Windows95 source code and staring at porn flicks of Bob Dole than actually try +to type something. + -- seen on c.o.l.development.system, about the size of the swap space +% +> I get the following error messages at bootup, could anyone tell me +> what they mean? +> fcntl_setlk() called by process 51 (lpd) with broken flock() emulation +They mean that you have not read the documentation when upgrading the +kernel. + -- seen on c.o.l.misc +% +Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff +on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;) + -- Linus Torvalds, about his failing hard drive on linux.cs.helsinki.fi +% +One of the things that hamper Linux's climb to world domination is the +shortage of bad Computer Role Playing Games, or CRaPGs. No operating system +can be considered respectable without one. + -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie +% +The game, anoraks.2.0.0.tgz, will be available from sunsite until somebody +responsible notices it and deletes it, and shortly from +ftp.mee.tcd.ie/pub/Brian, though they don't know that yet. + -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie +% +'Ooohh.. "FreeBSD is faster over loopback, when compared to Linux +over the wire". Film at 11.' + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Q: Would you like to see the WINE list? +A: What's on it, anything expensive? +Q: No, just Solitaire and MineSweeper for now, but the WINE is free. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, about the WINdows Emulator +% +So in the future, one 'client' at a time or you'll be spending CPU time with +lots of little 'child processes'. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the private life of a Linux nerd +% +By the way, I can hardly feel sorry for you... All last night I had to listen +to her tears, so great they were redirected to a stream. What? Of _course_ +you didn't know. You and your little group no longer have any permissions +around here. She changed her .lock files, too. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the private life of a Linux nerd +% +We should start referring to processes which run in the background by their +correct technical name... paenguins. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo +% +We can use symlinks of course... syslogd would be a symlink to syslogp and +ftpd and ircd would be linked to ftpp and ircp... and of course the +point-to-point protocal paenguin. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo +% +This is a logical analogy too... anyone who's been around, knows the world is +run by paenguins. Always a paenguin behind the curtain, really getting things +done. And paenguins in politics--who can deny it? + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo +% +Linux: Where Don't We Want To Go Today? + -- Submitted by Pancrazio De Mauro, paraphrasing some well-known sales talk +% +The most important design issue... is the fact that Linux is supposed to +be fun... + -- Linus Torvalds at the First Dutch International Symposium on Linux +% +In short, at least give the penguin a fair viewing. If you still don't +like it, that's ok: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do. + -- Linus "what, me arrogant?" Torvalds, on c.o.l.advocacy +% + what's the difference between chattr and chmod? + SomeLamer: man chattr > 1; man chmod > 2; diff -u 1 2 | less + -- Seen on #linux on irc +% +The linuX Files -- The Source is Out There. + -- Sent in by Craig S. Bell, goat@aracnet.com +% +"... being a Linux user is sort of like living in a house inhabited +by a large family of carpenters and architects. Every morning when +you wake up, the house is a little different. Maybe there is a new +turret, or some walls have moved. Or perhaps someone has temporarily +removed the floor under your bed." - Unix for Dummies, 2nd Edition + -- found in the .sig of Rob Riggs, rriggs@tesser.com +% +C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success + -- Dennis M. Ritchie +% +If Bill Gates is the Devil then Linus Torvalds must be the Messiah. + -- Unknown source +% +Vini, vidi, Linux! + -- Unknown source +% +Checking host system type... +i586-unknown-linux +configure: error: sorry, this is the gnu os, not linux + -- Topic on #Linux +% +It's easy to get on the internet and forget you have a life + -- Topic on #LinuxGER +% +To kick or not to kick... + -- Somewhere on IRC, inspired by Shakespeare +% +Linux - Where do you want to fly today? + -- Unknown source +% +The easiest way to get the root password is to become system admin. + -- Unknown source +% +The good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. + -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum +% +The primary difference [...] is that the Java programm will reliably and +obviously crash, whereas the C Program will do something obscure + -- Java Language Tutorial +% +LOAD "LINUX",8,1 + -- Topic on #LinuxGER +% +Old MacLinus had a stack/l-i-n-u-x/and on this stack he had a trace/l-i-n-u-x +with an Oops-Oops here and an Oops-Oops there +here an Oops, there an Oops, everywhere an Oops-Oops. + -- tjimenez@site.gmu.edu, linux.dev.kernel +% +Also another major deciding factor is availability of source code. +It just gives everybody a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that there is +source code available to the product you are using. It allows everybody +to improve on the product and fix bugs etc. sooner that the author(s) +would get the time/chance to. + -- Atif Khan +% +> Also another major deciding factor is availability of source code. +> It just gives everybody a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that there is +> source code available to the product you are using. It allows everybody +> to improve on the product and fix bugs etc. sooner that the author(s) +> would get the time/chance to. + +I think this is one the really BIG reasons for the snowball/onslaught +of Linux and the wealth of stuff available that gets enhanced faster +than the real vendors can keep up. + -- Norman +% +Not only Guinness - Linux is good for you, too. + -- Banzai on IRC +% +> NE-2000 clone. Pentium optimizing gcc (pentium gcc pl8 I think). + ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ + +Build a kernel with the proper gcc. Reports with a non standard compiler +are useless. + -- Alan Cox +% +BTW: I have a better name for the software .... Microsoft Internet +Exploder. + -- George Bonser +% +Well, since MS can't be sure of the username of someone downloading +things, they are going to play it safe and have everything downloaded +and executed by Explorer as suid root. That way, it will run on ANY +system anywhere. :) + -- George Bonser +% +If you really want pure ASCII, save it as text... or browse +it with your favorite browser... + -- Alexandre Maret +% +Sorry for mailing this article, I've obviously made a typo (168!=186) +that's the price for being up all night and doing some "quick" +checks before you go to bed .... + -- Herbert Rosmanith +% +Just to remind everyone. Today, Sept 17, is Linux's 5th birthday. So +happy birthday to all on the list. Thanks go out to Linus and all the +other hard-working maintainers for 5 wonderful fast paced years! + -- William E. Roadcap +% +Exporting beer from Finnland doesn't seem to be that much of a hassle, +as the Lenigrad Cowboys brought a lot of their brew to the concerts in +Austria. + -- Otmar Lendl +% +Beeping is cute, if you are in the office ;) + -- Alan Cox +% +> Where in the US is Linus? + +He was in the "Promise Land". + -- David S. Miller +% +> Yeah, Linus is in the US. +> +> His source trees are in Finland. + + OK, someone give him access -fast- ...... ;-) + -- babydr@nwrain.net, because of problems with the kernel +% +Subject: Linux box finds it hard to wake up in the morning + +I've heard of dogs being like their owners, but Linux boxen? + -- Peter Hunter +% +Win 95 is simplified for the user: + +User: What does this configuration thing do? +You: It allows you to modify your settings, for networking, + hardware, protocols, ... +User: Whoa! Layman's terms, please! +You: It changes stuff. +User: That's what I'm looking for! What can it change? +You: This part changes IP forwarding. It allows ... +User: Simplify, simplify! What can it do for ME? +You: Nothing, until you understand it. +User: Well it makes me uncomfortable. It looks so technical; + Get rid of it, I want a system *I* can understand. +You: But... +User: Hey, whose system is this anyway? +You: (... rm this, rm that, rm /etc/* ...) "All done." + -- Kevin M. Bealer +% +*** PUBLIC flooding detected from erikyyy + THAT's an erik, pholx.... ;) + -- Seen on #LinuxGER +% +I've no idea when Linus is going to release 2.0.24, but if he takes +too long Im going to release a 2.0.24unoff and he can sound off all +he likes. + -- Alan Cox +% +All the existing 2.0.x kernels are too buggy for 2.1.x to be the +main goal. + -- Alan Cox +% +Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. + -- Pablo Picasso +% +martin@bdsi.com (no longer valid - where are you now, Martin?) + -- from /usr/src/linux/drivers/cdrom/mcd.c +% +[...] or some clown changed the chips on a board and not its name. +(Don't laugh! Look at the SMC etherpower for that.) + -- from /usr/src/linux/MAINTAINERS +% +REST: +P: Linus Torvalds +S: Buried alive in email + -- from /usr/src/linux/MAINTAINERS +% + Why use Windows when you can have air conditioning? + Why use Windows, when you can leave through the door? + -- Konrad Blum +% +Netscape is not a newsreader, and probably never shall be. + -- Tom Christiansen +% +I think it's time to remove Qt and Qt-derived applications from the distributon. +By distributing it, we only encourage authors to create restrictive licenses. + -- Bruce Perens +% +If someone can point me to a good and _FREE_ backup software that keeps +track of which files get stored on which tape, we can change to it. + -- Mike Neuffer, admin of i-Connect Corp. +% +Whoa, first contact! + +[...] + +Welcome, from the people of Terra (Sol III). We extend our hands in +friendship, and sincerely hope you shall do the same with your +hand-equivelents. + -- Jason Burrell about a russian posting +% +> Whoa, first contact! + +Nope, 'fraid not, Linux is still primarily used on planet Earth, I'm +afraid. + +Our friend here sent a message in Russian (KOI8-R encoding). + -- Aleksey Kliger, explaining a russian posting +% +There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of +something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit. + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +1648 files (84%) out of the files that I mirror disappeared. Since +my delete threshold was set at 90%, all those files are now missing +from my hard drive. It's going to take a loooong time to fetch those +again via 14.4kbps! + -- Brian C. White +% +> What is the status of Linux' Unicode implementation. Will Linux +> be prepared for the first contact? + +We have full klingon console support just in case + -- Alan Cox on linux-kernel +% +"You, sir, are nothing but a pathetically lame salesdroid! +I fart in your general direction!" + -- Randseed on #Linux +% +* Jes wonders why so many people in here uses fooZZZZZ and foo_sleeping nicks + Jes: Because they are sleeping? + -- Seen on #Linux +% +* gb notes that fdisk thinks his cdrom can store one terabyte + -- Seen on #Linux +% +Check it out, send me comments, and dance joyously in the streets, + -- Linus Torvalds announcing 2.0.27 +% +AP/STT. Helsinki, Dec 5th, 6:22 AM. For immediate release. + +In order to allay fears about the continuity of the Linux project, Linus +Torvalds together with his manager Tove Monni have released "Linus +v2.0", affectionately known as "Kernel Hacker - The Next Generation". + +Linux stock prices on Wall Street rose sharply after the announcement; +as one well-known analyst who wishes to remain anonymous says - "It +shows a long-term commitment, and while we expect a short-term decrease +in productivity, we feel that this solidifies the development in the +long run". + +Other analysts downplay the importance of the event, and claim that just +about anybody could have done it. "I'm glad somebody finally told them +about the birds and the bees" one sceptic comments cryptically. But +even the skeptics agree that it is an interesting turn of events. + +Others bring up other issues with the new version - "I'm especially +intrigued by the fact that the new version is female, and look forward +to seeing what the impact of that will be on future development. Will +"Red Hat Linux" change to "Pink Hat Linux", for example?" + -- Linus Torvalds announcing that he became father of a girl +% +Sex dumps core +(Sex is a Simple editor for X11) + -- Seen on debian bugtracking +% +I tried the clone syscall on me, but it didn't work. + -- Mike Neuffer trying to fix a serious time problem +% +- long f_ffree; /* free file nodes in fs */ ++ long f_ffree; /* freie Dateiknoten im Dateisystem */ + -- Seen in a translation +% +* Phaedrus wishes he could get a machine that consists of Sparc IO, + Alpha Processors and sleek design of an SGI + And intel prices + -- Seen on #Linux +% + damn my office is cold. + need a hot secretary to warm it up. + -- Seen on #Linux +% +This is a scsi driver, scraes the shit out of me, therefore I tapdanced +and wrote a unix clone around it (C) by linus + -- Somewhere in the kernel tree +% + * This is complicated. Has to do with interrupts. Thus, I am + * scared witless. Therefore I refuse to write this function. :-P + -- From the maclinux patch +% +Yes I have a Machintosh, please don't scream at me. + -- Larry Blumette on linux-kernel +% + any new sendmail hole I have to fix before going on vacations? + -- Seen on #Linux +% +AUTHOR +FvwmAuto just appeared one day, nobody knows how. + -- FvwmAuto(1x) +% + Fairlight: udp is the light margarine of tcp/ip transport protocols :) + -- Seen on #Linux +% +I don't even know if it makes sense at all :) This is an experimental patch +for an experimental kernel :)) + -- Ingo Molnar on linux-kernel +% +Linux - Das System fuer schlaue Maedchen ;) + -- banshee +% +If loving linux is wrong, I don't wanna be right. + -- Topic for #LinuxGER +% +>>> FreeOS is an english-centric name + +Have you all been stuck in email, or have any of you tried +*pronouncing* that? free-oh-ess? free-ows? fritos? :-) + -- Mark Eichin +% +The documentation is in Japanese. Good luck. + -- Rich $alz +% +People are going to scream bloody murder about that. + -- Seen on linux-kernel +% +> 1. is qmail as secure as they say? + +Depends on what they were saying, but most likely yes. + -- Seen on debian-devel +% +NEVER RESPOND TO CRITICAL PRESS. IT IS A GAME YOU CAN ONLY LOSE, AND IT +MAKES US LOOK BAD. + -- Bruce Perens +% +A feature is nothing more than a bug with seniority. + -- Unknown source +% +Winnuke in one line? No problem: +perl -MIO::Socket -e \ +'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)' + +And formatted so it's a little easier to read: + + #!/usr/bin/perl + use IO::Socket; + IO::Socket::INET + ->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139") + ->send("bye", MSG_OOB); + + -- Randal Schwartz +% +If a 'train station' is where a train stops, what's a 'workstation'? +% +Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. +% +"We don't do a new version to fix bugs." - Bill Gates +"The new version - it's not there to fix bugs." - Bill Gates + -- Retranslated from Focus 43/1995, pp. 206-212 +% +The POP3 server service depends on the SMTP server service, which +failed to start because of the following error: +The operation completed successfully. + -- Windows NT Server v3.51 +% +Software is like sex; it's better when it's free. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +vi is [[13~^[[15~^[[15~^[[19~^[[18~^ a +muk[^[[29~^[[34~^[[26~^[[32~^ch better editor than this emacs. I know +I^[[14~'ll get flamed for this but the truth has to be +said. ^[[D^[[D^[[D^[[D ^[[D^[^[[D^[[D^[[B^ +exit ^X^C quit :x :wq dang it :w:w:w :x ^C^C^Z^D + -- Jesper Lauridsen from alt.religion.emacs +% +oh okay. my mistake. + +Yafcot:atj(*), + +mark + +* Yet another fool coming over this: according to joey + -- mark@mail.novare.net +% +Sorry. I just realized this sentance makes no sense :) + -- Ian Main +% +Netscape is not a newsreader, and probably never shall be. + -- Tom Christiansen +% +Stopping Apache webserver...sleeping...starting again... +apache: dl-version.c:189: + _dl_check_map_versions: Assertion `needed != ((void *)0)' failed +noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo + -- netgod on #Debian at LISC +% +Make it idiot-proof, and someone will breed a better idiot. + -- Oliver Elphick +% +#Debian makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :) + -- HippieGuy on #Debian +% + I know. Unless htere is a cookie monster somewhere between us tat +muches the amil. + amil/mail + muches/munches tat/that htere/there + heheh + problems? :) +* Myxie needs an ircii addon that pipes teh command line through ispell :) + -- Seen on #Debian +% +ECRC hat keine lynx komp. seiten, sowas MUSS ja pleite gehen ;-)= + -- Getty on #LinuxGER +% +Uh... deity is a word, and diety isn't. + +Or is it supposed to be one of those recursive acronyms? Diety Is +Excellent To You. Deity Eats Icecream That's Yellow. Diety Is +Eloping To Yokohama. I'll stop now. + -- Guy Maor +% +Why are there always boycotts? Shouldn't there be girlcotts too? + -- argon on #Linux +% + Anyone want the new supermount? :) + whats new about it + klogd: It cleans whiter than white. :) + -- Seen on #Linux +% +Und die Tastaturabrdücke auf Ihrer Wange unterstreichen seeeeeehr +vorteilhaft ihr unterschütterliches Vertrauen in die moderene +Technologie + -- Agent Gully in "Die eXakten" +% +- DDD no longer requires the librx library. Consequently, librx + errors can no more cause DDD to crash. + -- DDD +% +snafu = Situation Normal All F%$*ed up +% +It's computer hardware, of course it's worth having + -- Espy on #Debian +% +Alan E. Davis: Some files at llug.sep.bnl.gov/pub/debian/Incoming are +stamped on 10 January 1998. As I write, nowhere on Earth is it now 10 January. + +Craig Sanders: That just proves how advanced debian is, doesn't it :-) + -- debian-devel +% +Computers are like air conditioners. Both stop working, if you open windows. + -- Adam Heath +% +I am NOT a kludge! I am a computer! + -- tts +% + gorgo: *lol* + joey: what's so funny? :) + shh, joey is losing all sanity from lack of sleep + 'yes joey, very funny' + Humor him :> + -- Seen on #Debian +% +* SynrG notes that the number of configuration questions to answer in sendmail + is NON-TRIVIAL + -- Seen on #Debian +% +My apologies if I sound angry. I feel like I'm talking to a void. + -- Avery Pennarun +% +RIP is irrelevant. Spoofing is futile. Your routes will be aggregated. + -- Alex Yuriev +% +After 14 non-maintainer releases, I'm the S-Lang non-maintainer. + -- Ray Dassen +% +BREAKFAST.COM Halted... Cereal Port Not Responding. +% +* JHM wonders what Joey did to earn "I'd just like to say, for the record, + that Joey rules." + -- Seen on #Debian +% +Steal my cash, car and TV - but leave the computer! + -- Soenke Lange +% +The only really good reason I can think to not release specs is +embarrassment on just how crappy some hardware out there is, or just how +buggy it is. + -- Chris Wedgwood +% +> Alan Cox wrote: +[..] + +No I didn't. Someone else wrote that. Please keep attributions +straight. + -- From linux-kernel +% +Do people like check the Debian website every 5 minutes to check it hasn't +morphed into another one? +Not that I'm one to talk, but some people seriously need to get a life + -- james on #Debian +% +... Linux und seine Programme sind damit so etwas wie ein real existierender +Sozialismus der besseren Art ... + -- Christian Seel in der Berliner Morgenpost v. 9.3.1997 +% +* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the splits +in the first place... +* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress + -- Seen on #Debian +% + * In anticipation of 2.10.02 release, updated to patchlevel + +ircu2.10.01+.config6-7.config7-8.lgline3.iwho.limit.glibc.motdcache2. + trace.whois1-2.config8-9.statsw.sprintf2-3.msgtree2.memleak1-2+. + msgtree2-3.gline8-9.gline9-10.invite2.rbr.stats.numclients.whisper. + whisper1-2.stats1-2.nokick1-2.chroot.config9-11.snomask7-8.limi+t1-3. + userip1-3.userip3-4.config11-12.config12-13.umode2-3.akillsbt.who4-5. + kn.kn1-2.freebsdcore2.msgtree3-5.y2k.glibc1-2.rmfunc.msgf+lags2. + who5-6.nickchange2.glibc2-3.modeless3 + -- From the annoucement of ircd 2.10.01-3 for Debian GNU/Linux +% +* Joey should not write changelog entries at 5:30am + * DFSC Free cgi library + What's that? DFSC? + Debian Free Software mroooooCows + -- Seen on #Debian +% + this guy _is_ crazy + posix: from the looks of Enlightenment he's on LSD + LSD is nothing compared to what this guy's on.. + -- Seen on #Unix +% +On Netscape GPLing their browser: ``How can you trust a browser that +ANYONE can hack? For the secure choice, choose Microsoft.'' + -- in a comment on slashdot.org +% +Turn right here. No! NO! The OTHER right! +% +#define FALSE 0 /* This is the naked Truth */ +#define TRUE 1 /* and this is the Light */ + -- mailto.c +% + How do I bind a computer to an NIS server? + Use a rope? + -- Seen on #Debian +% +Try to remove the color-problem by restarting your computer several times. + -- Microsoft-Internet Explorer README.TXT +% +Does biff in bo work +coz it biffin doesn't beep +an if biff in bo is broke +then biff in bo I will delete + +I've tried biff in bo with 'y' +I've tried biff in bo with '-y' +no biffin output does it show +so poor wee biff is gonna go. + -- John Spence on debian-user +% +Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror +it. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +One tree to rule them all, +One tree to find them, +One tree to bring them all, +and to itself bind them. + -- Gavin Koch +% +As I currently don't have a floppy drive in my computer, I'd like to +make an `emergency cdrom' ;) + -- Eugene Crosser +% +Alan Cox wrote: +>> On any procmail new enough not to be full of security holes you set +>Brain on, Imeant majordomo of course 8) +You got me worried there for a brief (very brief) moment :-). + -- Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless) +% + seen jhm + jhm is Sarek, and jhm is on the channel right now! +* JHM wonders why dpkg remembers that particular nick. + dpkg: Sarek? ermm, sure, and I am Khan + -- Seen on #Debian +% +When you have 200 programmers trying to write code for one +product, like Win95 or NT, what you get is a multipule personality +program. By definition, the real problem is that these programs are +psychotic by nature and make people crazy when they use them. + -- Joan Brewer on alt.destroy.microsoft +% + Hah! we have 2 Johnie Ingrams in the channel :) + Hey all btw :) +% +I just uploaded xtoolplaces-1.6. It fixes all bugs but one: It still +coredumps instead of doing something useful. The upstream author's +e-mail address bounces, Redhat doesn't provide it and I never used it. + -- Sven Rudolph +% +> I thing you're missing the capability of Makefiles. + + It takes several _hours_ to do `make' a second time on my +machine with the latest glibc sources (and no files are recompiled a +second time). I think I'll remove `build' after changing one file if +I want to recompile it. + -- Juan Cespedes +% + aIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 + MY LIGHT JUST DIED + I AM SO SAD + I'm blind! I'm blind! + Light? + Turn all your xterms to black-on-white :) Plenty of light that way. + -- Seen on #Debian +% +| |-sshd---tcsh-+-dpkg-buildpacka---rules---sh---make---make---sh +---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make + -- While packaging XFree86 for Debian GNU/Linux +% +/* + * Please skip to the bottom of this file if you ate lunch recently + * -- Alan + */ + -- from Linux kernel pre-2.1.91-1 +% +#if _FP_W_TYPE_SIZE < 64 +#error "Only stud muffins allowed, schmuck." +#endif + -- linux/arch/sparc64/quad.c +% +#if _FP_W_TYPE_SIZE < 32 +#error "Here's a nickel kid. Go buy yourself a real computer." +#endif + -- linux/arch/sparc64/double.h +% + eat Depends: cook | eat-out. + But eat-out is non-free so that's out. + And cook Recommends: clean-pans. + -- Seen on #Debian +% +* Linux Viruscan..... + Windows 95 found. Remove it? (Y/y) + -- Unknown source +% + need help: my first packet to my provider gets lost :-( + sel: don't send the first one, start with #2 +* netgod is kidding +% +These download files are in Microsoft Word 6.0 format. After +unzipping, these files can be viewed in any text editor, including +all versions of Microsoft Word, WordPad, and Microsoft Word Viewer + -- From Micro$oft +% +Ooh, mommy, mommy, what I have now doesn't work in this extremely +unlikely circumstance, so I'll just throw it away and write something +completely new. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +#ifdef __SMP__ +#error "Me no hablo Alpha SMP" +#else +#define irq_enter(cpu, irq) (++local_irq_count[cpu]) +#define irq_exit(cpu, irq) (--local_irq_count[cpu]) +#endif + -- from kernel 2.1.90, arch/alpha/kernel/irc.c +% +Linus Torvalds: +> This is the special Easter release of linux, more mundanely called 1.3.84 +Winfried Truemper: +> Umh, oh. What do you mean by "special easter release"?. Will it quit +> working today and rise on easter? +% +I never thought that I'd see the day where Netscape is free software and +X11 is proprietary. We live in interesting times. + -- Matt Kimball +% +Because I don't need to worry about finances I can ignore Microsoft +and take over the (computing) world from the grassroots. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +/* + * Buddy system. Hairy. You really aren't expected to understand this + * + */ + -- From /usr/src/linux/mm/page_alloc.cA +% +baz bat bamus batis bant. + -- James Troup +% +Just go ahead and write your own multitasking multiuser os! +Worked for me all the times. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +I've seen people with new children before, they go from ultra happy to +looking like something out of a zombie film in about a week. + -- Alan Cox about Linus after his 2nd daughter +% +I expect that no one has objections. However, if I'd only add these entries +to the list because `I think it's the right thing to do', I'd get a lot of +flames afterwards :) + -- Christian Schwarz +% +Various documentation updates and bugfixes (the best way to know that a +stable kernel is approaching is to notice that somebody starts to +spellcheck the kernel - it has so far never failed) + -- Linus Torvalds in the annoucement for pre-2.1.99-3 +% +You will not censor me through bug terrorism. + -- James Troup +% + Thinking is dangerous. It leads to ideas. + -- Seen on #Debian +% + Are we going to make an emacs out of apt? + APT - Debian in a program. It even does your laundry + -- Seen on #Debian +% + Do you mean to say that I can read mail with vi too? ;-) + Didn't you know that? + :r /var/spool/mail/jk + -- debian-mentors +% +Charles Briscoe-Smith : + After all, the gzip package is called `gzip', not `libz-bin'... + +James Troup : + Uh, probably because the gzip binary doesn't come from the + non-existent libz package or the existent zlib package. + -- debian-bugs-dist +% +Debian is like Suse with yast turned off, just better. :) + -- Goswin Brederlow +% +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. +% +The truth is not free. It's that simple. If you change the truth, it is no +longer true - so the truth is not free! + -- Jules Bean about freeness of documentation +% + Lemme make sure I'm not wasting time here... bcwhite will remove + pkgs that havent been fixed that have outstanding bugs of severity + "important". True or false? + jim: "important" or higher. True. + Then we're about to lose ftp.debian.org and dpkg :) +* netgod will miss dpkg -- it was occasionally useful + We still have rpm.... + -- Seen on #Debian +% +* JHM wonders what Joey did to earn "I'd just like to say, for the record, + that Joey rules." + -- Seen on #Debian +% +The problem here (as someon else stated) is that when multiple dists +use the same package format it only gives a "false sense of compatibility". + -- Stephen Carpenter +% +*** Rince is wagner@schizo.DAINet.de (We have Joey, we have Fun, we have Linux +on a Sun) + -- Seen on #Debian +% +... Linux und seine Programme sind damit +so etwas wie ein real existierender Sozialismus der besseren Art... + -- Christian Seel in der Berliner Morgenpost v. 9.3.1997 +% +The most effective has probably been Linux/8086 - that was a joke +that got out of hand. So far out of hand in fact its almost approaching +usability because other folks thought it worth doing - Alistair Riddoch +especially. + -- Alan Cox +% +The only other people who might benefit from Linux8086 would be owners +of PDP/11's and other roomsized computers from the same era. + -- Alan Cox +% +Ha. I say let them try -- even vi+perl couldn't match the power of an +editor which is, after all, its own OS. ;-) + -- Johnie Ingram on debian-devel, about linking vim with libperl.so +% +Being overloaded is the sign of a true Debian maintainer. + -- JHM on #Debian +% + joey--very clever !!! + joey--no wonder that Debian is a good distrib with coder like you + -- Seen on #Debian (referring to my RAID article for the LJ) +% +There are 3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can't. + -- Unknown source +% +Despite the best efforts of a quantum bigfoot drive (yes I know everyone +told me they suck, now I know they were right) 2.1.109ac1 is now available + -- Alan Cox announcing Linux 2.1.109ac1 +% + Turns out that grep returns error code 1 when there are no matches. + I KNEW that. Why did it take me half an hour? + -- Seen on #Debian +% +It's simply unbelievable how much energy and creativity people have +invested into creating contradictory, bogus and stupid licenses... + --- Sven Rudolph about licences in debian/non-free. +% + partycle: I seriously do need a vacation from this + package. I actually had a DREAM about introducing a + stupid new bug into xbase-preinst last night. That's a + Bad Sign. + -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0 +% + i'm glad Debian finally got into + polar-deep-freeze-we-arent-shitting-you state finally. + -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0 +% + Looks like the channel is back to normal :) + You mean it's not scrolling faster than anyone can read? :) + -- Seen on #Debian after the release of Debian 2.0 +% +Alex Buell: +Or how about a Penguin logo painted in really really trippy +colours, and emblazoned with the word LSD. :o) + +Geert Uytterhoeven: +We already had that one, but unfortunately Russell King fixed that nasty +palette bug in drivers/video/fbcon.c :-) + -- linux-kernel +% +Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, +so if people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses +based on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better. + -- Richard Stallman +% +Außerdem noch [..] die Distribution für Puristen, denen technische +Eleganz und Qualität und philosophisch reine Lehre der `freien Software' +über totale Einfachheit geht (Debian) und viele mehr. + -- Anselm Lingnau in de.comp.os.unix.discussion +% +Fehlermeldung von StarOffice: + +Das Dokument wurde fuer den Drucker Generic PostScript Printer formatiert. +Der Drucker ist nicht vorhanden. Soll der Standarddrucker Generic +PostScript Printer verwendet werden? + +Ob Programme schizophren werden koennen? + -- Oliver Bedford +% +No, that's wrong too. Now there's a race condition between the rm and +the mv. Hmm, I need more coffee. + -- Guy Maor on Debian Bug#25228 +% +Perhaps the RBLing (Realtime Black Hole) of msn.com recently, which +prevented a large amount of mail going out for about 4 days, has had a +positive influence in Redmond. They did agree to work on their anti-relay +capabilities at their POPs to get the RBL lifted. + -- Bill Campbell on Smail3-users +% +Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it receives a response +to a DNS query that was never made. Fix Information: Run your DNS +service on a different platform. + -- bugtraq +% +I am amazed that no-one's based a commercial distribution on Debian +yet - it is by far the most solid UNIX-like OS I've ever installed, +and I've played with HP/UX, Solaris, FreeBSD, BSDi, and SCO (not to +mention OS/2, Novell, Win95/NT) + -- Nathan E. Norman +% +Jim> http://www.novare.net/~eam/kaffe/ +Joey> ^ +Joey> And now we all learn how to write Ean's name and the URL is complete. +Jim> Hah! I noticed that the instead I sent it, and I tried to hit ^g, but + I was too slow. :-) + --- debian-devel +% +Die TeX-Artikel [..] aber doch inzwischen wohl nicht mehr an den +Fingern zweier Hände abzählbar (außer vielleicht von Informatikern, +die bekanntlich mit den Fingern bis 1023 zählen können. + -- Anselm Lingnau +% +And Bruce is effectively building BruceIX + -- Alan Cox +% + I will be known as Ian Black, Ean can be Ian Red, Netgod Ian Blue, + Che gets Ian Yellow, CQ is Ian Purple and Joey is Ian Indigo + -- Some #Debian channel +% +When a float occurs on the same page as the start of a supertabular +you can expect unexpected results. + -- Documentation of supertabular.sty +% +From: Ean Schuessler +The unrecognized minister of propaganda, +E + -- Debian, joking +% +* liw prefers not to have Linus run Debian, because then /me would + have to run Red Hat, just to keep the power balance :) + -- #Debian +% +<\\swing> and if we're playing old distributions... whatever happened to +Yggdrasil? :) + \\swing: everybody who tried to pronounce it got their tongue in a knot +and choked + -- #Debian +% +I'm telling you that the kernel is stable not because it's a kernel, +but because I refuse to listen to arguments like this. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +> Tut mir Leid, Jost, aber Du bist ein unertraeglicher Troll. +Was soll das? Du *beleidigst* die Trolle! + -- de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc +% +Wenn also die KDE-Arbeit nochmal gemacht wird bei GNOME, hat das die +Entwicklungszeit für ein freies Desktop-System verkürzt. Hast Du auch +irgendwo die passende Algebra zu der Rechnung? + -- Sascha Ziemann in de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc +% +* dpkg ponders: 'C++' should have been called 'D' + -- #Debian +% + The real value of KDE is that they inspired and push the + development of GNOME :-) + -- #Debian +% +* dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer +* Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young ;) +* Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk. +* Cylord gives the beer to muggles. + -- #Debian, celebrating the 5th anniversary +% + Stupid nick highlighting + Whenever someone starts with "stupid" it highlights the nick. Hmm. + -- #Debian +% + And once Diziet/CQ make the formal announcment that LSA + sucks, we can even reduce the Crisis Level rating and move + on to linuxfoundation.org. + -- #Debian +% +* LG loves czech girls. + LG: do they have additional interesting "features" other girls don't +have? ;) + -- #Debian +% +The first is to ensure your partner understands that nature has root +privileges - nature doesn't have to make sense. + -- Telsa Gwynne +% +As to house maintenance, does it involve problem solfing? If so, +your hacker can safely be left to deall with the panning (for the +musement value, if nothering ese). + -- Telsa Gwynne +% +Remember: While root can do most everything, there are certain +privileges that only a partner can grant. + -- Telsa Gwynne +% + Where is 'bavaria' proper? I thought it was austria. + -- Seen on #Linux +% +Day X+4 months: Microsoft ships NT 5.0 for Intel.with a big media + event on TV. IBM begins to ship Debian 4.6 as the + standard OS on all machines from mainframe to PC + and announces the move on Slashdot. + -- Christoph Lameter +% +How many chunks could checkchunk check if checkchunk could check chunks? + -- Alan Cox +% +Q: How does a Unix guru have sex? +A: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep + -- unknown source +% +Someone on IRC was very sad about the uptime of his machine wrapping +from 497 days to 0. + -- linux-kernel +% + netgod: 8:42pm is not late. + doogie: its 2:42am in Joeyland + -- #Debian +% +We knew from experience that the essence of communal computing, as +supplied by remote-access, time-shared machines, is not just to type +programs into a terminal instead of a keypunch, but to encourage close +communication. + -- Dennis Ritchie +% +modconf (0.2.37) stable unstable; urgency=medium + [...] + * Eduard Bloch: + - fixed Makefile broken Marcin Owsiany a while ago. The default manpage + has been overwritten with the polish translation. I still wonder why + nobody noticed this before. Closes: #117474 + [...] + -- Eduard Bloch Sun, 28 Oct 2001 12:53:27 +0100 +% +<|ryan|> I don't use deb + u poor man + netgod: heh + apt-get install task-p0rn +% +% +Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's, +please? + +I realize it might be quite painful for them, but maybe you could buy them +a disco tape, so they'd feel a little bit more at home. + + -- Linus "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive" Torvalds +% +> + +The branden dodges your magical sigh. The branden attacks you with a +slew of words! The branden misses! + + -- Henning Makholm in +% +I don't think 'It's better than hurling yourself into a meat grinder' +is a good rationale for doing something. + -- Andrew Suffield in + <20030905221055.GA22354@doc.ic.ac.uk> on debian-devel +% +< Overfiend> whew. +< Overfiend> I really need to get some sleep. +< Overfiend> but it sure was fun talking guitars, politics, and lesbians. +% diff --git a/fortunes/linuxcookie b/fortunes/linuxcookie new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3106182 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/linuxcookie @@ -0,0 +1,496 @@ +A Linux machine! because a 486 is a terrible thing to waste! +(By jjs@wintermute.ucr.edu, Joe Sloan) +% +"Absolutely nothing should be concluded from these figures except that +no conclusion can be drawn from them." +(By Joseph L. Brothers, Linux/PowerPC Project) +% +Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of +filename completion. +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands: file +completion vs. the Mac Finder.) +% +After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new +folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or +speaker of intuitive likes". +(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X the +intuitiveness of a Mac interface.) +% +"All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory..." +(By Larry Wall) +% +And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports +on it, you know they are just evil lies." +(By Linus Torvalds, Linus.Torvalds@cs.helsinki.fi) +% +"...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero +outside" +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +"And the next time you consider complaining that running Lucid Emacs +19.05 via NFS from a remote Linux machine in Paraguay doesn't seem to +get the background colors right, you'll know who to thank." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping +> : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will +> : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff. +> : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so +> : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed. +> +> It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there +> really is a god. +(A follow-up by alovell@kerberos.demon.co.uk, Anthony Lovell, to Linus's +remarks about porting) +% +Anyone who thinks UNIX is intuitive should be forced to write 5000 lines of +code using nothing but vi or emacs. AAAAACK! +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands, especially +Emacs.) +% +"Are [Linux users] lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of +reliable, well-engineered commercial software?" +(By Matt Welsh) +% +As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this +kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed. +(Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 on the linux-kernel mailing list.) +% +Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux +(Unknown source) +% +Be warned that typing \fBkillall \fIname\fP may not have the desired +effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user. +(From the killall manual page) +% +"Besides, I think [Slackware] sounds better than 'Microsoft,' don't you?" +(By Patrick Volkerding) +% +But what can you do with it? -- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner. +(Submitted by Andy Pearce, ajp@hpopd.pwd.hp.com) +% +"By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since +sliced bread." +(By Vance Petree, Virginia Power) +% +/* + * Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to + * terminate things with extreme prejudice. +*/ +die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code); +(From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c) +% +"...Deep Hack Mode--that mysterious and frightening state of +consciousness where Mortal Users fear to tread." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +Dijkstra probably hates me +(Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c) +% +DOS: n., A small annoying boot virus that causes random spontaneous system + crashes, usually just before saving a massive project. Easily cured by + UNIX. See also MS-DOS, IBM-DOS, DR-DOS. +(from David Vicker's .plan) +% +/* + * [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum + * possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP + * to talk to the University of Mars. + * PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented + * ftp to mars will work nicely. + */ +(from /usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [retransmission timeout]) +% +"Even more amazing was the realization that God has Internet access. I +wonder if He has a full newsfeed?" +(By Matt Welsh) +% +>Ever heard of .cshrc? +That's a city in Bosnia. Right? +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands.) +% +Fatal Error: Found [MS-Windows] System -> Repartitioning Disk for Linux... +(By cbbrown@io.org, Christopher Browne) +% +How do I type "for i in *.dvi do xdvi i done" in a GUI? +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces.) +% +"How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I only +coded it." +(Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting) +% +----==-- _ / / \ +---==---(_)__ __ ____ __ / / /\ \ +--==---/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / / /_/\ \ \ +-=====/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ /______\ \ \ +A proud member of TeamLinux \_________\/ +(By CHaley (HAC), haley@unm.edu, ch008cth@pi.lanl.gov) +% +I develop for Linux for a living, I used to develop for DOS. +Going from DOS to Linux is like trading a glider for an F117. +(By entropy@world.std.com, Lawrence Foard) +% +I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue. +(Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux) +% +Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this +driver will be redirected to /dev/null, oh no, it's full...). +(Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device) +% +"I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than +first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then +I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts')" +(By Olaf Kirch) +% +"I once witnessed a long-winded, month-long flamewar over the use of +mice vs. trackballs...It was very silly." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a +fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a +high grade for such a design :-) +(Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds) +% +"I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than +10 minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't." +(By Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center) +% +"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development +That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you." +(By Vance Petree, Virginia Power) +% +"I'm an idiot.. At least this one [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.." +(Linus Torvalds in response to a bug report.) + +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Disquieting ... +(Gonzalo Tornaria in response to Linus Torvalds's mailing about a kernel bug.) + +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals +then. +(Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's mailing about a kernel bug.) + +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Surely, Linus is talking about the kind of idiocy that others aspire to :-). +(Bruce Perens in response to Linus Torvalds's mailing about a kernel bug.) +% +I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few +months. I just love debugging ;-) +(Linus Torvalds) +% +Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit +operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top +programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated +yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds +was unavailable for comment ... +(rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk (Robert Manners), in comp.os.linux.setup) +% + if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) { + printf("Don't Panic!\n"); + exit(42); + } +(Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95, describing RCS) +% ++#if defined(__alpha__) && defined(CONFIG_PCI) ++ /* ++ * The meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Plus ++ * this makes the year come out right. ++ */ ++ year -= 42; ++#endif +(From the patch for 1.3.2: (kernel/time.c), submitted by Marcus Meissner) +% +"If the future navigation system [for interactive networked services on +the NII] looks like something from Microsoft, it will never work." +(Chairman of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications) +% +"If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot +of different places, just write a Unix operating system." +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +"[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I +thought of it. (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less +abusive.')" +(By Matt Welsh) +% +In most countries selling harmful things like drugs is punishable. +Then howcome people can sell Microsoft software and go unpunished? +(By hasku@rost.abo.fi, Hasse Skrifvars) +% +Intel engineering seem to have misheard Intel marketing strategy. The phrase +was "Divide and conquer" not "Divide and cock up" +(By iialan@www.linux.org.uk, Alan Cox) +% +"It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +LILO, you've got me on my knees! +(from David Black, dblack@pilot.njin.net, with apologies to Derek and the +Dominos, and Werner Almsberger) +% +Linux is obsolete +(Andrew Tanenbaum) +% +"Linux poses a real challenge for those with a taste for late-night +hacking (and/or conversations with God)." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +Linux! Guerrilla UNIX Development Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus. +(By mah@ka4ybr.com, Mark A. Horton KA4YBR) +% +"...[Linux's] capacity to talk via any medium except smoke signals." +(By Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center) +% +linux: because a PC is a terrible thing to waste +(ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on T-shirts in '93) +% +Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste. +(By komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu, Mark Komarinski) +% +linux: the choice of a GNU generation +(ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93) +% +"Linux: the operating system with a CLUE... +Command Line User Environment". +(seen in a posting in comp.software.testing) +% +lp1 on fire +(One of the more obfuscated kernel messages) +% +Microsoft is not the answer. +Microsoft is the question. +NO (or Linux) is the answer. +(Taken from a .signature from someone from the UK, source unknown) +% +'Mounten' wird fuer drei Dinge benutzt: 'Aufsitzen' auf Pferde, 'einklinken' +von Festplatten in Dateisysteme, und, nun, 'besteigen' beim Sex. +(Christa Keil in a German posting: "Mounting is used for three things: +climbing on a horse, linking in a hard disk unit in data systems, and, well, +mounting during sex".) +% +"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years +of careful development." +(By dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca) +% +"Never make any mistaeks." +(Anonymous, in a mail discussion about to a kernel bug report.) +% +> No manual is ever necessary. +May I politely interject here: BULLSHIT. That's the biggest Apple lie of all! +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces.) +% +Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads +the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me... +(More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc) +% +"Note that if I can get you to \"su and say\" something just by asking, +you have a very serious security problem on your system and you should +look into it." +(By Paul Vixie, vixie-cron 3.0.1 installation notes) +% +Now I know someone out there is going to claim, "Well then, UNIX is intuitive, +because you only need to learn 5000 commands, and then everything else follows +from that! Har har har!" +(Andy Bates in comp.os.linux.misc, on "intuitive interfaces", slightly +defending Macs.) +% +Now, it we had this sort of thing: + yield -a for yield to all traffic + yield -t for yield to trucks + yield -f for yield to people walking (yield foot) + yield -d t* for yield on days starting with t +...you'd have a lot of dead people at intersections, and traffic jams you +wouldn't believe... +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands.) +% +"On a normal ascii line, the only safe condition to detect is a 'BREAK' +- everything else having been assigned functions by Gnu EMACS." +(By Tarl Neustaedter) +% +"On the Internet, no one knows you're using Windows NT" +(Submitted by Ramiro Estrugo, restrugo@fateware.com) +% +Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was +good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's +unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd +happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy. After +a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file, +and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do +a compile. +(By ewt@tipper.oit.unc.edu (Erik Troan) +% +> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I +> > should use Linux over BSD? +> +> No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on +> creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it +> certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able +> to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the +> mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the +> name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too +> technical. +(Linus Torvalds' follow-up to a question about Linux) +% +Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to +be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they +can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the +HP-48 VT-100 emulator. +(By jdege@winternet.com, Jeff Dege) +% +There are no threads in a.b.p.erotica, so there's no gain in using a +threaded news reader. +(Unknown source) +% +"Problem solving under linux has never been the circus that it is under +AIX." +(By Pete Ehlke in comp.unix.aix) +% +quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor + is terminated, regardless of where the quit state- + ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit" + will cause bc to terminate. +(Seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic) +% +Running Windows on a Pentium is like having a brand new Porsche but only +be able to drive backwards with the handbrake on. +(Unknown source) +% +"sic transit discus mundi" +(From the System Administrator's Guide, by Lars Wirzenius) +% +Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on +the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. +(Craig E. Groeschel) +% +The chat program is in public domain. This is not the GNU public license. If +it breaks then you get to keep both pieces. +(Copyright notice for the chat program) +% +> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF +> being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate". I don't think that +> it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it +> happening in the near future. I enjoy doing linux, even though it does +> mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid +> reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing +> negative so far). +> +> Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains: +> I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented +> that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse. +> If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me +> on c.o.minix. What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so +> far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something +> better of it (*). +> +> Linus +> +> (*) Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope. Does +> somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke. +(Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux) +% +The nice thing about Windows is - It does not just crash, it displays a +dialog box and lets you press 'OK' first. +(Arno Schaefer's .sig) +% +The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned. +(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X interfaces.) +% +There are two types of Linux developers - those who can spell, and +those who can't. There is a constant pitched battle between the two. +(From one of the post-1.1.54 kernel update messages posted to c.o.l.a) +% +This message was brought to you by Linux, the free unix. +Windows without the X is like making love without a partner. +Sex, Drugs & Linux Rules +win-nt from the people who invented edlin +apples have meant trouble since eden +Linux, the way to get rid of boot viruses +(By mwikholm@at8.abo.fi, MaDsen Wikholm) +% +"...Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and +the Ugly)." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +"...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two +noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer* +being struck by lightning." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +"Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white +light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In +a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM +FOR THE 386." +(Matt Welsh) +% +"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." +(Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amsterdam +Linux Symposium) +% +We are MicroSoft. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. +(Attributed to B.G., Gill Bates) +% +We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated. +(seen in someone's .signature) +% +We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours! +(Adapted from Pat Paulsen by Joe Sloan) +% +We come to bury DOS, not to praise it. +(Paul Vojta, vojta@math.berkeley.edu, paraphrasing a quote of Shakespeare) +% +We use Linux for all our mission-critical applications. Having the source code +means that we are not held hostage by anyone's support department. +(Russell Nelson, President of Crynwr Software) +% +"What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through +these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot +water." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +What's this script do? + unzip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; gasp ; yes ; umount ; sleep +Hint for the answer: not everything is computer-oriented. Sometimes you're +in a sleeping bag, camping out. +(Contributed by Frans van der Zande.) +% +`When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at +you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*".' +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +"Whip me. Beat me. Make me maintain AIX." +(By Stephan Zielinski) +% +"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?" +Microsoft spel chekar vor sail, worgs grate !! +(By leitner@inf.fu-berlin.de, Felix von Leitner) +% +Who wants to remember that escape-x-alt-control-left shift-b puts you into +super-edit-debug-compile mode? +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands, especially +Emacs.) +% +Why use Windows, since there is a door? +(By fachat@galileo.rhein-neckar.de, Andre Fachat) +% +"World domination. Fast" +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +..you could spend *all day* customizing the title bar. Believe me. I +speak from experience." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +"...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead +sit in front of your linux computer playing with the +all-new-and-improved linux kernel version." +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse +for some of the brain-damages of minix. +(Linus Torvalds to Andrew Tanenbaum) +% +I've heard a Jew and a Muslim argue in a Damascus cafe with less passion +than the emacs wars." + -- Ronald Florence in + +% diff --git a/fortunes/literature b/fortunes/literature new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2632622 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/literature @@ -0,0 +1,1329 @@ +A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining +and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. + -- Mark Twain +% +A classic is something that everyone wants to have read +and nobody wants to read. + -- Mark Twain, "The Disappearance of Literature" +% +A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Richard III" +% +A hundred years from now it is very likely that [of Twain's works] "The +Jumping Frog" alone will be remembered. + -- Harry Thurston Peck (Editor of "The Bookman"), January 1901. +% +A is for Apple. + -- Hester Pryne +% +A kind of Batman of contemporary letters. + -- Philip Larkin on Anthony Burgess +% +A light wife doth make a heavy husband. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% + A man was reading The Canterbury Tales one Saturday morning, when his +wife asked "What have you got there?" Replied he, "Just my cup and Chaucer." +% +... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he +was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. + -- Mark Twain +% +A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) + -- by Charles Dickens + + A lawyer who looks like a French Nobleman is executed in his place. + +The Metamorphosis LITE(tm) + -- by Franz Kafka + + A man turns into a bug and his family gets annoyed. + +Lord of the Rings LITE(tm) + -- by J. R. R. Tolkien + + Some guys take a long vacation to throw a ring into a volcano. + +Hamlet LITE(tm) + -- by Wm. Shakespeare + + A college student on vacation with family problems, a screwy + girl-friend and a mother who won't act her age. +% +A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) + -- by Charles Dickens + + A man in love with a girl who loves another man who looks just + like him has his head chopped off in France because of a mean + lady who knits. + +Crime and Punishment LITE(tm) + -- by Fyodor Dostoevski + + A man sends a nasty letter to a pawnbroker, but later + feels guilty and apologizes. + +The Odyssey LITE(tm) + -- by Homer + + After working late, a valiant warrior gets lost on his way home. +% +After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. + -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare +% +Alas, how love can trifle with itself! + -- William Shakespeare, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" +% +All generalizations are false, including this one. + -- Mark Twain +% +All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that +makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and +an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. + -- Samuel Beckett +% +All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to come from +the mouths of people who have had to live. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +"... all the modern inconveniences ..." + -- Mark Twain +% +All things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoyed. + -- Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice" +% +Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. + -- Mark Twain +% +Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. + -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" +% +"... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often +picturesque liar." + -- Mark Twain +% +An honest tale speeds best being plainly told. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +And do you think (fop that I am) that I could be the Scarlet Pumpernickel? +% +Anyone who has had a bull by the tail knows five or six more things +than someone who hasn't. + -- Mark Twain +% +April 1 + +This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three +hundred and sixty-four. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. + -- Shakespeare, "King Lear" +% +As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, +especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously +-- I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being +in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching +after fact and reason. + -- John Keats +% +AWAKE! FEAR! FIRE! FOES! AWAKE! + FEAR! FIRE! FOES! + AWAKE! AWAKE! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining +ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror +to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the +mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam +in 1959. + -- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton + bad fiction contest. +% +Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. + -- Mark Twain +% +Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket"--which is +but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention;" but the wise +man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket and--WATCH THAT BASKET." + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Big book, big bore. + -- Callimachus +% +But, for my own part, it was Greek to me. + -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" +% +By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. + -- Mark Twain +% +Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. + -- Mark Twain +% +Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. + -- Mark Twain +% +Condense soup, not books! +% +Conscience doth make cowards of us all. + -- Shakespeare +% +Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June-bug +than an old bird of paradise. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. Except a +creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely +a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the flea!--incomparably the +bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage. +Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact +that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth +to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and all days and nights in the +very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more +afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by +an earthquake ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam +as men who "didn't know what fear was," we ought always to add the flea--and +put him at the head of the procession. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Delay not, Caesar. Read it instantly. + -- Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" 3,1 + +Here is a letter, read it at your leisure. + -- Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice" 5,1 + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to I/O system services.] +% +Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever +skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious +to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an +overdose of flouride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic +apathy, doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless +as an appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred pound barbell in a +steroid-free fitness center. + -- Winning sentence, 1990 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you +nothing. It was here first. + -- Mark Twain +% +"Elves and Dragons!" I says to him. "Cabbages and potatoes are better +for you and me." + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +English literature's performing flea. + -- Sean O'Casey on P. G. Wodehouse +% +Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at +fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take +the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will +find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil, +you will say that she did it with her teeth. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Every cloud engenders not a storm. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +Every why hath a wherefore. + -- William Shakespeare, "A Comedy of Errors" +% +Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Rape of Lucrece" +% +F.S. Fitzgerald to Hemingway: + "Ernest, the rich are different from us." +Hemingway: + "Yes. They have more money." +% +Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is +oblivion. + -- Mark Twain +% +Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children. + -- Mark Twain +% +Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. + -- "Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +For a light heart lives long. + -- Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% +For courage mounteth with occasion. + -- William Shakespeare, "King John" +% +For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, +each delved into a hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall +was a gate. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Return of the King" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to system overview.] +% +For there are moments when one can neither think nor feel. And if one can +neither think nor feel, she thought, where is one? + -- Virginia Woolf, "To the Lighthouse" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to powerfail recovery.] +% +For years a secret shame destroyed my peace-- +I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece. +But now I think a thought that brings me hope: +Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. + -- Justin Richardson. +% +Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% +Gone With The Wind LITE(tm) + -- by Margaret Mitchell + + A woman only likes men she can't have and the South gets trashed. + +Gift of the Magi LITE(tm) + -- by O. Henry + + A husband and wife forget to register their gift preferences. + +The Old Man and the Sea LITE(tm) + -- by Ernest Hemingway + + An old man goes fishing, but doesn't have much luck. +% +Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession. +You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy +officials have gone by. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must +have somebody to divide it with. + -- Mark Twain +% +Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed +down-stairs a step at a time. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar +% +Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big +enough majority in any town? + -- Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn" +% +Harp not on that string. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not +advice, it is merely custom. + -- Mark Twain +% +Having nothing, nothing can he lose. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his +argument. + -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% +He hath eaten me out of house and home. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% +He is now rising from affluence to poverty. + -- Mark Twain +% +He jests at scars who never felt a wound. + -- Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet, II. 2" +% +He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% +He that is giddy thinks the world turns round. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew" +% +He was part of my dream, of course -- but then I was part of his dream too. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +Hell is empty and all the devils are here. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "The Tempest" +% +His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred +to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never +claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circum- +stances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. +Silence, though, could. It was in the days of the rains that their prayers +went up, not from the fingering of knotted prayer cords or the spinning of +prayer wheels, but from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri, +goddess of the Night. The high-frequency prayers were directed upward through +the atmosphere and out beyond it, passing into that golden cloud called the +Bridge of the Gods, which circles the entire world, is seen as a bronze +rainbow at night and is the place where the red sun becomes orange at midday. +Some of the monks doubted the orthodoxy of this prayer technique... + -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light" +% +How apt the poor are to be proud. + -- William Shakespeare, "Twelfth-Night" +% +I do desire we may be better strangers. + -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" +% +I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less +than half of you half as well as you deserve. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +I dote on his very absence. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% +I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on, +so I woke up from sheer boredom. +% +I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. + -- Mark Twain +% +I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a +week sometimes to make it up. + -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad" +% +I reverently believe that the maker who made us all makes everything in New +England, but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be +raw apprentices in the weather-clerks factory who experiment and learn how, in +New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for +countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere +if they don't get it. + -- Mark Twain +% +I think we are in Rats' Alley where the dead men lost their bones. + -- T.S. Eliot +% +I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. + -- Mark Twain +% +I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I +will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all +Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they +teach. Oh, tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone! + -- Charles Dickens +% +"I wonder", he said to himself, "what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I +know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must +be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people +I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and battles." + -- Bastian B. Bux +% +I'll burn my books. + -- Christopher Marlowe +% +I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness; +And from that full meridian of my glory +I haste now to my setting. I shall fall, +Like a bright exhalation in the evening +And no man see me more. + -- Shakespeare +% +If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would +be a merrier world. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% +If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use +in reading it at all. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it. + -- Ernest Hemingway +% +If you laid all of our laws end to end, there would be no end. + -- Mark Twain +% +If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. +This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. + -- Mark Twain +% +In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus, +"one when he was a boy and one when he was a man." + -- Mark Twain +% +In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into +use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather +which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. + -- Mark Twain +% +In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but +the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they +have obtained from books of travel. + -- Mark Twain +% +In the first place, God made idiots; this was for practice; then he made +school boards. + -- Mark Twain +% +In the plot, people came to the land; the land loved them; they worked and +struggled and had lots of children. There was a Frenchman who talked funny +and a greenhorn from England who was a fancy-pants but when it came to the +crunch he was all courage. Those novels would make you retch. + -- Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, on the generic Canadian + novel. +% +In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has +shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the Old +Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred +thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the +Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. ... There is +something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of +conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. + -- Mark Twain +% +In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of +24 hours. + -- Mark Twain, on New England weather +% +It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely +the most important. + -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Case of Identity" +% +It is a wise father that knows his own child. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% +It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: +freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either. + -- Mark Twain +% +It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man +who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that +there were too many prehistoric toads in it. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the best +judge of one. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, +his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the +worst, and so grow gently old all down the unchanging days and die one +day like any other day, only shorter. + -- Samuel Beckett, "Malone Dies" +% +It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. + -- Mark Twain +% +It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion +that makes horse-races. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. +Some think it is the voice of God. + -- Mark Twain +% +Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read. + -- Mark Twain +% +Kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew" +% +Lay on, MacDuff, and curs'd be him who first cries, "Hold, enough!". + -- Shakespeare +% +Let him choose out of my files, his projects to accomplish. + -- Shakespeare, "Coriolanus" +% +Let me take you a button-hole lower. + -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% +Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be +sorry. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek, +shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit moulding her body, which was as warm +as seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like +bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood; +she was a woman driven -- fueled by a single accelerant -- and she needed a +man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the +right road: a man like Alf Romeo. + -- Rachel Sheeley, winner + +The hair ball blocking the drain of the shower reminded Laura she would never +see her little dog Pritzi again. + -- Claudia Fields, runner-up + +It could have been an organically based disturbance of the brain -- perhaps a +tumor or a metabolic deficiency -- but after a thorough neurological exam it +was determined that Byron was simply a jerk. + -- Jeff Jahnke, runner-up + +Winners in the 7th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest. The contest is +named after the author of the immortal lines: "It was a dark and stormy +night." The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence of the +worst possible novel. +% +Lord, what fools these mortals be! + -- William Shakespeare, "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" +% +Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. + -- Mark Twain +% +Many a writer seems to think he is never profound except when he can't +understand his own meaning. + -- George D. Prentice +% +Many enraged psychiatrists are inciting a weary butcher. The butcher is +weary and tired because he has cut meat and steak and lamb for hours and +weeks. He does not desire to chant about anything with raving psychiatrists, +but he sings about his gingivectomist, he dreams about a single cosmologist, +he thinks about his dog. The dog is named Herbert. + -- Racter, "The Policeman's Beard is Half-Constructed" +% +Many pages make a thick book, except for pocket Bibles which are on very +very thin paper. +% +Many pages make a thick book. +% +Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is +particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, +to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. +But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands +shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit +me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. + -- Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol" +% +Must I hold a candle to my shames? + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% + My dear People. + My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks, +and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers, +Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots. Also my good +Sackville Bagginses that I welcome back at last to Bag End. Today is my +one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!" + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +My only love sprung from my only hate! +Too early seen unknown, and known too late! + -- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet" +% +Never laugh at live dragons. + -- Bilbo Baggins [J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Hobbit"] +% +No group of professionals meets except to conspire against the public at large. + -- Mark Twain +% +No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of +absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. +Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness +within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. +Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and +doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone +of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. + -- Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House" +% +No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture! + -- Sherlock Holmes +% +Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles +as if she laid an asteroid. + -- Mark Twain +% +"Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none." + -- Shakespeare +% +Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. + -- Mark Twain +% +Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +O, it is excellent +To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous +To use it like a giant. + -- Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", II, 2 +% +October 12, the Discovery. + +It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss +it. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +October. + +This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. + +The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, +December, August, and February. + + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive. + -- Sir Walter Scott, "Marmion" +% +One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has +only nine lives. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Patch griefs with proverbs. + -- William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing" +% +Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves +possess. + -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"] +% +Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; +persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting +to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Author + -- Mark Twain, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" +% +question = ( to ) ? be : ! be; + -- Wm. Shakespeare +% +Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of +Congress. But I repeat myself. + -- Mark Twain +% +Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% +Remark of Dr. Baldwin's concerning upstarts: We don't care to eat toadstools +that think they are truffles. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late. + -- Mark Twain +% +ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. +MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide + as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. +% +Seeing that death, a necessary end, +Will come when it will come. + -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" +% +She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot. + -- Mark Twain +% +Sheriff Chameleotoptor sighed with an air of weary sadness, and then +turned to Doppelgutt and said 'The Senator must really have been on a +bender this time -- he left a party in Cleveland, Ohio, at 11:30 last +night, and they found his car this morning in the smokestack of a British +aircraft carrier in the Formosa Straits.' + -- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton + bad fiction contest. +% +Small things make base men proud. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; +and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops its head +into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently +married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Grand +Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all +fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran +out at the heels of their boots. + -- Samuel Foote +% +So so is good, very good, very excellent good: +and yet it is not; it is but so so. + -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" +% +Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more +deadly in the long run. + -- Mark Twain +% +Something's rotten in the state of Denmark. + -- Shakespeare +% +Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind. Then it passes off and I'm +as intelligent as ever. + -- Samuel Beckett, "Endgame" +% +"Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though +ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, +mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, +thou has dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams has +moved amid the world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, +and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate +earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful +water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or +diver never went; has slept by many a sailer's side, where sleepless mothers +would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when +leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting +wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the +murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell +into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed +on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would +have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has +seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one +syllable is thine!" + -- H. Melville, "Moby Dick" +% +Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time. So long +as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks +into, there is room for lateral movement. Once this begins, its rate is +a matter of discretion. + -- Corwin, Prince of Amber +% +Stop! There was first a game of blindman's buff. Of course there was. +And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes +in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and +Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The +way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage +on the credulity of human nature. +% +Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. + -- Wm. Shakespeare +% +Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, +whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through +the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! + -- Captain Ahab, "Moby Dick" +% +Talkers are no good doers. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Tempt not a desperate man. + -- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet" +% +The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power. + -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" +% +The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd +And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; +The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth +And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change. +These signs forerun the death or fall of kings. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Richard II" +% +The better part of valor is discretion. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% +The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first +half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and +pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who +hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice +for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time +during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it +but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know. + -- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is held ever year at San Jose State +Univ. by Professor Scott Rice. It is held in memory of Edward George +Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a rather prolific and popular (in his +time) novelist. He is best known today for having written "The Last +Days of Pompeii." + +Whenever Snoopy starts typing his novel from the top of his doghouse, +beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..." he is borrowing from Lord +Bulwer-Lytton. This was the line that opened his novel, "Paul Clifford," +written in 1830. The full line reveals why it is so bad: + + It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except + at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of + wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene + lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty + flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. +% +The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted +sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails -- not for the first +time since the journey begain -- pondered snidely if this would dissolve +into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent +with Basil. + -- Winning sentence, 1983 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The countdown had stalled at 'T' minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first +female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, +rubbery lips unmistakably -- the first of many such advances during what +would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my +career. + -- Winning sentence, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% +The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference +between a mermaid and a seal. + -- Mark Twain +% +The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the +difference between lightning and the lightning bug. + -- Mark Twain +% +The fashion wears out more apparel than the man. + -- William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing" +% +The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Henry VI", Part IV +% +The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and +enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to +lend money. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. + -- Mark Twain +% +The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that +procession but carrying a banner. + -- Mark Twain +% +The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +The Least Perceptive Literary Critic + The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax. A +most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to +give a public reading of his latest poem. + Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord +Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr. +Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me." + Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable +and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece. "Be so good as to mark +the place and consider at your leisure. I'm sure you can give it a better +turn." + After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr. +Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side. "There is no need to touch the +lines," he said. "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on +Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation +on those passages, and then read them to him as altered. I have known him +much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event." + Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem +exactly as it was before. His unique critical faculties had lost none of +their edge. "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right. Nothing can +be better." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The Least Successful Collector + Betsy Baker played a central role in the history of collecting. She +was employed as a servant in the house of John Warburton (1682-1759) who had +amassed a fine collection of 58 first edition plays, including most of the +works of Shakespeare. + One day Warburton returned home to find 55 of them charred beyond +legibility. Betsy had either burned them or used them as pie bottoms. The +remaining three folios are now in the British Museum. + The only comparable literary figure was the maid who in 1835 burned +the manuscript of the first volume of Thomas Carlyle's "The History of the +French Revolution", thinking it was wastepaper. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of +the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at +her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic +Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my +steel through your last meal!' + -- Winning sentence, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, +Are of imagination all compact... + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" +% +The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that +will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. + -- Mark Twain +% +The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt. + -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% + "...The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!" + "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to +feel interested. + "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little +vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, 'The Aged +Aged Man.'" + "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?" +Alice corrected herself. + "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is +called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!" + "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this +time completely bewildered. + "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is +"A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention." + -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +The notes blatted skyward as they rose over the Canada geese, feathered +rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen +bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by cruel Nature's maxim, +'Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,' and at last I knew Pittsburgh. + -- Winning sentence, 1987 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The only people for me are the mad ones -- the ones who are mad to live, +mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, +the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn +like fabulous yellow Roman candles. + -- Jack Kerouac, "On the Road" +% +The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what +you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. + -- Mark Twain +% + The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. +I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. + A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea. +Turning the curve he waved his hand. A sleek brown head, a seal's, far +out on the water, round. Usurper. + -- James Joyce, "Ulysses" +% +The Public is merely a multiplied "me." + -- Mark Twain +% +The ripest fruit falls first. + -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II" +% +The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven. + -- Mark Twain +% +The smallest worm will turn being trodden on. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +The surest protection against temptation is cowardice. + -- Mark Twain +% +The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with +commoner things. It is chief of the world's luxuries, king by the grace of God +over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the +angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because +she repented. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice. + -- Mark Twain +% +There are more things in heaven and earth, +Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Hamlet" +% +There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a +rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2, +to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him to let you read the +manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 +admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of +paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write. +% +There is always one thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out. + -- Joan Didion, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" +% +There is an old time toast which is golden for its beauty. +"When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend." + -- Mark Twain +% +There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by +ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his +character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler +animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling +complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. + -- Mark Twain +% +There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted +armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter. + -- Ernest Hemingway +% +There's small choice in rotten apples. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew" +% +They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. + -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% +They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners +always spell better than they pronounce. + -- Mark Twain +% +Things past redress and now with me past care. + -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II" +% +This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a +little ironic since we may not have one. + -- Arthur Clarke +% +This night methinks is but the daylight sick. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% +This was the most unkindest cut of all. + -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" +% +To be or not to be. + -- Shakespeare +To do is to be. + -- Nietzsche +To be is to do. + -- Sartre +Do be do be do. + -- Sinatra +% +Too much is just enough. + -- Mark Twain, on whiskey +% +Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is +nothing but cabbage with a college education. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it. + -- Mark Twain +% +Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues +of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping houses, and the blessed sun himself +a fair, hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst +be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. I wasted time and now doth +time waste me. + -- William Shakespeare +% +Wagner's music is better than it sounds. + -- Mark Twain +% +Water, taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody. + -- Mark Twain +% +We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the +bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems +almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the +oyster. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is +in it - and stay there, lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot +stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that +is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more. + -- Mark Twain +% +We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was +also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a +French restaurant. [...] + I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk +white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her +boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the +bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad +rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished +there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...] + "Stop the car," the girl said. + There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the +woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an +arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget. + "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway +belle's for thee." + The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. +Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey +onto my granola and faced a new day. + -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway + Competition +% +Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized +that like most books, it had too many words. The plot was the same one that +all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but +James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive +women. There, that's it: 24 words. But the guy who wrote the book took +*thousands* of words to say it. + Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic +Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's about these two brothers who kill their father. +Or maybe only one of them kills the father. It's impossible to tell because +what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages. If all Russians talk +as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a +major world power. + I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise +the question of whether there is a God. So why didn't he just come right +out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me." + Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words: + +* "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize + nature and will kill you. +* "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy. + -- Dave Barry +% +What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature? + -- Nero Wolfe, "The League of Frightened Men" +% +What I tell you three times is true. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +What no spouse of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working +when he's staring out the window. +% +When angry, count four; when very angry, swear. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know who have gone +to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened +or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I +cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to +go to pieces like this but we all have to do it. + -- Mark Twain +% +When in doubt, tell the truth. + -- Mark Twain +% +When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes. + -- Dylan Thomas +% +When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all. + -- Roger Zelazny, "Doorways in the Sand" +% +Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last +you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his +Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. + -- Mark Twain "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" +% +Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time +to reform. + -- Mark Twain +% +Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt +of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He +brought death into the world. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we +are not the person involved. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. +Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. + -- Mark Twain +% +Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. + -- Mark Twain +% +Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at the blank sheet of paper until +drops of blood form on your forehead. + -- Gene Fowler +% +Writing is turning one's worst moments into money. + -- J.P. Donleavy +% +"You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive." + -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet" +% + "You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?" + "The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as --" + "My blushes, Watson," Holmes murmured, in a deprecating voice. + "I was about to say 'as he is unknown to the public.'" + -- A. Conan Doyle, "The Valley of Fear" +% +You may my glories and my state dispose, +But not my griefs; still am I king of those. + -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II" +% +You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the +obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and +an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you. + -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Norwood Builder" +% +You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night +to write. + -- Saul Bellow +% +You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty +attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool +takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge +which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with +a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. +Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his +brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing +his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect +order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and +can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every +addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of +the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out +the useful ones. + -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet" +% +You tread upon my patience. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% + You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the +Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the +parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day. + -- Sherlock Holmes +% +Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not +original and the part that is original is not good. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words +since I first called my brother's father dad. + -- William Shakespeare, "Kind John" +% +The mind is its own place, and in itself +Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. + -- John Milton +% +"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying. The +absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me +Deadpan Allie and lie. + -- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers" +% +A morgue is a morgue is a morgue. They can paint the walls with aggressively +cheerful primary colors and splashy bold graphics, but it's still a holding +place for the dead until they can be parted out to organ banks. Not that I +would have cared normally but my viewpoint was skewed. The relentless +pleasance of the room I sat in seemed only grotesque. + -- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers" +% +"What's this? Trix? Aunt! Trix? You? You're after the prize! What +is it?" He picked up the box and studied the back. "A glow-in-the-dark +squid! Have you got it out of there yet?" He tilted the box, angling the +little colored balls of cereal so as to see the bottom, and nearly spilling +them onto the table top. "Here it is!" He hauled out a little cream-colored, +glitter-sprinkled squid, three-inches long and made out of rubbery plastic. + -- James P. Blaylock, "The Last Coin" +% +"Good afternoon, madam. How may I help you?" + +"Good afternoon. I'd like a FrintArms HandCannon, please." + +"A--? Oh, now, that's an awfully big gun for such a lovely lady. I +mean, not everybody thinks ladies should carry guns at all, though I +say they have a right to. But I think... I might... Let's have a look +down here. I might have just the thing for you. Yes, here we are! +Look at that, isn't it neat? Now that is a FrintArms product as well, +but it's what's called a laser -- a light-pistol some people call +them. Very small, as you see; fits easily into a pocket or bag; won't +spoil the line of a jacket; and you won't feel you're lugging half a +tonne of iron around with you. We do a range of matching accessories, +including -- if I may say so -- a rather saucy garter holster. Wish I +got to do the fitting for that! Ha -- just my little joke. And +there's *even*... here we are -- this special presentation pack: gun, +charged battery, charging unit, beautiful glider-hide shoulder holster +with adjustable fitting and contrast stitching, and a discount on your +next battery. Full instructions, of course, and a voucher for free +lessons at your local gun club or range. Or there's the *special* +presentation pack; it has all the other one's got but with *two* +charged batteries and a night-sight, too. Here, feel that -- don't +worry, it's a dummy battery -- isn't it neat? Feel how light it is? +Smooth, see? No bits to stick out and catch on your clothes, *and* +beautifully balanced. And of course the beauty of a laser is, there's +no recoil. Because it's shooting light, you see? Beautiful gun, +beautiful gun; my wife has one. Really. That's not a line, she +really has. Now, I can do you that one -- with a battery and a free +charge -- for ninety-five; or the presentation pack on a special +offer for one-nineteen; or this, the special presentation pack, for +one-forty-nine." + +"I'll take the special." + +"Sound choice, madam, *sound* choice. Now, do--?" + +"And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three +six-five AP/wire-fl'echettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a +Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding +rounds, not the signalers. I assume the night-sight on this toy is +compatible?" + +"Aah... yes, And how does madam wish to pay?" + +She slapped her credit card on the counter. "Eventually." + + -- Iain M. Banks, "Against a Dark Background" +% +I got a hint of things to come when I overheard my boss lamenting, 'The +books are done and we still don't have an author! I must sign someone +today! + -- Tamim Ansary, "Edutopia Magazine, Issue 2, November 2004" + on the topic of school textbooks +% diff --git a/fortunes/love b/fortunes/love new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eccdf96 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/love @@ -0,0 +1,574 @@ +A career is great, but you can't run your fingers through its hair. +% +A kiss is a course of procedure, cunningly devised, for the mutual +stoppage of speech at a moment when words are superfluous. +% +A woman was in love with fourteen soldiers. It was clearly platoonic. +% +Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, +as the wind blows out candles and fans fires. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much +extinguishes it. + -- Hannah More +% +All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most +ridiculous ones. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +Always there remain portions of our heart into which no one is able to enter, +invite them as we may. +% +Bondage maybe, discipline never! + -- T.K. +% +Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance +and without any visible reason. + -- Lord Chesterfield +% +Don't despair; your ideal lover is waiting for you around the corner. +% +Falling in Love + When two people have been on enough dates, they generally fall in +love. You can tell you're in love by the way you feel: your head becomes +light, your heart leaps within you, you feel like you're walking on air, +and the whole world seems like a wonderful and happy place. Unfortunately, +these are also the four warning signs of colon disease, so it's always a +good idea to check with your doctor. + -- Dave Barry +% +Falling in love is a lot like dying. You never get to do it enough to +become good at it. +% +Finish the sentence below in 25 words or less: + + "Love is what you feel just before you give someone a good ..." + +Mail your answer along with the top half of your supervisor to: + + P.O. Box 35 + Baffled Greek, Michigan +% +Give me chastity and continence, but not just now. + -- St. Augustine +% +God is love, but get it in writing. + -- Gypsy Rose Lee +% +"He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental +effort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable perversion." + -- Mick Farren, "When Gravity Fails" +% +He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage -- he won't +encounter many rivals. + -- Georg Lichtenberg, "Aphorisms" +% +Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. + -- The Wizard of Oz +% +HEY KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: + Be sure it's true, when you say "I love you". It's a sin to + tell a lie. Millions of hearts have been broken, just because + these words were spoken. +% +His heart was yours from the first moment that you met. +% +How much does she love you? Less than you'll ever know. +% +I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so. + -- John Donne +% +I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary +relief to nymphomaniacs. + -- Larry Lee +% +I don't want people to love me. It makes for obligations. + -- Jean Anouilh +% +I love you more than anything in this world. I don't expect that will last. + -- Elvis Costello +% +I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. + -- Roy Croft +% +I loved her with a love thirsty and desperate. I felt that we two might commit +some act so atrocious that the world, seeing us, would find it irresistible. + -- Gene Wolfe, "The Shadow of the Torturer" +% +I never loved another person the way I loved myself. + -- Mae West +% +I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward +or it dies. Well, what we have on our hands here is a dead shark. + -- Woody Allen +% +I used to be Snow White, but I drifted. + -- Mae West +% +I used to think romantic love was a neurosis shared by two, a supreme +foolishness. I no longer thought that. There's nothing foolish in +loving anyone. Thinking you'll be loved in return is what's foolish. + -- Rita Mae Brown +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got +to undo it." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if I snore." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in `Y.'" +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my blender." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my garage door." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from +Julian to Gregorian." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static +cling." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my +cottage cheese sculpture." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karma transplant." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never came back." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to stay tuned." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that +need worrying about." +% +I'd love to kiss you, but I just washed my hair. + -- Bette Davis, "Cabin in the Cotton" +% + "I'll tell you what I know, then," he decided. "The pin I'm wearing +means I'm a member of the IA. That's Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is +somebody in love. That's the worst addiction of all." + "Somebody is about to fall in love," Oedipa said, "you go sit with +them, or something?" + "Right. The whole idea is to get where you don't need it. I was +lucky. I kicked it young. But there are sixty-year-old men, believe it or +not, and women even older, who might wake up in the night screaming." + "You hold meetings, then, like the AA?" + "No, of course not. You get a phone number, an answering service +you can call. Nobody knows anybody else's name; just the number in case +it gets so bad you can't handle it alone. We're isolates, Arnold. Meetings +would destroy the whole point of it." + -- Thomas Pynchon, "The Crying of Lot 49" +% +If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question? + -- Lily Tomlin +% +If Love Were Oil, I'd Be About A Quart Low + -- Book title by Lewis Grizzard +% +If only you knew she loved you, you could face the uncertainty of +whether you love her. +% +If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a call. +% +If you love someone, set them free. +If they don't come back, then call them up when you're drunk. +% +In a great romance, each person basically plays a part that the +other really likes. + -- Elizabeth Ashley +% +In an age when the fashion is to be in love with yourself, confessing to +be in love with somebody else is an admission of unfaithfulness to one's +beloved. + -- Russell Baker +% +In love, she who gives her portrait promises the original. + -- Bruton +% +In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you +want the other person. + -- Margaret Anderson +% +It is far better to be deceived than to be undeceived by those we love. +% +Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody +who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth +about his or her love affairs. + -- Rebecca West +% +Let us live!!! +Let us love!!! +Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!! + +You first. +% +Let's just be friends and make no special effort to ever see each other again. +% +Let's not complicate our relationship by trying to communicate with each other. +% +Lonely is a man without love. + -- Engelbert Humperdinck +% +Love -- the last of the serious diseases of childhood. +% +Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. +% +Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the +world has ever seen. +% +Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder. + -- Sigmund Freud +% +Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to love. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +Love is a grave mental disease. + -- Plato +% +Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra, which suddenly flips +over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come. + -- Matt Groening, "Love is Hell" +% +Love is always open arms. With arms open you allow love to come and +go as it wills, freely, for it will do so anyway. If you close your +arms about love you'll find you are left only holding yourself. +% +Love is being stupid together. + -- Paul Valery +% +Love is dope, not chicken soup. I mean, love is something to be passed +around freely, not spooned down someone's throat for their own good by a +Jewish mother who cooked it all by herself. +% +Love is in the offing. + -- The Homicidal Maniac +% +Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very +pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love +grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning +and unquenchable. + -- Bruce Lee +% +Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it. + -- Jerome K. Jerome +% +Love is never asking why? +% +Love is not enough, but it sure helps. +% +Love is sentimental measles. +% +Love is staying up all night with a sick child, or a healthy adult. +% +Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness. + -- M. Hirschfield +% +Love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself. + -- Saint Exupery +% +Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Love IS what it's cracked up to be. +% +Love is what you've been through with somebody. + -- James Thurber +% +Love isn't only blind, it's also deaf, dumb, and stupid. +% +Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes. +% +Love means never having to say you're sorry. + -- Eric Segal, "Love Story" + +That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. + -- Ryan O'Neill, "What's Up Doc?" +% +Love tells us many things that are not so. + -- Krainian Proverb +% +May your SO always know when you need a hug. +% +"Maybe we should think of this as one perfect week... where we found each +other, and loved each other... and then let each other go before anyone +had to seek professional help." +% +Most people don't need a great deal of love nearly so much as they need +a steady supply. +% +My cup hath runneth'd over with love. +% +Nature abhors a virgin -- a frozen asset. + -- Clare Booth Luce +% + "No, I understand now," Auberon said, calm in the woods -- it was so +simple, really. "I didn't, for a long time, but I do now. You just can't +hold people, you can't own them. I mean it's only natural, a natural process +really. Meet. Love. Part. Life goes on. There was never any reason to +expect her to stay always the same -- I mean `in love,' you know." There were +those doubt-quotes of Smoky's, heavily indicated. "I don't hold a grudge. I +can't." + "You do," Grandfather Trout said. "And you don't understand." + -- Little, Big, "John Crowley" +% +Of all forms of caution, caution in love is the most fatal. +% +Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well. + -- Charles Bukowski +% +Oh, love is real enough, you will find it some day, but it has one +arch-enemy -- and that is life. + -- Jean Anouilh, "Ardele" +% +On a tous un peu peur de l'amour, mais on a surtout peur de souffrir +ou de faire souffrir. + [One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is + afraid of pain or causing pain.] +% +Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings +infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can +grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it +possible for each to see each other whole against the sky. + -- Rainer Rilke +% +One expresses well the love he does not feel. + -- J. A. Karr +% +People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense. + -- Ken Kesey +% +Really?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!! +% +Sometime when you least expect it, Love will tap you on the shoulder... +and ask you to move out of the way because it still isn't your turn. + -- N. V. Plyter +% +Sometimes love ain't nothing but a misunderstanding between two fools. +% +Sorry never means having your say to love. +% +Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these +days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate +with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't communicate, children +who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in +these books and plays and so on (and in real life, I might add) spend hours +bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't +communicate, the very _____least he can do is to shut up! + -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was" +% +Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy. +% +That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, +that no one could have loved so before us, and that no one will love +in the same way as us. + -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe +% +That's life for you, said McDunn. Someone always waiting for someone who +never comes home. Always someone loving something more than that thing loves +them. And after awhile you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it +can't hurt you no more. + -- R. Bradbury, "The Fog Horn" +% + The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time +for Miss Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public. + It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners +has been known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a +curb, and, in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a +foot or two under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the +sight of people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand +dresses up a city considerably more than the more familiar sight of +people shaking umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to +is the kind of activity that frightens the horses on the street... +% +The giraffe you thought you offended last week is willing to be nuzzled today. +% +The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +The heart is wiser than the intellect. +% +The little pieces of my life I give to you, with love, to make a quilt +to keep away the cold. +% +The magic of our first love is our ignorance that it can ever end. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +The myth of romantic love holds that once you've fallen in love with the +perfect partner, you're home free. Unfortunately, falling out of love +seems to be just as involuntary as falling into it. +% +The only difference in the game of love over the last few thousand years +is that they've changed trumps from clubs to diamonds. + -- The Indianapolis Star +% +The onset and the waning of love make themselves felt in the uneasiness +experienced at being alone together. + -- Jean de la Bruyere +% +The perfect lover is one who turns into a pizza at 4:00 A.M. + -- Charles Pierce +% +The person you rejected yesterday could make you happy, if you say yes. +% +The seven year itch comes from fooling around during the fourth, fifth, +and sixth years. +% +The story of the butterfly: + "I was in Bogota and waiting for a lady friend. I was in love, +a long time ago. I waited three days. I was hungry but could not go +out for food, lest she come and I not be there to greet her. Then, on +the third day, I heard a knock." + "I hurried along the old passage and there, in the sunlight, +there was nothing." + "Just," Vance Joy said, "a butterfly, flying away." + -- Peter Carey, BLISS +% +The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core -- +Scratch a lover and find a foe! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Ballad of a Great Weariness" +% +The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. +% +There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both plants +and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis; and when +the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again, don't we all? +% +There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear. + -- 1 John 4:18 +% +There is only one way to be happy by means of the heart -- to have none. + -- Paul Bourget +% +There's so much to say but your eyes keep interrupting me. +% +Timing must be perfect now. Two-timing must be better than perfect. +% +To be loved is very demoralizing. + -- Katharine Hepburn +% +To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three +parts dead. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Total strangers need love, too; and I'm stranger than most. +% +True happiness will be found only in true love. +% +Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it can wait. +Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic... +% +We don't believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first attack. + -- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach +% +What is irritating about love is that it is a crime that requires an accomplice. + -- Charles Baudelaire +% +When your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn +They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem. + -- Leonard Cohen, "Sisters of Mercy" +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but ... + -- I have to floss my cat. + -- I've dedicated my life to linguini. + -- I need to spend more time with my blender. + -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People. + -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish. + -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves. + -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products. + -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise. + -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist. + -- I have some really hard words to look up. + -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. + -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I have to answer all of my "occupant" letters. + -- None of my socks match. + -- I'm having all my plants neutered. + -- I changed the lock on my door and now I can't get out. + -- My yucca plant is feeling yucky. + -- I'm touring China with a wok band. + -- My chocolate-appreciation class meets that night. + -- I'm running off to Yugoslavia with a foreign-exchange student + named Basil Metabolism. + -- There are important world issues that need worrying about. + -- I'm going to count the bristles in my toothbrush. + -- I prefer to remain an enigma. + -- I think you want the OTHER Peggy/Cathy/Mike/whomever. + -- I feel a song coming on. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I have to draw "Cubby" for an art scholarship. + -- I have to sit up with a sick ant. + -- I'm trying to be less popular. + -- My bathroom tiles need grouting. + -- I'm waiting to see if I'm already a winner. + -- My subconscious says no. + -- I just picked up a book called "Glue in Many Lands" and I + can't seem to put it down. + -- My favorite commercial is on TV. + -- I have to study for my blood test. + -- I've been traded to Cincinnati. + -- I'm having my baby shoes bronzed. + -- I have to go to court for kitty littering. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I'm trying to see how long I can go without saying yes. + -- I'm attending the opening of my garage door. + -- The monsters haven't turned blue yet, and I have to eat more dots. + -- I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian. + -- I have to fulfill my potential. + -- I don't want to leave my comfort zone. + -- It's too close to the turn of the century. + -- I have to bleach my hare. + -- I'm worried about my vertical hold knob. + -- I left my body in my other clothes. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. + -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. + -- I've been scheduled for a karma transplant. + -- I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture. + -- It's my parakeet's bowling night. + -- I'm building a plant from a kit. + -- There's a disturbance in the Force. + -- I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling. + -- I'm teaching my ferret to yodel. + -- My crayons all melted together. +% +"Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love +you knowing nothing?" + -- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions +% +Without love intelligence is dangerous; +without intelligence love is not enough. + -- Ashley Montagu +% +Wouldn't this be a great world if being insecure and desperate were a turn-on? + -- "Broadcast News" +% +Yeah, there are more important things in life than money, but they won't go +out with you if you don't have any. +% +You shouldn't have to pay for your love with your bones and your flesh. + -- Pat Benatar, "Hell is for Children" +% diff --git a/fortunes/magic b/fortunes/magic new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b215fc3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/magic @@ -0,0 +1,194 @@ +A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally +established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon +or three normal sized billiard balls. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +"A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, +let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that +there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, +completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of +beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. +It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club +near your person at all times." + -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII +% +An ancient proverb summed it up: when a wizard is tired of looking for +broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Chaos is King and Magic is loose in the world. +% +Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they become soggy and hard to +light. +% +Do not throw cigarette butts in the urinal, for they are subtle and +quick to anger. +% +"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good +with ketchup." +% +Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. + -- Aleister Crowley +% +Eight was also the Number of Bel-Shamharoth, which was why a sensible wizard +would never mention the number if he could avoid it. Or you'll be eight +alive, apprentices were jocularly warned. Bel-Shamharoth was especially +attracted to dabblers in magic who, by being as it were beachcombers on the +shores of the unnatural, were already half-enmeshed in his nets. +Rincewind's room number in his hall of residence had been 7a. He hadn't +been surprised. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Sending of Eight" +% +"How do you know she is a unicorn?" Molly demanded. "And why were you afraid +to let her touch you? I saw you. You were afraid of her." + "I doubt that I will feel like talking for very long," the cat +replied without rancor. "I would not waste time in foolishness if I were +you. As to your first question, no cat out of its first fur can ever be +deceived by appearances. Unlike human beings, who enjoy them. As for your +second question --" Here he faltered, and suddenly became very interested +in washing; nor would he speak until he had licked himself fluffy and then +licked himself smooth again. Even then he would not look at Molly, but +examined his claws. + "If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been +hers and not my own, not ever again." + -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" +% +It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along, because +one side considers the other side to be a collection of bloodthirsty idiots +who can't walk and think at the same time, while the other side is naturally +suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and wear long dresses. Oh, say +the wizards, if we're going to be like that, then, what about all those +studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men's Pagan Association? +To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty good allegation from a bunch of +wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on account, can you believe it, of their +mystical power being sort of drained out. Right, say the wizards, that just +about does it, you and your leather posing pouches. Oh yeah, say the +heroes, why don't you ... + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +It is well known that *things* from undesirable universes are always seeking +an entrance into this one, which is the psychic equivalent of handy for the +buses and closer to the shops. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% + It seems there's this magician working one of the luxury cruise ships +for a few years. He doesn't have to change his routines much as the audiences +change over fairly often, and he's got a good life. The only problem is the +ship's parrot, who perches in the hall and watches him night after night, year +after year. Finally, the parrot figures out how almost every trick works and +starts giving it away for the audience. For example, when the magician makes +a bouquet of flowers disappear, the parrot squawks "Behind his back! Behind +his back!" Well, the magician is really annoyed at this, but there's not much +he can do about it as the parrot is a ship's mascot and very popular with the +passengers. + One night, the ship strikes some floating debris, and sinks without +a trace. Almost everyone aboard was lost, except for the magician and the +parrot. For three days and nights they just drift, with the magician clinging +to one end of a piece of driftwood and the parrot perched on the other end. +As the sun rises on the morning of the fourth day, the parrot walks over to +the magician's end of the log. With obvious disgust in his voice, he snaps +"OK, you win, I give up. Where did you hide the ship?" +% +Knowledge is power -- knowledge shared is power lost. + -- Aleister Crowley +% +Magic is always the best solution -- especially reliable magic. +% +No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will seriously +cramp his style. +% +Rincewind had generally been considered by his tutors to be a natural wizard +in the same way that fish are natural mountaineers. He probably would have +been thrown out of Unseen University anyway--he couldn't remember spells and +smoking made him feel ill. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Somewhere, just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering. +% +The default Magic Word, "Abracadabra", actually is a corruption of the +Hebrew phrase "ha-Bracha dab'ra" which means "pronounce the blessing". +% +"The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your +hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do." + -- McCloctnik the Lucid +% + The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood as he +reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all. The Gray +Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in the palace +of Gilpkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts in twenty-five of +him are dead, he is alive. + "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached +everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a fierce +host which out-numbers Lankhamar's inhabitants by fifty to one -- and +equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city." + "How?" demanded Fafhrd. + Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know." + -- Fritz Leiber, "The Swords of Lankhmar" +% + "Then what is magic for?" Prince Lir demanded wildly. "What use is +wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder +hard, to keep from falling. + Schmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in +his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for." +... + "Yes, of course," he [Prince Lir] said. "That is exactly what heroes +are for. Wizards make no difference, so they say that nothing does, but +heroes are meant to die for unicorns." + -- Peter Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" +% +There are those who claim that magic is like the tide; that it swells and +fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentrated pools here +and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leaving them parched for +wonder. There are also those who believe that if you stick your fingers up +your nose and blow, it will increase your intelligence. + -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII +% +Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about +problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that +if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be +embarrassingly good at it ... + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef. + -- Tom Robbins +% + "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past year +strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley reap +crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts. +There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon. Calendars are made with +a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance +salesmen. The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in +square knots. The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down +soggy potato chips." + "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. + "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good +copy." + -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" +% +Watch Rincewind. + +Look at him. Scrawny, like most wizards, and clad in a dark red robe on +which a few mystic sigils were embroidered in tarnished sequins. Some might +have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter who had run away from his +master out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for +heterosexuality. Yet around his neck was a chain bearing the bronze octagon +that marked him as an alumnus of Unseen University, the high school of magic +whose time-and-space transcendent campus is never precisely Here or There. +Graduates were usually destined for mageship at least, but Rincewind--after +an unfortunate event--had left knowing only one spell and made a living of +sorts around the town by capitalizing on an innate gift for languages. He +avoided work as a rule, but had a quickness of wit that put his +acquaintances in mind of a bright rodent. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +What is a magician but a practising theorist? + -- Obi-Wan Kenobi +% +What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? + -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" +% +When I say the magic word to all these people, they will vanish forever. +I will then say the magic words to you, and you, too, will vanish -- never +to be seen again. + -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Between Time and Timbuktu" +% diff --git a/fortunes/medicine b/fortunes/medicine new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37b5d82 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/medicine @@ -0,0 +1,423 @@ +A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: + +1. DO NOT EXPECT YOUR DOCTOR TO SHARE YOUR DISCOMFORT. + Involvement with the patient's suffering might cause him to lose + valuable scientific objectivity. + +2. BE CHEERFUL AT ALL TIMES. + Your doctor leads a busy and trying life and requires all the + gentleness and reassurance he can get. + +3. TRY TO SUFFER FROM THE DISEASE FOR WHICH YOU ARE BEING TREATED. + Remember that your doctor has a professional reputation to uphold. +% +A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: + +4. DO NOT COMPLAIN IF THE TREATMENT FAILS TO BRING RELIEF. + You must believe that your doctor has achieved a deep insight into + the true nature of your illness, which transcends any mere permanent + disability you may have experienced. + +5. NEVER ASK YOUR DOCTOR TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS DOING OR WHY HE IS DOING IT. + It is presumptuous to assume that such profound matters could be + explained in terms that you would understand. + +6. SUBMIT TO NOVEL EXPERIMANTAL TREATMENT READILY. + Though the surgery may not benefit you directly, the resulting + research paper will surely be of widespread interest. +% +A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: + +7. PAY YOUR MEDICAL BILLS PROMPTLY AND WILLINGLY. + You should consider it a privilege to contribute, however modestly, + to the well-being of physicians and other humanitarians. + +8. DO NOT SUFFER FROM AILMENTS THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD. + It is sheer arrogance to contract illnesses that are beyond your means. + +9. NEVER REVEAL ANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS THAT HAVE COME TO LIGHT IN THE COURSE + OF TREATMENT BY YOUR DOCTOR. + The patient-doctor relationship is a privileged one, and you have a + sacred duty to protect him from exposure. + +10. NEVER DIE WHILE IN YOUR DOCTOR'S PRESENCE OR UNDER HIS DIRECT CARE. + This will only cause him needless inconvenience and embarrassment. +% +A distraught patient phoned her doctor's office. "Was it true," the woman +inquired, "that the medication the doctor had prescribed was for the rest +of her life?" + She was told that it was. There was just a moment of silence before +the woman proceeded bravely on. "Well, I'm wondering, then, how serious my +condition is. This prescription is marked `NO REFILLS'". +% +A doctor calls his patient to give him the results of his tests. "I have +some bad news," says the doctor, "and some worse news." The bad news is +that you only have six weeks to live." + "Oh, no," says the patient. "What could possibly be worse than that?" + "Well," the doctor replies, "I've been trying to reach you since +last Monday." +% +A woman physician has made the statement that smoking is neither +physically defective nor morally degrading, and that nicotine, even +when indulged to in excess, is less harmful than excessive petting." + -- Purdue Exponent, Jan 16, 1925 +% +A woman went into a hospital one day to give birth. Afterwards, the doctor +came to her and said, "I have some... odd news for you." + "Is my baby all right?" the woman anxiously asked. + "Yes, he is," the doctor replied, "but we don't know how. Your son +(we assume) was born with no body. He only has a head." + Well, the doctor was correct. The Head was alive and well, though no +one knew how. The Head turned out to be fairly normal, ignoring his lack of +a body, and lived for some time as typical a life as could be expected under +the circumstances. + One day, about twenty years after the fateful birth, the woman got a +phone call from another doctor. The doctor said, "I have recently perfected +an operation. Your son can live a normal life now: we can graft a body onto +his head!" + The woman, practically weeping with joy, thanked the doctor and hung +up. She ran up the stairs saying, "Johnny, Johnny, I have a *wonderful* +surprise for you!" + "Oh no," cried The Head, "not another HAT!" +% +After his legs had been broken in an accident, Mr. Miller sued for damages, +claming that he was crippled and would have to spend the rest of his life +in a wheelchair. Although the insurance-company doctor testified that his +bones had healed properly and that he was fully capable of walking, the +judge decided for the plaintiff and awarded him $500,000. + When he was wheeled into the insurance office to collect his check, +Miller was confronted by several executives. "You're not getting away with +this, Miller," one said. "We're going to watch you day and night. If you +take a single step, you'll not only repay the damages but stand trial for +perjury. Here's the money. What do you intend to do with it?" + "My wife and I are going to travel," Miller replied. "We'll go to +Stockholm, Berlin, Rome, Athens and, finally, to a place called Lourdes -- +where, gentlemen, you'll see yourselves one hell of a miracle." +% +After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that +brought tears to my eyes. He said, "No hablo ingles." + -- Ronnie Shakes +% +Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +Aquavit is also considered useful for medicinal purposes, an essential +ingredient in what I was once told is the Norwegian cure for the common +cold. You get a bottle, a poster bed, and the brightest colored stocking +cap you can find. You put the cap on the post at the foot of the bed, +then get into bed and drink aquavit until you can't see the cap. I've +never tried this, but it sounds as though it should work. + -- Peter Nelson +% + As a general rule of thumb, never trust anybody who's been in therapy +for more than 15 percent of their life span. The words "I am sorry" and "I +am wrong" will have totally disappeared from their vocabulary. They will stab +you, shoot you, break things in your apartment, say horrible things to your +friends and family, and then justify this abhorrent behavior by saying: +"Sure, I put your dog in the microwave. But I feel *better* for doing it." + -- Bruce Feirstein, "Nice Guys Sleep Alone" +% +At the hospital, a doctor is training an intern on how to announce bad news +to the patients. The doctor tells the intern "This man in 305 is going to +die in six months. Go in and tell him." The intern boldly walks into the +room, over to the man's bedisde and tells him "Seems like you're gonna die!" +The man has a heart attack and is rushed into surgery on the spot. The doctor +grabs the intern and screams at him, "What!?!? are you some kind of moron? +You've got to take it easy, work your way up to the subject. Now this man in +213 has about a week to live. Go in and tell him, but, gently, you hear me, +gently!" + The intern goes softly into the room, humming to himself, cheerily +opens the drapes to let the sun in, walks over to the man's bedside, fluffs +his pillow and wishes him a "Good morning!" "Wonderful day, no? Say... +guess who's going to die soon!" +% +Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door. +% +Better to use medicines at the outset than at the last moment. +% +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" +% +Cure the disease and kill the patient. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Death has been proven to be 99% fatal in laboratory rats. +% +Dental health is next to mental health. +% +Ever notice that the word "therapist" breaks down into "the rapist"? +Simple coincidence? +Maybe... +% +For my son, Robert, this is proving to be the high-point of his entire life +to date. He has had his pajamas on for two, maybe three days now. He has +the sense of joyful independence a 5-year-old child gets when he suddenly +realizes that he could be operating an acetylene torch in the coat closet +and neither parent [because of the flu] would have the strength to object. +He has been foraging for his own food, which means his diet consists +entirely of "food" substances which are advertised only on Saturday-morning +cartoon shows; substances that are the color of jukebox lights and that, for +legal reasons, have their names spelled wrong, as in New Creemy +Chok-'n'-Cheez Lumps o' Froot ("part of this complete breakfast"). + -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide" +% +Fortune's Exercising Truths: + +1: Richard Simmons gets paid to exercise like a lunatic. You don't. +2. Aerobic exercises stimulate and speed up the heart. So do heart attacks. +3. Exercising around small children can scar them emotionally for life. +4. Sweating like a pig and gasping for breath is not refreshing. +5. No matter what anyone tells you, isometric exercises cannot be done + quietly at your desk at work. People will suspect manic tendencies as + you twitter around in your chair. +6. Next to burying bones, the thing a dog enjoys mosts is tripping joggers. +7. Locking four people in a tiny, cement-walled room so they can run around + for an hour smashing a little rubber ball -- and each other -- with a hard + racket should immediately be recognized for what it is: a form of insanity. +8. Fifty push-ups, followed by thirty sit-ups, followed by ten chin-ups, + followed by one throw-up. +9. Any activity that can't be done while smoking should be avoided. +% +[From an announcement of a congress of the International Ontopsychology +Association, in Rome]: + +The Ontopsychological school, availing itself of new research criteria and +of a new telematic epistemology, maintains that social modes do not spring +from dialectics of territory or of class, or of consumer goods, or of means +of power, but rather from dynamic latencies capillarized in millions of +individuals in system functions which, once they have reached the event +maturation, burst forth in catastrophic phenomenology engaging a suitable +stereotype protagonist or duty marionette (general, president, political +party, etc.) to consummate the act of social schizophrenia in mass genocide. +% +God is dead and I don't feel all too well either.... + -- Ralph Moonen +% +"Good health" is merely the slowest rate at which one can die. +% +Happiness is good health and a bad memory. + -- Ingrid Bergman +% +Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. +% +Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying +of nothing. + -- Redd Foxx +% +His ideas of first-aid stopped short of squirting soda water. + -- P. G. Wodehouse +% +Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929. +Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating +table to prevent her interference, he placed a ureteral 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. +% +I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise. + -- Chauncey Depew +% +I got the bill for my surgery. Now I know what those doctors were +wearing masks for. + -- James Boren +% + "I keep seeing spots in front of my eyes." + "Did you ever see a doctor?" + "No, just spots." +% +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 I kiss you, that is an psychological interaction. + On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, +that is also a psychological interaction. + The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not +so friendly. + The crucial point is if you can tell which is which. + -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" +% +If you look like your driver's license photo -- see a doctor. +If you look like your passport photo -- it's too late for a doctor. +% +It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. +It produces a false impression. + -- Oscar Wilde. +% +It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding +a sickness you like. + -- Jackie Mason +% +It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it's +what you're taking for it... +% +Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he +knows what it is. +% +Laetrile is the pits. +% +My doctorate's in Literature, but it seems like a pretty good pulse to me. +% +Neurotics build castles in the sky, +Psychotics live in them, +And psychiatrists collect the rent. +% +Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +New England Life, of course. Why do you ask? +% + page 46 +...a report citing a study by Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, of the Mount Sinai +Medical Center in New York, which compared two groups that were being used +to test the theory that ascorbic acid is a cold preventative. "The group +on placebo who thought they were on ascorbic acid," says Dr. Chalmers, +"had fewer colds than the group on ascorbic acid who thought they were +on placebo." + page 56 +The placebo is proof that there is no real separation between mind and body. +Illness is always an interaction between both. It can begin in the mind and +affect the body, or it can begin in the body and affect the mind, both of +which are served by the same bloodstream. Attempts to treat most mental +diseases as though they were completely free of physical causes and attempts +to treat most bodily diseases as though the mind were in no way involved must +be considered archaic in the light of new evidence about the way the human +body functions. + -- Norman Cousins, + "Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient" +% +Paralysis through analysis. +% +Proper treatment will cure a cold in seven days, but left to itself, +a cold will hang on for a week. + -- Darrell Huff +% +Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents' +shortcomings. + -- Laurence J. Peter, "Peter's Principles" +% +Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself a therapy. + -- Karl Kraus +% +Psychiatry is the care of the id by the odd. +% +Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. + -- C. G. Jung +% +Psychology. Mind over matter. Mind under matter? It doesn't matter. +Never mind. +% +Pushing 30 is exercise enough. +% +Pushing 40 is exercise enough. +% +Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away. + -- Robert Orben +% +Sigmund's wife wore Freudian slips. +% +Some people need a good imaginary cure for their painful imaginary ailment. +% +Sometimes the best medicine is to stop taking something. +% +Straw? No, too stupid a fad. I put soot on warts. +% +Stress has been pinpointed as a major cause of illness. To avoid overload +and burnout, keep stress out of your life. Give it to others instead. Learn +the "Gaslight" treatment, the "Are you talking to me?" technique, and the +"Do you feel okay? You look pale." approach. Start with negotiation and +implication. Advance to manipulation and humiliation. Above all, relax +and have a nice day. +% +The 80's -- when you can't tell hairstyles from chemotherapy. +% +"... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic ..." + -- Dave Barry +% +"The molars, I'm sure, will be all right, the molars can take care of +themselves," the old man said, no longer to me. "But what will become +of the bicuspids?" + -- The Old Man and his Bridge +% +The New England Journal of Medicine reports that 9 out of 10 doctors agree +that 1 out of 10 doctors is an idiot. +% +The real reason psychology is hard is that psychologists are trying to +do the impossible. +% +The reason they're called wisdom teeth is that the experience makes you wise. +% +The secret of healthy hitchhiking is to eat junk food. +% +The trouble with heart disease is that the first symptom is often hard to +deal with: death. + -- Michael Phelps +% +The Vet Who Surprised A Cow + In the course of his duties in August 1977, a Dutch veterinary +surgeon was required to treat an ailing cow. To investigate its internal +gases he inserted a tube into that end of the animal not capable of facial +expression and struck a match. The jet of flame set fire first to some +bales of hay and then to the whole farm causing damage estimate at L45,000. +The vet was later fined L140 for starting a fire in a manner surprising to +the magistrates. The cow escaped with shock. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an official +name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death Flu". You +may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish you had another +setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that said "ELECTROCUTION". + Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) +your teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing +process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a couple +of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways out of your +mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste stalagmites that +would bond your head permanently to the bathroom floor, which is how the +police would find you. + You know the kind of flu I'm talking about. + -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide" +% + "Welcome back for you 13th consecutive week, Evelyn. Evelyn, will +you go into the auto-suggestion booth and take your regular place on the +psycho-prompter couch?" + "Thank you, Red." + "Now, Evelyn, last week you went up to $40,000 by properly citing +your rivalry with your sibling as a compulsive sado-masochistic behavior +pattern which developed out of an early post-natal feeding problem." + "Yes, Red." + "But -- later, when asked about pre-adolescent oedipal phantasy +repressions, you rationalized twice and mental blocked three times. Now, +at $300 per rationalization and $500 per mental block you lost $2,100 off +your $40,000 leaving you with a total of $37,900. Now, any combination of +two more mental blocks and either one rationalization or three defensive +projections will put you out of the game. Are you willing to go ahead?" + "Yes, Red." + "I might say here that all of Evelyn's questions and answers have +been checked for accuracy with her analyst. Now, Evelyn, for $80,000 +explain the failure of your three marriages." + "Well, I--" + "We'll get back to Evelyn in one minute. First a word about our +product." + -- Jules Feiffer +% +When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't +be cured. + -- Anton Chekhov, "The Cherry Orchard" +% +Your digestive system is your body's Fun House, whereby food goes on a long, +dark, scary ride, taking all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, being +attacked by vicious secretions along the way, and not knowing until the last +minute whether it will be turned into a useful body part or ejected into the +Dark Hole by Mister Sphincter. We Americans live in a nation where the +medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe +25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in +seconds if we felt like it. + -- Dave Barry, "Stay Fit & Healthy Until You're Dead" +% diff --git a/fortunes/men-women b/fortunes/men-women new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ef7694 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/men-women @@ -0,0 +1,2561 @@ +94% of the women in America are beautiful and the rest hang out around here. +% +A bachelor is a man who never made the same mistake once. +% +A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out +of a divorce. + -- Don Quinn +% +A bachelor is an unaltared male. +% +A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty +and a boy for ever. + -- Helen Rowland +% +A bad marriage is like a horse with a broken leg, you can shoot +the horse, but it don't fix the leg. +% +A beautiful man is paradise for the eyes, hell for the soul, and +purgatory for the purse. +% +A beautiful woman is a blessing from Heaven, but a good cigar is a smoke. + -- Kipling +% +A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad. + -- Emerson +% +A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance +of turning around three times before lying down. + -- Robert Benchley +% +A boy gets to be a man when a man is needed. + -- John Steinbeck +% +A Chicago salesman was about to check into a St. Louis hotel when he noticed +a very charming woman staring admiringly at him. He walked over and spoke +with her for a few minutes, then returned to the front desk, where they checked +in as Mr. and Mrs. + After a very pleasurable three-day stay, the man approached the front +desk and told the clerk he was checking out. In a few minutes, he was handed +a bill for $2500. + "There must be some mistake," the salesman said. "I've been here for +only three days." + "Yes, sir," the clerk replied. "But your wife has been here a month +and a half." +% +A Code of Honour: never approach a friend's girlfriend or wife with mischief +as your goal. There are too many women in the world to justify that sort of +dishonourable behaviour. Unless she's really attractive. + -- Bruce J. Friedman, "Sex and the Lonely Guy" +% +A diplomat is man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never her age. + -- Robert Frost +% +A diplomatic husband said to his wife, "How do you expect me to remember +your birthday when you never look any older?" +% + A domineering man married a mere wisp of a girl. He came back from +his honeymoon a chastened man. He'd become aware of the will of the wisp. +% +A figure with curves always offers a lot of interesting angles. +% +A flashy Mercedes-Benz roared up to the curb where a cute young miss stood +waiting for a taxi. + "Hi," said the gentleman at the wheel. "I'm going west." + "How wonderful," came the cool reply. "Bring me back an orange." +% +A fool and his honey are soon parted. +% +A fox is a wolf who sends flowers. + -- Ruth Weston +% +A gentleman is a man who wouldn't hit a lady with his hat on. + -- Evan Esar + [ And why not? For why does she have his hat on? Ed.] +% +A gentleman never strikes a lady with his hat on. + -- Fred Allen +% +A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident. +A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident. +But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *____that ___had +__to ____mean _________something*. + -- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers" +% +A girl with a future avoids the man with a past. + -- Evan Esar, "The Humor of Humor" +% +A girl's best friend is her mutter. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +A girl's conscience doesn't really keep her from doing anything wrong-- +it merely keeps her from enjoying it. +% +A good man always knows his limitations. + -- Harry Callahan +% +A good marriage would be between a blind wife and deaf husband. + -- Michel de Montaigne +% +A guy has to get fresh once in a while so a girl doesn't lose her confidence. +% +A hammer sometimes misses its mark - a bouquet never. +% +A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted. + -- Helen Rowland +% +A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally. + -- Lillian Day +% +A man always needs to remember one thing about a beautiful woman. + +Somewhere, somebody's tired of her. +% +A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after +that begins to bunch them. + -- Mencken +% +A man arrived home early to find his wife in the arms of his best friend, +who swore how much they were in love. To quiet the enraged husband, the +lover suggested, "Friends shouldn't fight, let's play gin rummy. If I win, +you get a divorce so I can marry her. If you win, I promise never to see +her again. Okay?" + +"Alright," agreed the husband. "But how about a quarter a point +on the side to make it interesting?" +% +A man can have two, maybe three love affairs while he's married. After +that it's cheating. + -- Yves Montand +% +A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself. + -- Du Bois +% +A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished. + -- Zsa Zsa Gabor, "Newsweek" +% +A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him. + -- Brendan Francis +% +A man is like a rusty wheel on a rusty cart, +He sings his song as he rattles along and then he falls apart. + -- Richard Thompson +% +A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +A man may sometimes be forgiven the kiss to which he is not entitled, +but never the kiss he has not the initiative to claim. +% +A man sank into the psychiatrist's couch and said, "I have a +terrible problem, Doctor. I have a son at Harvard and another son at +Princeton; I've just gifted each of them with a new Ferrari; I've got +homes in Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, and a co-op in New York; and I've +got a thriving ranch in Venezuela. My wife is a gorgeous young actress +who considers my two mistresses to be her best friends." + The psychiatrist looked at the patient, confused. "Did I miss +something? It sounds to me like you have no problems at all." + "But, Doctor, I only make $175 a week." +% +A man took his wife deer hunting for the first time. After he'd given her +some basic instructions, they agreed to separate and rendezvous later. Before +he left, he warned her if she should fell a deer to be wary of hunters who +might beat her to the carcass and claim the kill. If that happened, he told +her, she should fire her gun three times into the air and he would come to +her aid. + Shortly after they separated, he heard a single shot, followed quickly +by the agreed upon signal. Running to the scene, he found his wife standing +in a small clearing with a very nervous man staring down her gun barrel. + "He claims this is his," she said, obviously very upset. + "She can keep it, she can keep it!" the wide-eyed man replied. "I +just want to get my saddle back!" +% +A man usually falls in love with a woman who asks the kinds of questions +he is able to answer. + -- Ronald Colman +% +A man was griping to his friend about how he hated to go home after a +late card games. + "You wouldn't believe what I go through to avoid waking my wife," +he said. "First, I kill the engine a block away from the house and coast +into the garage. Then I open the door slowly, take off my shoes, and +tiptoe to our room. But just as I'm about to slide into bed, she always +wakes up and gives me hell." + "I make a big racket when I go home," his friend replied. + "You do?" + "Sure. I honk the horn, slam the door, turn on all the lights, +stomp up to the bedroom and give my wife a big kiss. `Hi, Alice,' I say. +`How about a little smooch for your old man?'" + "And what does she say?" his friend asked in disbelief. + "She doesn't say anything," his buddy replied. "She always pretends +she's asleep." +% +A man was kneeling by a grave in a cemetery, crying and praying very loudly, + "Oh why..eeeee did you die...eeeeee, Oh Why..eeeeee, +why did you Di......eeee" +The caretaker walks up, pardons himself and asks politely, + "Excuse me, sir, but I've been seeing you for hours now, +carrying on at this grave. You must have been very close to the deceased." + "No, I never met him. Oh why....eeeee did you dieeeeee, +why....eeeee did you.." + "Sir, you say you never met this person, yet you carry on so? +Tell, me who is buried here?" + "My wife's first husband." +% +A man was talking to his best friend about his married life. "You know," he +says, "I really trust my wife, and I think she has always been faithful to +me, but there's *always* that doubt. There's *always* that little doubt." + "Yeah, I know what you mean," his friend replies. + "Well, buddy, I've got to leave on a business trip this weekend, +and I wonder... well... would you watch my house while I'm gone? I trust +her, it's just that there's *always* that doubt." + The friend agreed to help out and two weeks later gave his report. + "I've got some bad news for you," says the friend. "The evening +after you left I saw a strange car pull up in front of your house. A man +got out of the car and went in the house and had dinner with your wife. +After dinner they went upstairs and I saw your wife kissing him. Then, he +took off his shirt and she took off her blouse. And then the light went +out." + "*Then* what happened?" said the husband, his eyes opening wide. + "Well, I don't know," replied the friend, "it was too dark to see." + "Damn!" roared the husband. "You see what I mean? There's *always* +that doubt!" +% +A man without a woman is like a statue without pigeons. +% +A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. +% +A man's gotta know his limitations. + -- Clint Eastwood, "Dirty Harry" +% +A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object +in the whole creation. + -- Goldsmith +% +A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman +makes a fool of him in twenty minutes. + -- Frost +% +A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +A pretty woman can do anything; an ugly woman must do everything. +% +A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions +your wife asks you for nothing. + -- Joey Adams +% + A pushy romeo asked a gorgeous elevator operator, "Don't all these +stops and starts get you pretty worn out?" "It isn't the stops and starts +that get on my nerves, it's the jerks." +% +A real gentleman never takes bases unless he really has to. + -- Overheard in an algebra lecture. +% +A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who +demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" +holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. +Yet, added he, none of you can tell where it pinches me. + -- Plutarch +% + A Scotsman was strolling across High Street one day wearing his kilt. +As he neared the far curb, he noticed two young blondes in a red convertible +eyeing him and giggling. One of them called out, "Hey, Scotty! What's worn +under the kilt?" + He strolled over to the side of the car and asked, "Ach, lass, are you +SURE you want to know?" Somewhat nervously, the blonde replied yes, she did +really want to know. + The Scotsman leaned closer and confided, "Why, lass, nothing's worn +under the kilt, everything's in perfect workin' order!" +% +A sharper perspective on this matter is particularly important to feminist +thought today, because a major tendency in feminism has constructed the +problem of domination as a drama of female vulnerability victimized by male +aggression. Even the more sophisticated feminist thinkers frequently shy +away from the analysis of submission, for fear that in admitting woman's +participation in the relationship of domination, the onus of responsibility +will appear to shift from men to women, and the moral victory from women to +men. More generally, this has been a weakness of radical politics: to +idealize the oppressed, as if their politics and culture were untouched by +the system of domination, as if people did not participate in their own +submission. To reduce domination to a simple relation of doer and done-to +is to substitute moral outrage for analysis. + -- Jessica Benjamin, "The Bonds of Love" +% +A sociologist, a psychologist, and a engineer were discussing the +consequences and implications of a married man's having a mistress. The +sociologist's opinion was that it is absolutely and categorically unforgivable +for a married man to forfeit the bond of matrimony, and engage in such lowly +and lustful pursuits. + The psychologist's opinion was that although morally reprehensible, +if a man MUST have a mistress to achieve his full potential as a human being, +then -- well -- he may go ahead and choose to have a mistress, as long as he +is considerate enough to keep this secret from his wife. + The engineer then interjected: "I also believe that, if necessary, +a married man is entitled to a mistress. However, I do not see why the +affair should be concealed from the wife. On the contrary, if the affair +is out in the open, then on Friday evenings he may tell his wife that he +is going to see his mistress, tell his mistress that he is going to be with +his wife, then go to his office and get some work done!" +% +A wife lasts only for the length of the marriage, but an ex-wife is there +*for the rest of your life*. + -- Jim Samuels +% +A woman can look both moral and exciting -- if she also looks as if it +were quite a struggle. + -- Edna Ferber +% +A woman can never be too rich or too thin. +% +A woman did what a woman had to, the best way she knew how. +To do more was impossible, to do less, unthinkable. + -- Dirisha, "The Man Who Never Missed" +% +A woman forgives the audacity of which her beauty has prompted us to be guilty. + -- LeSage +% +A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be +thankful for a good one. + -- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings +% +A woman is like your shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows. + -- Chamfort +% +A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, +it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy. + -- Nietzsche +% +A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times +over for her lover, but will break with him for ever over a question of +pride -- for the opening or the shutting of a door. + -- Stendhal +% +A woman shouldn't have to buy her own perfume. + -- Maurine Lewis +% +A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. +Therefore, a man without a woman is like a bicycle without a fish. +% +A woman's best protection is a little money of her own. + -- Clare Booth Luce, quoted in "The Wit of Women" +% +A woman's place is in the house... and in the Senate. +% +A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, +should conceal it as well as she can. + -- Jane Austen +% + A young husband with an inferiority complex insisted he was just a +little pebble on the beach. The marriage counselor told him, "If you wish to +save your marriage, you'd better be a little boulder." +% +A young man and his girlfriend were walking along Main Street when she spotted +a beautiful diamond ring in a jewelry-store window. "Wow, I'd sure love to +have that!" she gushed. + "No problem," her companion replied, throwing a brick through the +window and grabbing the ring. + A few blocks later, the woman admired a full-length sable coat. "What +I'd give to own that," she said, sighing. + "No problem," he said, throwing a brick through the window and grabbing +the coat. + Finally, turning for home, they passed a car dealership. "Boy, I'd do +anything for one of those Rolls-Royces," she said. + "Jeez, baby," the guy moaned, "you think I'm made of bricks?" +% +A young man enters the New York branch of Tiffany's on a Friday evening and +walks up to a display case full of pearl necklaces. He turns to a gorgeous +woman, who is obviously windowshopping, looks her straight in the eye and +says, "I can tell by your eyes that you really want that necklace. If you'll +allow me, I'd like to buy it for you." + The woman looks him up and down; he's wearing a nice suit and some +pretty nice jewelry, but she has trouble believing this story. + "Look, this is some kind of put on, right?" + "No, really. You see, I've got quite a lot of money -- so much that +I could never spend it all. I'd really like for you to have it." + The guys whips out his checkbook, writes a check for five figures, +calls over a clerk and hands it to him. The clerk peers at the check, looks +at the young man, looks at the check again. "Very good, sir. I'm afraid I +can't release the necklace immediately, would Monday be all right?" + "That'll be fine, she'll pick it up." the man replies, and walks out +of the store with the woman following him in a daze. + The next Monday the man comes back in and walks up to the counter. +The same clerk hurries over to him and says, "Sir, I'm sorry to have to tell +you this, but your check was returned for insufficient funds." + "I know," the man replies. "I just wanted to thank you for a +terrific weekend." +% +AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!! +You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room! +% +Ain't nothin' an old man can do for me but bring me a message from a young man. + -- Moms Mabley +% +Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them +continues to pay for it. + -- Peggy Joyce +% +Alimony is like buying oats for a dead horse. + -- Arthur Baer +% +Alimony is the curse of the writing classes. + -- Norman Mailer +% +All heiresses are beautiful. + -- John Dryden +% +All husbands are alike, but they have different faces so you can tell +them apart. +% +All most men really want in life is a wife, a house, two kids and a car, +a cat, no maybe a dog. Ummm, scratch one of the kids and add a dog. +Definitely a dog. +% +All the men on my staff can type. + -- Bella Abzug +% +All work and no pay makes a housewife. +% +American culture is based on the automobile, and any young man of promise +is going to own one and want to travel great distances in it. Consequently, +any young woman of aspiration should expect to spend most of her vacations +in a car, probing into unfamiliar corners. She is not required to know how +to drive but she will certainly be expected to read the road map while her +husband drives, and if she can't, or if she's abnormally slow in giving him +help, she's bound to cause trouble. Therefore, you'd think that colleges +which train the bright young women who're going to marry the bright young +men who are going to own the Cadillacs that roar back and forth across this +continent would teach the girls to read maps. None do. They teach a hundred +other useless things, but never a word about the one that will cause the +greatest friction. + -- James Michener, "Space" +% + An airplane pilot got engaged to two very pretty women at the same +time. One was named Edith; the other named Kate. They met, discovered they +had the same fiancee, and told him. "Get out of our lives you rascal. We'll +teach you that you can't have your Kate and Edith, too." +% +An optimist is a man who looks forward to marriage. +A pessimist is a married optimist. +% +"And what do you two think you are doing?!" roared the husband, as he came +upon his wife in bed with another man. The wife turned and smiled at her +companion. + +"See?" she said. "I told you he was stupid!" +% +And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to +have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon +the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let +loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: +in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest +license of a child, and yet been man enough to know its value. + -- Charles Dickens +% +Another greeting card category consists of those persons who send out +photographs of their families every year. In the same mail that brought the +greetings from Marcia and Philip, my friend found such a conversation piece. +"My God, Lida is enormous!" she exclaimed. I don't know why women want to +record each year, for two or three hundred people to see, the ravages wrought +upon them, their mates, and their progeny by the artillery of time, but +between five and seven per cent of Christmas cards, at a rough estimate, are +family groups, and even the most charitable recipient studies them for little +signs of dissolution or derangement. Nothing cheers a woman more, I am afraid, +than the proof that another woman is letting herself go, or has lost control +of her figure, or is clearly driving her husband crazy, or is obviously +drinking more than is good for her, or still doesn't know what to wear. +Middle-aged husbands in such photographs are often described as looking +"young enough to be her son," but they don't always escape so easily, and a +couple opening envelopes in the season of mercy and good will sometimes handle +a male friend or acquaintance rather sharply. "Good Lord!" the wife will say. +"Frank looks like a sex-crazed shotgun slayer, doesn't he?" "Not to me," the +husband may reply. "to me he looks more like a Wilkes-Barre dentist who is +being sought by the police in connection with the disappearance of a choir +singer." + -- James Thurber, "Merry Christmas" +% +Any girl can be glamorous; all you have to do is stand still and look stupid. + -- Hedy Lamarr +% +Any woman is a volume if one knows how to read her. +% +Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot. + -- Groucho Marx +% + "Anything else, sir?" asked the attentive bellhop, trying his best +to make the lady and gentleman comfortable in their penthouse suite in the +posh hotel. + "No. No, thank you," replied the gentleman. + "Anything for your wife, sir?" the bellhop asked. + "Why, yes, young man," said the gentleman. "Would you bring me a +postcard?" +% +As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and +considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless. + +The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, +a separation. + -- Lord Chesterfield, letter to his son, 1763 +% +Asked how she felt being the first woman to make a major-league team, she +said, "Like a pig in mud," or words to that effect, and then turned and +released a squirt of tobacco juice from the wad of rum soaked plug in her +right cheek. She chewed a rare brand of plug called Stuff It, which she +learned to chew when she was playing Nicaraguan summer ball. She told the +writers, "They were so mean to me down there you couldn't write it in your +newspaper. I took a gun everywhere I went, even to bed. *Especially* to +bed. Guys were after me like you can't believe. That's when I started +chewing tobacco -- because no matter how bad anybody treats you, it's not +as bad as this. This is the worst chew in the world. After this, +everything else is peaches and cream." The writers elected Gentleman Jim, +the Sparrow's P.R. guy, to bite off a chunk and tell them how it tasted, +and as he sat and chewed it tears ran down his old sunburnt cheeks and he +couldn't talk for a while. Then he whispered, "You've been chewing this for +two years? God, I had no idea it was so hard to be a woman." + -- Garrison Keillor +% +At last I've found the girl of my dreams. Last night she said to me, +"Once more, Strange, and this time *I'll* be Donnie and *you* be Marie. + -- Strange de Jim +% +Bachelors' wives and old maids' children are always perfect. + -- Nicolas Chamfort +% +Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd +come in and sink my boats. + -- Woody Allen +% +Be circumspect in your liaisons with women. It is better to be seen at +the opera with a man than at mass with a woman. + -- De Maintenon +% +Be prepared to accept sacrifices. Vestal virgins aren't all that bad. +% +Beauty seldom recommends one woman to another. +% +Beauty, brains, availability, personality; pick any two. +% +Before marriage the three little words are "I love you," after marriage +they are "Let's eat out." +% +Behind every successful man you'll find a woman with nothing to wear. +% +Being asked solicitously about the state of her health was becoming bothersome +to the pregnant woman at the cocktail party. And yet another guest went over +and inquired, "Well, how are you feeling these days?" + "Not too well," said the expectant mother. "You know, I've missed +seven or eight periods now and it's beginning to worry me." +% +Being owned by someone used to be called slavery -- now it's called commitment. +% +Benny Hill: Would you like a peanut? +Girl: No, thank you, I don't want to be under obligation. +Benny Hill: You won't be under obligation for a peanut. + It's not as if it were a chocolate bar or something. +% +Bigamy is having one spouse too many. Monogamy is the same. +% +Birds and bees have as much to do with the facts of life as black +nightgowns do with keeping warm. + -- Hester Mundis, "Powermom" +% +Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least +when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years. + -- James Thurber +% +Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. + -- Kin Hubbard +% +Brigands will demand your money or your life, but a woman will demand both. + -- Samuel Butler +% +By all means marry: If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you +get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. + -- Socrates +% +Changing husbands/wives is only changing troubles. + -- Kathleen Norris +% +Choose in marriage only a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she +were a man. + -- Joubert +% +Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play. + -- William Congreve +% +Darling: the popular form of address used in speaking to a member of the +opposite sex whose name you cannot at the moment remember. + -- Oliver Herford +% +Dear Miss Manners: +I carry a big black umbrella, even if there's just a thirty percent chance of +rain. May I ask a young lady who is a stranger to me to share its protection? +This morning, I was waiting for a bus in comparative comfort, my umbrella +protecting me from the downpour, and noticed an attractive young woman getting +soaked. I have often seen her at my bus stop, although we have never spoken, +and I don't even know her name. Could I have asked her to get under my +umbrella without seeming insulting? + +Gentle Reader: +Certainly. Consideration for those less fortunate than you is always proper, +although it would be more convincing if you stopped babbling about how +attractive she is. In order not to give Good Samaritanism a bad name, Miss +Manners asks you to allow her two or three rainy days of unmolested protection +before making your attack. +% +Dear Miss Manners: +Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from your face. + +Gentle Reader: +Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on your face. If +the gentleman sprayed you inadvertently to accompany enthusiastic +discourse, you may step back two paces, bring out your handkerchief, and +go through the motions of wiping your nose, while trailing the cloth along +your face to pick up whatever needs mopping along the route. If, however, +the substance was acquired as a result of enthusiasm of a more intimate +nature, you may delicately retrieve it with a flick of your pink tongue. +% +Do not permit a woman to ask forgiveness, for that is only the first +step. The second is justification of herself by accusation of you. + -- DeGourmont +% +Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long +together if ever we had been married? +% +Don't assume that every sad-eyed woman has loved and lost -- she may +have got him. +% +Don't know what time I'll be back, Mom. Probably soon after she throws me out. +% +Don't marry for money; you can borrow it cheaper. + -- Scottish Proverb +% +Dull women have immaculate homes. +% + During a visit to America, Winston Churchill was invited to a buffet +luncheon at which cold fried chicken was served. Returning for a second +helping, he asked politely, "May I have some breast?" + "Mr. Churchill," replied the hostess, "in this country we ask for +white meat or dark meat." Churchill apologized profusely. + The following morning, the lady received a magnificent orchid from +her guest of honor. The accompanying card read: "I would be most obliged if +you would pin this on your white meat." +% +Economists are still trying to figure out why the girls with the least +principle draw the most interest. +% +Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe. + -- Jackie Mason +% +... eighty years later he could still recall with the young pang of his +original joy his falling in love with Ada. + -- Nabokov +% + Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant +professor; equality is when a female schlemiel moves ahead as fast as a +male schlemiel. + -- Ewald Nyquist +% + Eugene d'Albert, a noted German composer, was married six times. +At an evening reception which he attended with his fifth wife shortly +after their wedding, he presented the lady to a friend who said politely, +"Congratulations, Herr d'Albert; you have rarely introduced me to so +charming a wife." +% +"Even nowadays a man can't step up and kill a woman without feeling +just a bit unchivalrous ..." + -- Robert Benchley +% +Every man who is high up likes to think that he has done it all himself, +and the wife smiles and lets it go at that. + -- Barrie +% +Everybody is given the same amount of hormones, at birth, and +if you want to use yours for growing hair, that's fine with me. +% +Farmers in the Iowa State survey rated machinery breakdowns more +stressful than divorce. + -- Wall Street Journal +% +Feminists just want the human race to be a tie. +% +First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity, no really +self-respecting woman would take advantage of it. + -- George Bernard Shaw, "John Bull's Other Island" +% +Flirting is the gentle art of making a man feel pleased with himself. + -- Helen Rowland +% +For a young man, not yet: for an old man, never at all. + -- Diogenes, asked when a man should marry + +When should a man marry? A young man, not yet; an elder man, not at all. + -- Sir Francis Bacon, "Of Marriage and Single Life" +% +For a young man, not yet: for an old man, never at all. + -- Diogenes, asked when a man should marry + +When should a man marry? A young man, not yet; an elder man, not at all. + -- Sir Francis Bacon, "Of Marriage and Single Life" +% +For I swore I would stay a year away from her; out and alas! +but with break of day I went to make supplication. + -- Paulus Silentiarius, c. 540 A.D. +% +For thirty years a certain man went to spend every evening with Mme. ___. +When his wife died his friends believed he would marry her, and urged +him to do so. "No, no," he said: "if I did, where should I have to +spend my evenings?" + -- Chamfort +% +Fortunate is he for whom the belle toils. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #14 + +Low Blows: + Let's say a man and woman are watching a boxing match on TV. One +of the boxers is felled by a low blow. The woman says "Oh, gee. That must +hurt." The man doubles over and actually FEELS the pain. + +Dressing Up: + A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the +garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man will dress up +for: weddings, funerals. Speaking of weddings, when reminiscing about +weddings, women talk about "the ceremony". Men laugh about "the bachelor +party". + +David Letterman: + Men think David Letterman is the funniest man on the face of the +Earth. Women think he is a mean, semi-dorky guy who always has a bad haircut. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #16 + +Relationships: + First of all, a man does not call a relationship a relationship -- he +refers to it as "that time when me and Suzie were doing it on a semi-regular +basis". + When a relationship ends, a woman will cry and pour her heart out to +her girlfriends, and she will write a poem titled "All Men Are Idiots". Then +she will get on with her life. + A man has a little more trouble letting go. Six months after the +breakup, at 3:00 a.m. on a Saturday night, he will call and say, "I just +wanted to let you know you ruined my life, and I'll never forgive you, and I +hate you, and you're a total floozy. But I want you to know that there's +always a chance for us". This is known as the "I Hate You / I Love You" +drunken phone call, that 99% if all men have made at least once. There are +community colleges that offer courses to help men get over this need; alas, +these classes rarely prove effective. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #17 + +Shoes: + The average man has 4 pairs of footwear: running shoes, dress shoes, +boots, and slippers. The average woman has shoes 4 layers thick on the floor +of her closet. Most of them hurt her feet. + +Making friends: + A woman will meet another woman with common interests, do a few things +together, and say something like, "I hope we can be good friends." + A man will meet another man with common interests, do a few things +together, and say nothing. After years of interacting with this other man, +sharing hopes and fears that he wouldn't confide in his priest or +psychiatrist, he'll finally let down his guard in a fit of drunken +sentimentality and say something like, "You know, for someone who's such a +jerk, I guess you're OK." +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #2 + +Desserts: + A woman will generally admire an ornate dessert for the artistic +work it is, praising its creator and waiting a suitable interval before +she reluctantly takes a small sliver off one edge. A man will start by +grabbing the cherry in the center. + +Car repair: + The average man thinks his Y chromosome contains complete repair +manuals for every car made since World War II. He will work on a problem +himself until it either goes away or turns into something that "can't be +fixed without special tools". + The average woman thinks "that funny thump-thump noise" is an +accurate description of an automotive problem. She will, however, have the +car serviced at the proper intervals and thereby incur fewer problems than +the average man. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #4 + +Clothes: + Men don't discard clothes. The average man still has the gym shirt +he wore in high school. He thinks a jacket is "just getting broken in" about +the time it develops holes in the elbows. A man will let new shirts sit on +the shelf in their original packaging for a couple of years before putting +them to use, hoping they'll become more comfortable with age. + Women think clothes are radioactive, with a half-life of one year. +They exercise precautions to avoid contamination by last year's fashions. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #5 + +Trust: + The average woman would really like to be told if her mate is fooling +around behind her back. This same woman wouldn't tell her best friend if +she knew the best friends' mate was having an affair. She'll tell all her +OTHER friends, however. The average man won't say anything if he knows that +one of his friend's mates is fooling around, and he'd rather not know if +his mate is having an affair either, out of fear that it might be with one +of his friends. He will tell all his friends about his own affairs, though, +so they can be ready if he needs an alibi. + +Driving: + A typical man thinks he's Mario Andretti as soon as he slips behind +the wheel of his car. The fact that it's an 8-year-old Honda doesn't keep +him from trying to out-accelerate the guy in the Porsche who's attempting +to cut him off; freeway on-ramps are exciting challenges to see who has The +Right Stuff on the morning commute. Does he or doesn't he? Only his body +shop knows for sure. Insurance companies understand this behavior, and +price their policies accordingly. + A woman will slow down to let a car merge in front of her, and get +rear-ended by another woman who was busy adding the finishing touches to +her makeup. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #6 + +Bathrooms: + A man has six items in his bathroom -- a toothbrush, toothpaste, +shaving cream, razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. +The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 437. A man +would not be able to identify most of these items. + +Groceries: + A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes to the store +and buys these things. A man waits 'til the only items left in his fridge +are half a lime and a Blue Ribbon. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys +everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, +his cart is packed tighter that the Clampett's car on Beverly Hillbillies. +Of course, this will not stop him from entering the 10-items-or-less lane. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #8 + +Going Out: + When a man says he is ready to go out, it means he is ready to go +out. When a woman says she is ready to go out, it means she WILL be ready +to go out, as soon as she finds her earring, finishes putting on her makeup, +checks on the kids, makes a phone call to her best friend... + +Cats: + Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't +looking, men kick cats. + +Offspring: + Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows +about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends +and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. Men are vaguely +aware of some short people living in the house. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #9 + +Laundry: + Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article +of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight +years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, +he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain +of clothes to the laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at +the laundromat. This is a myth. + +Nicknames: + If Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle get together for lunch, +they will call each other Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle. But if +Mike, Dave, Rob and Jack go out for a brewsky, they will affectionately +refer to each other as Bullet-Head, Godzilla, Peanut Brain and Useless. + +Socks: + Men wear sensible socks. They wear standard white sweatsocks. +Women wear strange socks. They are cut way below the ankles, have pictures +of clouds on them, and have a big fuzzy ball on the back. +% + Fred noticed his roommate had a black eye upon returning from a dance. +"What happened?" + "I was struck by the beauty of the place." +% + Friends were surprised, indeed, when Frank and Jennifer broke their +engagement, but Frank had a ready explanation: "Would you marry someone who +was habitually unfaithful, who lied at every turn, who was selfish and lazy +and sarcastic?" + "Of course not," said a sympathetic friend. + "Well," retorted Frank, "neither would Jennifer." +% + FROM THE DESK OF + Rapunzel + +Dear Prince: + + Use ladder tonight -- you're splitting my ends. +% +Genuine happiness is when a wife sees a double chin on her husband's +old girl friend. +% + -- Gifts for Men -- + +Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professional ice +hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But you should +never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the clothes they +will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For example, your average +man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only three of them. He has learned, +through humiliating trial and error, that if he wears any of the other 81 +ties, his wife will probably laugh at him ("You're not going to wear THAT +tie with that suit, are you?"). So he has narrowed it down to three safe +ties, and has gone several years without being laughed at. If you give him +a new tie, he will pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you. + +If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More than +once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set of tires. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Girls are better looking in snowstorms. + -- Archie Goodwin +% +Girls marry for love. Boys marry because of a chronic irritation that +causes them to gravitate in the direction of objects with certain curvilinear +properties. + -- Ashley Montagu +% +Girls really do know just what they want -- you to figure it out for yourself! +% +Girls who throw themselves at men, are actually taking very careful aim. +% +Give a woman an inch and she'll park a car in it. +% +God created a few perfect heads. The rest he covered with hair. +% +God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment -- +but many other things ceased as well. Woman was God's second mistake. + -- Nietzsche +% +Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. +% +Harold had never wanted a woman so much in his life, upon overhearing the +22-year-old beauty remark that he was too old and out of shape for her. The +determined septuagenarian immediately embarked upon a rigorous self-improvement +program. He had his face lifted, bought a toupee, ran five miles every day, +lifted weights and adopted a strict vegetarian diet. Within months, the +rejuvenated man won the young woman's heart, and she agreed to marry him. + On the way out of the chapel, however, Harold was fatally struck +by lightning. Furious, he confronted Saint Peter at the pearly gates. "How +could you do this to me after all the pain I went through?" + "To be honest, Harold," Saint Peter sheepishly replied, "I didn't +recognize you." +% +Hat check girl: + "Goodness! What lovely diamonds!" +Mae West: + "Goodness had nothin' to do with it, dearie." + -- "Night After Night", 1932 +% +Having a baby isn't so bad. If you're a female Emperor penguin in the +Antarctic. She lays the egg, rolls it over to the father, then takes off +for warmer weather where she eats and eats and eats. For two months, the +father stands stiff, without food, blind in the 24-hour dark, balancing +the egg on his feet. After the little penguin is hatched, the mother +sees fit to come home. + -- L. M. Boyd, "Austin American-Statesman" +% +He gave her a look that you could have poured on a waffle. +% +He who enters his wife's dressing room is a philosopher or a fool. + -- Balzac +% +He who is intoxicated with wine will be sober again in the course of the +night, but he who is intoxicated by the cupbearer will not recover his +senses until the day of judgement. + -- Saadi +% +Hey, Jim, it's me, Susie Lillis from the laundromat. You said you were +gonna call and it's been two weeks. What's wrong, you lose my number? +% +High heels are a device invented by a woman who was tired of being kissed +on the forehead. +% +Him: "Your skin is so soft. Are you a model?" +Her: "No," [blush] "I'm a cosmetologist." +Him: "Really? That's incredible... It must be very tough to handle + weightlessness." + -- "The Jerk" +% +His designs were strictly honourable, as the phrase is: that is, to rob +a lady of her fortune by way of marriage. + -- Henry Fielding, "Tom Jones" +% +"Home, Sweet Home" must surely have been written by a bachelor. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Horace's best ode would not please a young woman as much as the mediocre +verses of the young man she is in love with. + -- Moore +% +How much for your women? I want to buy your daughter... how much for +the little girl? + -- Jake Blues, "The Blues Brothers" +% + "How would I know if I believe in love at first sight?" the sexy +social climber said to her roommate. "I mean, I've never seen a Porsche +full of money before." +% +I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, +I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +I began many years ago, as so many young men do, in searching for the +perfect woman. I believed that if I looked long enough, and hard enough, +I would find her and then I would be secure for life. Well, the years +and romances came and went, and I eventually ended up settling for someone +a lot less than my idea of perfection. But one day, after many years +together, I lay there on our bed recovering from a slight illness. My +wife was sitting on a chair next to the bed, humming softly and watching +the late afternoon sun filtering through the trees. The only sounds to +be heard elsewhere were the clock ticking, the kettle downstairs starting +to boil, and an occasional schoolchild passing beneath our window. And +as I looked up into my wife's now wrinkled face, but still warm and +twinkling eyes, I realized something about perfection... It comes only +with time. + -- James L. Collymore, "Perfect Woman" +% +I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life, particularly if he +has income and she is pattable. + -- Ogden Nash +% +I can feel for her because, although I have never been an Alaskan prostitute +dancing on the bar in a spangled dress, I still get very bored with washing +and ironing and dishwashing and cooking day after relentless day. + -- Betty MacDonald +% +I can't mate in captivity. + -- Gloria Steinem, on why she has never married. +% +I come from a small town whose population never changed. Each time a woman +got pregnant, someone left town. + -- Michael Prichard +% +I do enjoy a good long walk -- especially when my wife takes one. +% +"I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of +people waiting to abuse me." + -- Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters" +% +I GUESS I'LL NEVER FORGET HER. And maybe I don't want to. Her spirit +was wild, like a wild monkey. Her beauty was like a beautiful horse +being ridden by a wild monkey. I forget her other qualities. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I have a hard time being attracted to anyone who can beat me up. + -- John McGrath, Atlanta sportswriter, on women weightlifters. +% +I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and +to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and +support of the woman I love. + -- Edward, Duke of Windsor, 1936, announcing his abdication + of the British throne in order to marry the American + divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson. +% +I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, +and for this reason: I can never be satisfied with anyone who would +be blockhead enough to have me. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +I know the disposition of women: when you will, they won't; when +you won't, they set their hearts upon you of their own inclination. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +I learned to play guitar just to get the girls, and anyone who says they +didn't is just lyin'! + -- Willie Nelson +% +I like being single. I'm always there when I need me. + -- Art Leo +% +I like myself, but I won't say I'm as handsome as the bull that kidnapped +Europa. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero +% +I like young girls. Their stories are shorter. + -- Tom McGuane +% +I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person +you want to annoy for the rest of your life. + -- Rita Rudner +% +I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known. + -- Walt Disney +% + I managed to say, "Sorry," and no more. I knew that he disliked +me to cry. + This time he said, watching me, "On some occasions it is better +to weep." + I put my head down on the table and sobbed, "If only she could come +back; I would be nice." + Francis said, "You gave her great pleasure always." + "Oh, not enough." + "Nobody can give anybody enough." + "Not ever?" + "No, not ever. But one must go on trying." + "And doesn't one ever value people until they are gone?" + "Rarely," said Francis. I went on weeping; I saw how little I had +valued him; how little I had valued anything that was mine. + -- Pamela Frankau, "The Duchess and the Smugs" +% +I married beneath me. All women do. + -- Lady Nancy Astor +% +I met a wonderful new man. He's fictional, but you can't have everything. + -- Cecelia, "The Purple Rose of Cairo" +% +I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the +places they do today. + -- Will Rogers +% +I never met a woman I couldn't drink pretty. +% +I read Playboy for the same reason I read National Geographic. To see +the sights I'm never going to visit. +% +I refuse to consign the whole male sex to the nursery. I insist on +believing that some men are my equals. + -- Brigid Brophy +% +I respect the institution of marriage. I have always thought that every +woman should marry -- and no man. + -- Benjamin Disraeli, "Lothair" +% +I sat down beside her, said hello, offered to buy her a drink... and then +natural selection reared its ugly head. +% +I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's so desperately +anxious to do the wrong thing correctly. + -- Saki, "Reginald on Worries" +% +I think the world is ready for the story of an ugly duckling, who grew up to +remain an ugly duckling, and lived happily ever after. + -- Chick +% +I want to buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch "St. +Elsewhere", won't scream, "Forget it, Blanche... It's time for Hee-Haw!" + -- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County" +% +I want to marry a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad. + -- Freud +% +I was in a beauty contest one. I not only came in last, I was hit in +the mouth by Miss Congeniality. + -- Phyllis Diller +% +I wasn't kissing her, I was whispering in her mouth. + -- Chico Marx +% +I will not say that women have no character; rather, they have a new +one every day. + -- Heine +% +I would gladly raise my voice in praise of women, only they won't let me +raise my voice. + -- Winkle +% +I wouldn't marry her with a ten foot pole. +% +I'd probably settle for a vampire if he were romantic enough. +Couldn't be any worse than some of the relationships I've had. + -- Brenda Starr +% +I'd rather have two girls at 21 each than one girl at 42. + -- W. C. Fields +% +I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did. +% +I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men. + -- George Eliot +% +I'm very old-fashioned. I believe that people should marry for life, +like pigeons and Catholics. + -- Woody Allen +% +I've been in more laps than a napkin. + -- Mae West +% +I've spent almost all of my life with highly intelligent men. They're not +like other men. Their spirit is great and stimulating. They hate strife; +indeed they reject it. Their inventive gifts are boundless. They demand +devotion and obedience. And a sense of humor. I happily gave all of this. +I was lucky to be chosen and clever enough to understand them. + -- Marlene Dietrich, on her friendship with Ernest Hemingway +% +If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% +If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? +% +If it were not for the presents, an elopement would be preferable. + -- George Ade, "Forty Modern Fables" +% +If men acted after marriage as they do during courtship, there would +be fewer divorces -- and more bankruptcies. + -- Frances Rodman +% +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 the girl you love moves in with another guy once, it's more than enough. +Twice, it's much too much. Three times, it's the story of your life. +% +If there is any realistic deterrent to marriage, it's the fact that you +can't afford divorce. + -- Jack Nicholson +% +If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the +beginning of our menstrual cycle, when the female hormone is at its +lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that in those few days +women behave the most like the way men behave all month long? + -- Gloria Steinham +% +If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning. + -- Aristotle Onassis +% +If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry. + -- Anton Chekhov +% +If you are looking for a kindly, well-to-do older gentleman who is no +longer interested in sex, take out an ad in The Wall Street Journal. + -- Abigail Van Buren +% +If you give a man enough rope, he'll claim he's tied up at the office. +% +If you marry a man who cheats on his wife, you'll be married to a man who +cheats on his wife. + -- Ann Landers +% +If you MUST get married, it is always advisable to marry beauty. +Otherwise, you'll never find anybody to take her off your hands. +% +If you want me to be a good little bunny just dangle some carats in front +of my nose. + -- Lauren Bacall +% +If you want to be ruined, marry a rich woman. + -- Michelet +% +If you want to read about love and marriage you've got to buy two separate +books. + -- Alan King +% +If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every +word you say, talk in your sleep. +% +If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who wore fur +boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him. + -- Anton Chekhov +% +In buying horses and taking a wife shut your eyes tight and commend +yourself to God. +% +In Christianity, a man may have only one wife. This is called Monotony. +% +In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. +% +In olden times sacrifices were made at the altar -- a practice which is +still continued. + -- Helen Rowland +% +In the midst of one of the wildest parties he'd ever been to, the young man +noticed a very prim and pretty girl sitting quietly apart from the rest of +the revelers. Approaching her, he introduced himself and, after some quiet +conversation, said, "I'm afraid you and I don't really fit in with this +jaded group. Why don't I take you home?"" + "Fine," said the girl, smiling up at him demurely. "Where do you live?" +% +Insanity is considered a ground for divorce, though by the very same +token it is the shortest detour to marriage. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +Is a wedding successful if it comes off without a hitch? +% +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 ironic that many men spend a great part of their lives +avoiding marriage while single-mindedly pursuing those things that +would make them better prospects? +% +It [marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair +to get in, and those within despair of getting out. + -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne +% +It did not occur to me that my being with two men continuously would +interest anyone or arouse anyone's misgivings. I asked for an invitation +for Heinrich too, as often as it seemed possible, when Paulus and I were +invited to a social gathering. I felt the set of rules others lived by +was irrelevant. My childhood attitude -- every attempt to adjust is +hopeless and you might just as well follow your own attitudes -- must have +carried me. + -- Hannah Tillich, "From Time to Time" +% +It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find out +next morning it was someone else. + -- Will Rogers +% +It has been justly observed by sages of all lands that although a man may be +most happily married and continue in that state with the utmost contentment, +it does not necessarily follow that he has therefore been struck stone-blind. + -- H. Warner Munn +% + It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your parents will +not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselves and +because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act like mature +human beings. + The worst kind of friend to take home is a girl, because in that case, +there is the potential that your parents will lose you not just for the +duration of the visit but forever. The worst kind of girl to take home is one +of a different religion: Not only will you be lost to your parents forever but +you will be lost to a woman who is immune to their religious/moral arguments +and whose example will irretrievably corrupt you. + Let's say you've fallen in love with just such a girl and would like +to take her home for the holidays. You are aware of your parents' xenophobic +response to anyone of a different religion. How to prepare them for the shock? + Simple. Call them up shortly before your visit and tell them that you +have gotten quite serious about somebody who is of a different religion, a +different race and the same sex. Tell them you have already invited this +person to meet them. Give the information a moment to sink in and then +remark that you were only kidding, that your lover is merely of a different +religion. They will be so relieved they will welcome her with open arms. + -- Playboy, January, 1983 +% +It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This +is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the +last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn't give +enough. + -- Quentin Crisp, "How to Become a Virgin" +% +It is idle to attempt to talk a young woman out of her passion: +love does not lie in the ear. + -- Walpole +% +It is most dangerous nowadays for a husband to pay any attention to his +wife in public. It always makes people think that he beats her when +they're alone. The world has grown so suspicious of anything that looks +like a happy married life. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +It is not necessary to inquire whether a woman would like something for +dessert. The answer is yes, she would like something for dessert, but +she would like you to order it so she can pick at it with your fork. She +does not want you to call attention to this by saying, 'If you wanted a +dessert, why didn't you order one?' You must understand, she has the +dessert she wants. The dessert she wants is contained within yours. + -- Merrill Markoe, "An Insider's Guide to the American Woman" +% +It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to +mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +It is possible that blondes also prefer gentlemen. + -- Maimie Van Doren +% +It takes a smart husband to have the last word and not use it. +% +It was a fine, sweet night, the nicest since my divorce, maybe the nicest +since the middle of my marriage. There was energy, softness, grace and +laughter. I even took my socks off. In my circle, that means class. + -- Andrew Bergman "The Big Kiss-off of 1944" +% +It was raining heavily, and the motorist had car trouble on a lonely country +road. Anxious to find shelter for the night, he walked over to a farmhouse +and knocked on the front door. No one responded. He could feel the water +from the roof running down the back of his neck as he stood on the stoop. +The next time he knocked louder, but still no answer. By now he was soaked +to the skin. Desperately he pounded on the door. At last the head of a +man appeared out of an upstairs window. + "What do you want?" he asked gruffly. + "My car broke down," said the traveler, "and I want to know if you +would let me stay here for the night." + "Sure," replied the man. "If you want to stay there all night, it's +okay with me." +% +It wasn't exactly a divorce -- I was traded. + -- Tim Conway +% +It's a funny thing that when a woman hasn't got anything +on earth to worry about, she goes off and gets married. +% +"It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name." +% +It's not the initial skirt length, it's the upcreep. +% +It's not the men in my life, but the life in my men that counts. + -- Mae West +% +It's the good girls who keep the diaries, the bad girls never have the time. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% + It's the theory of Jess Birnbaum, of Time magazine, that women with +bad legs should stick to long skirts because they cover a multitude of shins. +% + Joe sat at his dying wife's bedside. + Her voice was little more than a whisper. + "Joe, darling," she breathed, "I've got a confession to make +before I go. I ... I'm the one who took the $10,000 from your safe... +I spent it on a fling with your best friend, Charles. And it was I who +forced your mistress to leave the city. And I am the one who reported +your income-tax evasion to the I.R.S..." + "That's all right, dearest, don't give it a second thought," +whispered Joe. "I'm the one who poisoned you." +% +Just as I cannot remember any time when I could not read and write, I cannot +remember any time when I did not exercise my imagination in daydreams about +women. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Kath: Can he be present at the birth of his child? +Ed: It's all any reasonable child can expect if the dad is present + at the conception. + -- Joe Orton, "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" +% +Keep a diary and one day it'll keep you. + -- Mae West +% +Keep women you cannot. Marry them and they come to hate the way you walk +across the room; remain their lover, and they jilt you at the end of six +months. + -- Moore +% +Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Kissing your hand may make you feel very good, but a diamond and +sapphire bracelet lasts for ever. + -- Anita Loos, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" +% +Lady Nancy Astor: + "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee." +Winston Churchill: + "Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it." +% +Lank: Here we go. We're about to set a new record. +Earl: (to the crowd) How about a date? +Lank: We've done it. Earl has set a new record. Turned down by + 20,000 women. + -- Lank and Earl +% +Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can +be tolerated only in race horses and women. + -- Lord Kelvin +% +Let thy maid servant be faithful, strong, and homely. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In every +relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If you +really care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's the end. +For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the qualities +I most admired in myself I gave up. I stopped being loud and bossy ... +Oh, all right. I was still loud and bossy, but only behind his back. + -- Kate Hepburn, on Tracy and Hepburn +% +Life begins at the centerfold and expands outward. + -- Miss November, 1966 +% +Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society +being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded responsible +thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money +system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex. + -- Valerie Solanas +% +Life Sucks. Cynical, misanthropic male, 34, looking for soul mate but +certain not to find her. Drop me a note. I'll call you, we'll talk and +I'll ask you out to dinner where I'll probably spend more than I can +afford in a feeble attempt to impress you. Then we'll realize we have +absolutely nothing in common and we'll go our separate ways, more +embittered and depressed than before (if such a thing is possible). +% +Life's too short to dance with ugly women. +% +Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one +young woman and another. + -- George Bernard Shaw, "Major Barbara" +% +Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking +for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem. + -- Alan McKay +% +Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Lonely men seek companionship. Lonely women sit at home and wait. +They never meet. +% +Lots of girls can be had for a song. Unfortunately, it often turns out to +be the wedding march. +% +Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real +with the ideal never goes unpunished. + -- Goethe +% +Love is an obsessive delusion that is cured by marriage. + -- Dr. Karl Bowman +% +Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Love makes fools, marriage cuckolds, and patriotism malevolent imbeciles. + -- Paul Leautaud, "Passe-temps" +% +Macho does not prove mucho. + -- Zsa Zsa Gabor +% +Man and wife make one fool. +% +Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would +not have chosen a suit by it. + -- Maurice Chevalier +% +Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the +whole girl. + -- Stephen Leacock +% +Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his +success. + -- Jim Backus (unsourced) +% +Many a man who thinks he's going on a maiden voyage with +a woman finds out later that it was just a shake-down cruise. +% +Many a wife thinks her husband is the world's greatest lover. +But she can never catch him at it. +% +Many husbands go broke on the money their wives save on sales. +% +Marriage always demands the greatest understanding of the art of +insincerity possible between two human beings. + -- Vicki Baum +% +Marriage causes dating problems. +% +Marriage is a ghastly public confession of a strictly private intention. +% +Marriage is a great institution -- but I'm not ready for an institution yet. + -- Mae West +% +Marriage is a lot like the army, everyone complains, but you'd be +surprised at the large number that re-enlist. + -- James Garner +% +Marriage is a romance in which the hero dies in the first chapter. +% +Marriage is a three ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering. + -- Roger Price +% +Marriage is an institution in which two undertake to become one, and one +undertakes to become nothing. +% +Marriage is based on the theory that when a man discovers a brand of beer +exactly to his taste he should at once throw up his job and go to work +in the brewery. + -- George Jean Nathan +% +Marriage is learning about women the hard way. +% +Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning handsprings, or eating with +chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it. +% +Marriage is low down, but you spend the rest of your life paying for it. + -- Baskins +% +Marriage is not merely sharing the fettucine, but sharing the +burden of finding the fettucine restaurant in the first place. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. + -- Voltaire +% +Marriage is the process of finding out what kind of man your wife would +have preferred. +% +Marriage is the waste-paper basket of the emotions. +% +Marriage, in life, is like a duel in the midst of a battle. + -- Edmond About +% +Marriages are made in heaven and consummated on earth. + -- John Lyly +% +Marry in haste and everyone starts counting the months. +% +Matrimony is the root of all evil. +% +Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence. +% +Men are always ready to respect anything that bores them. + -- Marilyn Monroe +% +Men are those creatures with two legs and eight hands. + -- Jayne Mansfield +% +Men aren't attracted to me by my mind. They're attracted by what I +don't mind... + -- Gypsy Rose Lee +% +Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing they marry later; +for another thing they die earlier. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Men have as exaggerated an idea of their rights as women have of their wrongs. + -- E. W. Howe +% +Men live for three things, fast cars, fast women and fast food. +% +Men never make passes at girls wearing glasses. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +Men of quality are not afraid of women for equality. +% +Men say of women what pleases them; women do with men what pleases them. + -- DeSegur +% +Men seldom show dimples to girls who have pimples. +% +Men still remember the first kiss after women have forgotten the last. +% +Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them. + -- Joseph Addison +% +Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked ladies. Women's magazines +also often feature pictures of naked ladies. This is because the female +body is a beautiful work of art, while the male body is hairy and lumpy and +should not be seen by the light of day. + -- Richard Roeper, "Men and Women Are Different" +% +Miguel Cervantes wrote Donkey Hote. Milton wrote Paradise Lost, then his +wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained. +% +Moe: Wanna play poker tonight? +Joe: I can't. It's the kids' night out. +Moe: So? +Joe: I gotta stay home with the nurse. +% +Moe: What did you give your wife for Valentine's Day? +Joe: The usual gift -- she ate my heart out. +% +Money and women are the most sought after and the least known of any two +things we have. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Monogamy is the Western custom of one wife and hardly any mistresses. + -- H. H. Munro +% +... most of us learned about love the hard way. Even warnings are probably +useless, for somehow, despite the severest warnings of parents and friends, +hundreds, thousands of women have forgotten themselves at the last minute +and succumbed to the lies, promises, flatteries, or mere attentions of +lusting, lovely men, landing themselves in complicated predicaments from +which some of them never recovered during their entire lives. And I am not +speaking only of your teenaged Midwesterners in 1958; I'm speaking of women +of every age in every city in every year. The notorious sexual revolution +has saved no one from the pain and confusion of love. + -- Alix Kates Shulman +% +My notion of a husband at forty is that a woman should be able to change him, +like a bank note, for two twenties. +% +Never accept an invitation from a stranger unless he gives you candy. + -- Linda Festa +% +Never argue with a woman when she's tired -- or rested. +% +Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never play cards with a man named Doc. +And never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you. + -- Nelson Algren, "What Every Young Man Should Know" +% +Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. + -- Phyllis Diller, "Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints" +% +Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. + -- Nelson Algren +% +Never tell. Not if you love your wife ... In fact, if your old lady walks +in on you, deny it. Yeah. Just flat out and she'll believe it: "I'm +tellin' ya. This chick came downstairs with a sign around her neck `Lay +On Top Of Me Or I'll Die'. I didn't know what I was gonna do..." + -- Lenny Bruce +% +New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, +and his wife most often reminds him to act it. + -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary +% +No friendship is so cordial or so delicious as that of girl for girl; +no hatred so intense or immovable as that of woman for woman. + -- Landor +% +No man can have a reasonable opinion of women until he has long lost +interest in hair restorers. + -- Austin O'Malley +% +No modern woman with a grain of sense ever sends little notes to an +unmarried man -- not until she is married, anyway. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +No one knows like a woman how to say things that are at once gentle and deep. + -- Hugo +% +No self-made man ever did such a good job that some woman didn't +want to make some alterations. + -- Kim Hubbard +% +No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether +she will or will not be a mother. + -- Margaret H. Sanger +% +No woman can endure a gambling husband, unless he is a steady winner. + -- Lord Thomas Dewar +% +No woman ever falls in love with a man unless she has a better opinion of +him than he deserves. + -- Edgar Watson Howe +% +Nobody really knows what happiness is, until they're married. +And then it's too late. +% +Not every problem someone has with his girlfriend is necessarily due to +the capitalist mode of production. + -- Herbert Marcuse +% +Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. + -- Plato +% +Of course a platonic relationship is possible -- but only between +husband and wife. +% +Once a woman has given you her heart you can never get rid of the rest of her. + -- Vanbrugh +% + Once upon a time there was a beautiful young girl taking a stroll +through the woods. All at once she saw an extremely ugly bull frog seated +on a log and to her amazement the frog spoke to her. "Maiden," croaked the +frog, "would you do me a favor? This will be hard for you to believe, but +I was once a handsome, charming prince and then a mean, ugly old witch cast +a spell over me and turned me into a frog." + "Oh, what a pity!", exclaimed the girl. "I'll do anything I can to +help you break such a spell." + "Well," replied the frog, "the only way that this spell can be +taken away is for some lovely young woman to take me home and let me spend +the night under her pillow." + The young girl took the ugly frog home and placed him beneath her +pillow that night when she retired. When she awoke the next morning, sure +enough, there beside her in bed was a very young, handsome man, clearly of +royal blood. And so they lived happily ever after, except that to this day +her father and mother still don't believe her story. +% + Once upon a time there were three brothers who were knights +in a certain kingdom. And, there was a Princess in a neighboring kingdom +who was of marriageable age. Well, one day, in full armour, their horses, +and their page, the three brothers set off to see if one of them could +win her hand. The road was long and there were many obstacles along the +way, robbers to be overcome, hard terrain to cross. As they coped with +each obstacle they became more and more disgusted with their page. He was +not only inept, he was a coward, he could not handle the horses, he was, +in short, a complete flop. When they arrived at the court of the kingdom, +they found that they were expected to present the Princess with some +treasure. The two older brothers were discouraged, since they had not +thought of this and were unprepared. The youngest, however, had the +answer: Promise her anything, but give her our page. +% + One evening he spoke. Sitting at her feet, his face raised to her, +he allowed his soul to be heard. "My darling, anything you wish, anything +I am, anything I can ever be... That's what I want to offer you -- not the +things I'll get for you, but the thing in me that will make me able to get +them. That thing -- a man can't renounce it -- but I want to renounce it -- so +that it will be yours -- so that it will be in your service -- only for you." + The girl smiled and asked: "Do you think I'm prettier than Maggie +Kelly?" + He got up. He said nothing and walked out of the house. He never +saw that girl again. Gail Wynand, who prided himself on never needing a +lesson twice, did not fall in love again in the years that followed. + -- Ayn Rand, "The Fountainhead" +% +One girl can be pretty -- but a dozen are only a chorus. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Last Tycoon" +% +One is not born a woman, one becomes one. + -- Simone de Beauvoir +% +One man's folly is another man's wife. + -- Helen Rowland +% +One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Only two groups of people fall for flattery -- men and women. +% + People of all sorts of genders are reporting great difficulty, +these days, in selecting the proper words to refer to those of the female +persuasion. + "Lady," "woman," and "girl" are all perfectly good words, but +misapplying them can earn one anything from the charge of vulgarity to a good +swift smack. We are messing here with matters of deference, condescension, +respect, bigotry, and two vague concepts, age and rank. It is troubling +enough to get straight who is really what. Those who deliberately misuse +the terms in a misbegotten attempt at flattery are asking for it. + A woman is any grown-up female person. A girl is the un-grown-up +version. If you call a wee thing with chubby cheeks and pink hair ribbons a +"woman," you will probably not get into trouble, and if you do, you will be +able to handle it because she will be under three feet tall. However, if you +call a grown-up by a child's name for the sake of implying that she has a +youthful body, you are also implying that she has a brain to match. +% +Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the +farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than +chickens and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock. + -- George Bernard Shaw, "Getting Married" +% +Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men +should be happier than others. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Sally: C'mon, Ted, all I'm asking you to do is share your feelings + with me. +Ted: ALL? Do you realize what you're asking? Men aren't trained + to share. We're trained to protect ourselves by not + letting anyone too close. Good grief, if I go around + sharing everything with you, you could hang me out to dry. +Sally: It's called "trust," Ted. +Ted: "Sharing"? "Trust"? You're really asking me to sail into + uncharted waters here. + -- Sally Forth +% +Scientists still know less about what attracts men than they do about +what attracts mosquitoes. + -- Dr. Joyce Brothers, + "What Every Woman Should Know About Men" +% +She always believed in the old adage -- leave them while you're looking good. + -- Anita Loos, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" +% +She been married so many times she got rice marks all over her face. + -- Tom Waits +% +She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to. + -- Gypsy Rose Lee +% +She just came in, pounced around this thing with me for a few years, enjoyed +herself, gave it a sort of beautiful quality and left. Excited a few men +in the meantime. + -- Patrick Macnee, reminiscing on Diana Rigg's + involvement in "The Avengers". +% +She liked him; he was a man of many qualities, even if most of them were bad. +% +She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could +have poured on a waffle ... +% +She's learned to say things with her eyes that others waste time putting +into words. +% +She's so tough she won't take 'yes' for an answer. +% +She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong. + -- Mae West +% +So many beautiful women and so little time. + -- John Barrymore +% +So many men; so little time. +% +So many women; so little nerve. +% +So many women; so little time! +% + "So you don't have to, Cindy, but I was wondering if you might +want to go to someplace, you know, with me, sometime." + "Well, I can think of a lot of worse things, David." + "Friday, then?" + "Why not, David, it might even be fun." + -- Dating in Minnesota +% +Some husbands are living proof that a woman can take a joke. +% +Some marriages are made in heaven -- but so are thunder and lightning. +% +Some men are all right in their place -- if they only the knew the right places! + -- Mae West +% +Some men are so interested in their wives' continued happiness that they +hire detectives to find out the reason for it. +% +Some men are so macho they'll get you pregnant just to kill a rabbit. + -- Maureen Murphy +% +Some men feel that the only thing they owe the woman who marries them +is a grudge. + -- Helen Rowland +% +Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. + -- Sigmund Freud +% +Sometimes, when I think of what that girl means to me, it's all I can do +to keep from telling her. + -- Andy Capp +% +Stanford women are responsible for the success of many Stanford men: +they give them "just one more reason" to stay in and study every night. +% +Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it +needs a very clever woman to manage a fool. + -- Kipling +% +Tehee quod she, and clapte the wyndow to. + -- Geoffrey Chaucer +% +That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The advantage of being celibate is that when one sees a pretty girl one +does not need to grieve over having an ugly one back home. + -- Paul Leautaud, "Propos d'un jour" +% +The anger of a woman is the greatest evil with which you can threaten your +enemies. + -- Bonnard +% +The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows +that the average man can see much better than he can think. + -- Ladies' Home Journal +% +The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain +disdain; he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she cannot help +feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is +their father. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The best man for the job is often a woman. +% +The best thing about being bald is, that, when unexpected company arrives, +all you have to do is straighten your tie. +% +The big question is why in the course of evolution the males permitted +themselves to be so totally eclipsed by the females. Why do they tolerate +this total subservience, this wretched existence as outcasts who are +hungry all the time? +% +The chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two to carry them, and +sometimes three. + -- Alexandre Dumas +% +The days just prior to marriage are like a snappy introduction to a +tedious book. +% + The defense attorney was hammering away at the plaintiff: +"You claim," he jeered, "that my client came at you with a broken bottle +in his hand. But is it not true, that you had something in YOUR hand?" + "Yes," the man admitted, "his wife. Very charming, of course, +but not much good in a fight." +% +The difference between legal separation and divorce is that legal +separation gives the man time to hide his money. +% +The duration of passion is proportionate with the original resistance +of the woman. + -- Honor'e DeBalzac +% +The eternal feminine draws us upward. + -- Goethe +% +The first marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence, +and the second the triumph of hope over experience. +% +The gentlemen looked one another over with microscopic carelessness. +% +The girl who remembers her first kiss now has a daughter who can't even +remember her first husband. +% +The girl who stoops to conquer usually wears a low-cut dress. +% +The girl who swears no one has ever made love to her has a right to swear. + -- Sophia Loren +% +The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him +love and he invented marriage. +% +The happiest time of a person's life is after his first divorce. + -- J. K. Galbraith +% +The heaviest object in the world is the body of the woman you have ceased +to love. + -- Marquis de Lac de Clapiers Vauvenargues +% +The honeymoon is not actually over until we cease to stifle our sighs +and begin to stifle our yawns. + -- Helen Rowland +% +The honeymoon is over when he phones to say he'll be late for supper and +she's already left a note that it's in the refrigerator. + -- Bill Lawrence +% +The husband who doesn't tell his wife everything probably reasons that +what she doesn't know won't hurt him. + -- Leo J. Burke +% +The little girl expects no declaration of tenderness from her doll. +She loves it -- and that's all. It is thus that we should love. + -- DeGourmont +% +The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutang trying to play the violin. + -- Honor'e DeBalzac +% +The man who understands one woman is qualified to understand pretty well +everything. + -- Yeats +% +The mature bohemian is one whose woman works full time. +% +The most common form of marriage proposal: "YOU'RE WHAT!?" +% +The most dangerous food is wedding cake. + -- American proverb +% +The most difficult years of marriage are those following the wedding. +% +The most happy marriage I can imagine to myself would be the union +of a deaf man to a blind woman. + -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge +% +The most important thing in a relationship between a man and a woman +is that one of them be good at taking orders. + -- Linda Festa +% +The most popular labor-saving device today is still a husband with money. + -- Joey Adams, "Cindy and I" +% +The mother of the year should be a sterilized woman with two adopted children. + -- Paul Ehrlich +% +The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The only real argument for marriage is that it remains the best method +for getting acquainted. + -- Heywood Broun +% +The only really masterful noise a man makes in a house is the noise +of his key, when he is still on the landing, fumbling for the lock. + -- Colette +% +The perfect man is the true partner. Not a bed partner nor a fun partner, +but a man who will shoulder burdens equally with [you] and possess that +quality of joy. + -- Erica Jong +% +The person who marries for money usually earns every penny of it. +% +The prettiest women are almost always the most boring, and that is why +some people feel there is no God. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +The Ruffed Pandanga of Borneo and Rotherham spreads out his feathers in +his courtship dance and imitates Winston Churchill and Tommy Cooper on +one leg. The padanga is dying out because the female padanga doesn't +take it too seriously. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The six great gifts of an Irish girl are beauty, soft voice, sweet speech, +wisdom, needlework, and chastity. + -- Theodore Roosevelt, 1907 +% +The surest sign that a man is in love is when he divorces his wife. +% +The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing +-- and then marry him. + -- Cher +% +The truth about a woman often lasts longer than the woman is true. +% +The two things that can get you into trouble quicker than anything else +are fast women and slow horses. +% +The way to fight a woman is with your hat. Grab it and run. +% +The woman you buy -- and she is the least expensive -- takes a great +deal of money. The woman who gives herself takes all your time. + -- Balzac +% +There are a few things that never go out of style, and a feminine woman +is one of them. + -- Ralston +% +There are four stages to a marriage. First there's the affair, then there's +the marriage, then children and finally the fourth stage, without which you +cannot know a woman, the divorce. + -- Norman Mailer +% +There are three things I have always loved and never understood -- +art, music, and women. +% +There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, +or turn them into literature. + -- Stephen Stills +% +There are two times when a man doesn't understand a woman -- before +marriage and after marriage. +% +There goes the good time that was had by all. + -- Bette Davis, remarking on a passing starlet +% +There is a vast difference between the savage and civilized man, but it +is never apparent to their wives until after breakfast. + -- Helen Rowland +% +There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the tools +to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not abuse it. +So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and war hold him in +check. And also the wife who wants him home by five, of course. + -- Encyclopadia Apocryphia, 1990 ed. +% +There is no such thing as an ugly woman -- there are only the ones who do +not know how to make themselves attractive. + -- Christian Dior +% +There is not much to choose between a woman who deceives us for another, +and a woman who deceives another for ourselves. + -- Augier +% +There is only one way to console a widow. But remember the risk. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +There's nothing like a girl with a plunging neckline to keep a man on his toes. +% +There's nothing like a good dose of another woman to make a man appreciate +his wife. + -- Clare Booth Luce +% +There's nothing like good food, good wine, and a bad girl. +% +There's one consolation about matrimony. When you look around you can +always see somebody who did worse. + -- Warren H. Goldsmith +% +There's one fool at least in every married couple. +% +There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn +what it is I'll get married again. + -- Clint Eastwood +% +There's too much beauty upon this earth for lonely men to bear. + -- Richard Le Gallienne +% +This guy runs into his house and yells to his wife, "Kathy, pack up your +bags! I just won the California lottery!" + "Honey!", Kathy exclaims, "Shall I pack for warm weather or cold?" + "I don't care," responds the husband. "just so long as you're out +of the house by dinner!" +% +'Tis more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +To be beautiful is enough! if a woman can do that well who should demand +more from her? You don't want a rose to sing. + -- Thackeray +% +To be considered successful, a woman must be much better at her job +than a man would have to be. Fortunately, this isn't difficult. +% +To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man. + -- Golda Meir +% +To err is human -- but it feels divine. + -- Mae West +% +To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girl friends. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation. + -- St. Augustine +% +To our sweethearts and wives. May they never meet. + -- 19th century toast +% +Today when a man gets married he gets a home, a housekeeper, a cook, a cheering +squad and another paycheck. When a woman marries, she gets a boarder. +% +Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL. + -- Mae West +% +Trust your husband, adore your husband, and get as much as you can in your +own name. + -- Joan Rivers +% +Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of +marriage make her something like a public building. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Two sure ways to tell a REALLY sexy man; the first is, he has a bad memory. +I forget the second. +% +Until Eve arrived, this was a man's world. + -- Richard Armour +% +Valerie: Aww, Tom, you're going maudlin on me ... +Tom: I reserve the right to wax maudlin as I wane eloquent ... + -- Tom Chapin +% +Very few modern women either like or desire marriage, especially after the +ceremony has been performed. Primarily women wish attention and affection. +Matrimony is something they accept when there is no alternative. Really, +it is a waste of time, and hazardous, to marry them. It leaves one open +to a rival. Husbands, good or bad, always have rivals. Lovers, never. + -- Helen Lawrenson, "Esquire" +% +We were happily married for eight months. Unfortunately, we were married +for four and a half years. + -- Nick Faldo +% +We're all looking for a woman who can sit in a mini-skirt and talk +philosophy, executing both with confidence and style. +% +Wedding is destiny, and hanging likewise. + -- John Heywood +% +Wedding rings are the world's smallest handcuffs. +% +Well, it's hard for a mere man to believe that woman doesn't have equal rights. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +What a misfortune to be a woman! And yet, the worst misfortune is not to +understand what a misfortune it is. + -- Kierkegaard, 1813-1855. +% +What do you give a man who has everything? Penicillin. + -- Jerry Lester +% + "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty teenager +asked her mother. + "Encouragement, dear," she replied. +% +What nonsense people talk about happy marriages! A man can be happy with +any woman so long as he doesn't love her. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's +transparency. + -- George Nathan +% +What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism. It's +corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell books and +magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, Scotch, cigarettes and, +most important, corporate America's message, which runs: Yes, women were +discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunate mistake has been +remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestige and power by dint +of individual rather than collective effort. + -- Susan Gordon +% +Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half +as good. Luckily this is not difficult. + -- Charlotte Whitton +% +When a girl can read the handwriting on the wall, she may be in the wrong +rest room. +% +When a girl marries she exchanges the attentions of many men for the +inattentions of one. + -- Helen Rowland +% +When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him +keep her. + -- Sacha Guitry +% +When a woman gives me a present I have always two surprises: +first is the present, and afterward, having to pay for it. + -- Donnay +% +When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. +When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +When choosing between two evils, I always like to take the one I've never +tried before. + -- Mae West, "Klondike Annie" +% +When God created two sexes, he may have been overdoing it. + -- Charles Merrill Smith +% +When God saw how faulty was man He tried again and made woman. As to +why he then stopped there are two opinions. One of them is woman's. + -- DeGourmont +% +When I was a young man, I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal +woman. Well, I found her -- but alas, she was waiting for the ideal man. + -- Robert Schuman +% +When I'm good, I'm great; but when I'm bad, I'm better. + -- Mae West +% +When it comes to broken marriages most husbands will split the blame -- +half his wife's fault, and half her mother's. +% +When Marriage is Outlawed, Only Outlaws will have Inlaws. +% +When my freshman roommate at Cornell found out I was Jewish, she was, at +her request, moved to a different room. She told me she didn't think she +had ever seen a Jew before. My only response was to begin wearing a +small Star of David on a chain around my neck. I had not become a more +observing Jew; rather, discovering that the label of Jew was offensive to +others made me want to let people know who I was and what I believed in. +Similarly, after talking to these young women -- one of whom told me that +she didn't think she had ever met a feminist -- I've taken to identifying +myself as a feminist in the most unlikely of situations. + -- Susan Bolotin, "Voices From the Post-Feminist Generation" +% +When one knows women one pities men, but when one studies men, +one excuses women. + -- Horne Tooke +% +When the candles are out all women are fair. + -- Plutarch +% +When the saleman's car broke down, he walked to the nearest farmhouse to ask +if he could stay the night. The farmer agreed to put him up. "I live alone," +he continued, "you can have the bedroom at the top of the stairs, to the +right." + "Oh, never mind," the disappointed salesman said. "I think I'm in +the wrong joke." +% +When there is an old maid in the house, a watch dog is unnecessary. + -- Balzac +% +When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, +most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear +that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition +continuously until death do them part. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands. + -- H. L. Mencken, "Sententiae" +% +When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do +not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% +When you're bored with yourself, marry, and be bored with someone else. + -- David Pryce-Jones +% +When you're married to someone, they take you for granted ... when +you're living with someone it's fantastic ... they're so frightened +of losing you they've got to keep you satisfied all the time. + -- Nell Dunn, "Poor Cow" +% +Whenever I date a guy, I think, is this the man I want my children +to spend their weekends with? + -- Rita Rudner +% +Where's the man could ease a heart like a satin gown? + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Satin Dress" +% +Why a man would want a wife is a big mystery to some people. Why a man +would want *___two* wives is a bigamystery. +% +Why isn't there some cheap and easy way to prove how much she means to me? +% +Why won't you let me kiss you goodnight? Is it something I said? + -- Tom Ryan +% +With the end of the football season, a star player for the college team +celebrated the relaxation of team curfew by attending a late-night campus +party. Soon after arriving, he became captivated by a beautiful coed and +eased into a conversation with her by asking if she met many dates at +parties. + "Oh, I have a three point eight, so I'm much more attracted to the +strong academic types than to the dumb party animals," she said. "What's +your G.P.A.?" + Grinning ear to ear, the jock boasted, "I get about twenty-five in +the city and forty on the highway." +% +Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them. + -- Dumas +% +Woman was God's second mistake. + -- Nietzsche +% +Woman was taken out of man -- not out of his head, to rule over him; nor +out of his feet, to be trampled under by him; but out of his side, to be +equal to him -- under his arm, that he might protect her, and near his heart +that he might love her. + -- Henry +% +Woman's advice has little value, but he who won't take it is a fool. + -- Cervantes +% +Women are all alike. When they're maids they're mild as milk: once make 'em +wives, and they lean their backs against their marriage certificates, and +defy you. + -- Jerrold +% +Women are always anxious to urge bachelors to matrimony; is it from charity, +or revenge? + -- Gustave Vapereau +% +Women are just like men, only different. +% +Women are like elephants to me: I like to look at them, but I wouldn't +want to own one. + -- W. C. Fields +% +Women are not much, but they are the best other sex we have. + -- Herold +% +Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more. + -- Stephens +% +Women aren't as mere as they used to be. + -- Pogo +% +Women can keep a secret just as well as men, but it takes more of them +to do it. +% +Women complain about sex more than men. Their gripes fall into two +categories: (1) Not enough and (2) Too much. + -- Ann Landers +% +Women give themselves to God when the Devil wants nothing more to do with them. + -- Arnould +% +Women give to men the very gold of their lives. Possibly; but they +invariably want it back in such very small change. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Women in love consist of a little sighing, a little crying, a little dying +-- and a good deal of lying. + -- Ansey +% +Women reason with the heart and are much less often wrong than men who +reason with the head. + -- DeLescure +% +Women sometimes forgive a man who forces the opportunity, but never a man +who misses one. + -- Charles De Talleyrand-Perigord +% +Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us and are +always bothering us to do something for them. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Women want their men to be cops. They want you to punish them and tell +them what the limits are. The only thing that women hate worse from a man +than being slapped is when you get on your knees and say you're sorry. + -- Mort Sahl +% +Women waste men's lives and think they have indemnified them by a few +gracious words. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% +Women who want to be equal to men lack imagination. +% +Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are +pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because +they are themselves. + -- Amiel +% +Women's virtue is man's greatest invention. + -- Cornelia Otis Skinner +% +Women, deceived by men, want to marry them; it is a kind of revenge +as good as any other. + -- Philippe De Remi +% +Women, when they are not in love, have all the cold blood of an experienced +attorney. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% +Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a +lion with a will of iron. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% + "You are *so* lovely." + "Yes." + "Yes! And you take a compliment, too! I like that in a goddess." +% +You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing +forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are +avenged fourteen hundred and forty times a day. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +You ask what a nice girl will do? She won't give an inch, but she won't +say no. + -- Marcus Valerius Martialis +% +You can have a dog as a friend. You can have whiskey as a friend. But +if you have a woman as a friend, you're going to wind up drunk and kissing +your dog. + -- foolin' around +% +You can never trust a woman; she may be true to you. +% +You can't kiss a girl unexpectedly -- only sooner than she thought you would. +% +You have only to mumble a few words in church to get married and few words +in your sleep to get divorced. +% +You just know when a relationship is about to end. My girlfriend called me +at work and asked me how you change a lightbulb in the bathroom. "It's very +simple," I said. "You start by filling up the bathtub with water..." +% +You know what we can be like: See a guy and think he's cute one minute, the +next minute our brains have us married with kids, the following minute we see +him having an extramarital affair. By the time someone says "I'd like you to +meet Cecil," we shout, "You're late again with the child support!" + -- Cynthia Heimel, "A Girl's Guide to Chaos" +% +You know you're getting old when you're Dad, and you're measuring your daughter +for camp clothes, and there are certain measurements only her mother is allowed +to take. +% +You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, +are now extinct. + -- M. Somerset Maugham +% +You lived with a man who wore white belts? Laura, I'm disappointed in you. + -- Remington Steele +% +You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother. +% +"You're just the sort of person I imagined marrying, when I was little... +except, y'know, not green... and without all the patches of fungus." + -- Swamp Thing +% + Young men and young women may work systematically six days in the +week and rise fresh in the morning, but let them attend modern dances for +only a few hours each evening and see what happens. The Waltz, Polka, +Gallop and other dances of the same kind will be disastrous in their effects +to both sexes. Health and vigor will vanish like the dew before the sun. + It is not the extraordinary exercise which harms the dancer, but +rather the coming into close contact with the opposite sex. It is the +fury of lust craving incessantly for more pleasure that undermines the +soul, the body, the sinews and nerves. Experience and statistics show +beyond doubt that passionate excessive dancing girls can hardly reach +twenty-five years of age and men thirty-one. Even if they reached that +age they will in most instances be broken in health physically and morally. +This is the claim of prominent physicians in this country. + -- Quote from a 1910 periodical +% +Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and +cannot. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Youth had been a habit of hers so long that she could not part with it. +% diff --git a/fortunes/miscellaneous b/fortunes/miscellaneous new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96e48ee --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/miscellaneous @@ -0,0 +1,1767 @@ +1 bulls, 3 cows. +% +$3,000,000. +% +40 isn't old. If you're a tree. +% + A crow perched himself on a telephone wire. He was going to make a +long-distance caw. +% +A furore Normanorum libera nos, O Domine! + [From the fury of the norsemen deliver us, O Lord!] + -- Medieval prayer +% +A log may float in a river, but that does not make it a crocodile. +% +A pickup with three guys in it pulls into the lumber yard. One of the men +gets out and goes into the office. + "I need some four-by-two's," he says. + "You must mean two-by-four's" replies the clerk. + The man scratches his head. "Wait a minute," he says, "I'll go +check." + Back, after an animated conversation with the other occupants of the +truck, he reassures the clerk, that, yes, in fact, two-by-fours would be +acceptable. + "OK," says the clerk, writing it down, "how long you want 'em?" + The guy gets the blank look again. "Uh... I guess I better go +check," he says. + He goes back out to the truck, and there's another animated +conversation. The guy comes back into the office. "A long time," he says, +"we're building a house". +% +A prediction is worth twenty explanations. + -- K. Brecher +% + A reverend wanted to telephone another reverend. He told the operator, +"This is a parson to parson call." +% +A squeegee by any other name wouldn't sound as funny. +% +A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature +replaces it with. + -- Tennessee Williams +% + A young girl, Carmen Cohen, was called by her last name by her father, +and her first name by her mother. By the time she was ten, didn't know if she +was Carmen or Cohen. +% +According to my best recollection, I don't remember. + -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo +% +Adults die young. +% +African violet: Such worth is rare +Apple blossom: Preference +Bachelor's button: Celibacy +Bay leaf: I change but in death +Camelia: Reflected loveliness +Chrysanthemum, red: I love +Chrysanthemum, white: Truth +Chrysanthemum, other: Slighted love +Clover: Be mine +Crocus: Abuse not +Daffodil: Innocence +Forget-me-not: True love +Fuchsia: Fast +Gardenia: Secret, untold love +Honeysuckle: Bonds of love +Ivy: Friendship, fidelity, marriage +Jasmine: Amiablity, transports of joy, sensuality +Leaves (dead): Melancholy +Lilac: Youthful innocence +Lilly: Purity, sweetness +Lilly of the valley: Return of happiness +Magnolia: Dignity, perseverance + * An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning. +% +Age is a tyrant who forbids, at the penalty of life, all the pleasures of youth. +% +Agree with them now, it will save so much time. +% +Ah, the Tsar's bazaar's bizarre beaux-arts! +% +Ahhhhhh... the smell of cuprinol and mahogany. It excites me to... +acts of passion... acts of... ineptitude. +% +All phone calls are obscene. + -- Karen Elizabeth Gordon +% +All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. + -- Grant Wood +% +Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves. +% +AMAZING BUT TRUE ... + If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end + across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. +% +AMAZING BUT TRUE ... + There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it + would completely cover the Sahara Desert. +% +Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. +% +An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways. + -- Isaac Asimov +% +... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers. +% +And I alone am returned to wag the tail. +% +Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to +exactly the point of most pressure. + -- Milt Barber +% +Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. +% +Are we not men? +% +As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." +% +Avec! +% +BAD CRAZINESS, MAN!!! +% +Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the +floor -- especially in the dark. +% +Batteries not included. +% +BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts...) +% +BE ALOOF! (There has been a recent population explosion of lerts.) +% +Before I knew the best part of my life had come, it had gone. +% +Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters in life begin +when you get what you want. +% +Believe everything you hear about the world; nothing is too impossibly bad. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% +Biggest security gap -- an open mouth. +% +Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic. +% +Blame Saint Andreas -- it's all his fault. +% +Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. +% +Blue paint today. + [Funny to Jack Slingwine, Guy Harris and Hal Pierson. Ed.] +% +Boy! Eucalyptus! +% +Boy, that crayon sure did hurt! +% +Bushydo -- the way of the shrub. Bonsai! +% + "But Huey, you PROMISED!" + "Tell 'em I lied." +% +But like the Good Book says... There's BIGGER DEALS to come! +% +By perseverance the snail reached the Ark. + -- Charles Spurgeon +% +CF&C stole it, fair and square. + -- Tim Hahn +% + Chapter VIII + +Due to the convergence of forces beyond his comprehension, Salvatore +Quanucci was suddenly squirted out of the universe like a watermelon +seed, and never heard from again. +% +Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. +% +Confucius say too much. + -- Recent Chinese Proverb +% +Congratulations are in order for Tom Reid. + +He says he just found out he is the winner of the 2021 Psychic of the +Year award. +% +Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why. +% +Custer committed Siouxicide. +% + +"Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not cockroaches!" + -- Mom +% +Death to all fanatics! +% +Depart in pieces, i.e., split. +% +Deprive a mirror of its silver and even the Czar won't see his face. +% +Did I say 2? I lied. +% +Did it ever occur to you that fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing? + +Or that we drive on parkways and park on driveways? +% +Did you hear about the model who sat on a broken bottle and cut a nice figure? +% +Did you know ... + +That no-one ever reads these things? +% +"Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a +conventional thing to happen to him." + -- John Barrymore's dying words +% +Dignity is like a flag. It flaps in a storm. + -- Roy Mengot +% +Dime is money. +% +Do not underestimate the power of the Force. +% +Do not use that foreign word "ideals". We have that excellent native +word "lies". + -- Henrik Ibsen, "The Wild Duck" +% +Do people know you have freckles everywhere? +% +Do students of Zen Buddhism do Om-work? +% + "Do you believe in intuition?" + "No, but I have a strange feeling that someday I will." +% +Do you have lysdexia? +% +Do YOU have redeeming social value? +% +Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle? +% +Don't force it, get a larger hammer. + -- Anthony +% +Don't guess -- check your security regulations. +% +Don't I know you? +% +Don't let your status become too quo! +% +Don't quit now, we might just as well lock the door and throw away the key. +% +Don't speak about Time, until you have spoken to him. +% +Don't worry -- the brontosaurus is slow, stupid, and placid. +% +Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac; you can always take something for it. +% +Double! +% +Dr. Jekyll had something to Hyde. +% +Dr. Livingston? +Dr. Livingston I. Presume? +% +Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. +% +Dreams are free, but there's a small charge for alterations. +% +Drop that pickle! +% +Drop the vase and it will become a Ming of the past. + -- The Adventurer +% +Duckies are fun! +% +Ducks? What ducks?? +% +Dungeons and Dragons is just a lot of Saxon Violence. +% + During a fight, a husband threw a bowl of Jello at his wife. She had +him arrested for carrying a congealed weapon. + In another fight, the wife decked him with a heavy glass pitcher. +She's a women who conks to stupor. +% +Dyslexia means never having to say that you're ysror. +% +Dyslexics have more fnu. +% +DYSLEXICS OF THE WORLD, UNTIE! +% +"Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun." + -- Jeff Berner +% +Editing is a rewording activity. +% +Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +Events are not affected, they develop. + -- Sri Aurobindo +% +Ever wonder why fire engines are red? + +Because newspapers are read too. +Two and Two is four. +Four and four is eight. +Eight and four is twelve. +There are twelve inches in a ruler. +Queen Mary was a ruler. +Queen Mary was a ship. +Ships sail the sea. +There are fishes in the sea. +Fishes have fins. +The Finns fought the Russians. +Russians are red. +Fire engines are always rush'n. +Therefore fire engines are red. +% +Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. +% +Every day it's the same thing -- variety. I want something different. +% +Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it. +% +Every time you manage to close the door on Reality, it comes in through the +window. +% +Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. + -- Beckett +% +Everything bows to success, even grammar. +% +Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous". +% +Everything might be different in the present if only one thing had +been different in the past. +% +Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. +% +Everything should be built top-down, except this time. +% +Everything takes longer, costs more, and is less useful. + -- Erwin Tomash +% +Everything you know is wrong! +% +Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. + -- Aldous Huxley +% +Facts, apart from their relationships, are like labels on empty bottles. + -- Sven Italla +% + "Fantasies are free." + "NO!! NO!! It's the thought police!!!!" +% +Far duller than a serpent's tooth it is to spend a quiet youth. +% +Fats Loves Madelyn. +% +Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture +on a rock. + -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 +% +Five bicycles make a volkswagen, seven make a truck. + -- Adolfo Guzman +% +Flame on! + -- Johnny Storm +% +Fly me away to the bright side of the moon ... +% +For a holy stint, a moth of the cloth gave up his woolens for lint. +% +For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +Force it!!! +If it breaks, well, it wasn't working anyway... +No, don't force it, get a bigger hammer. +% +FORCE YOURSELF TO RELAX! +% +Forest fires cause Smokey Bears. +% +Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month): + + Don't Write On Walls! + + (and underneath) + + You want I should type? +% +Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week: + + Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige. +% + "Found it," the Mouse replied rather crossly: "of course you know +what 'it' means." + "I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the +Duck: "it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the +archbishop find?" +% +From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. +That is the point that must be reached. + -- F. Kafka +% +Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. + -- H. H. Williams +% +General notions are generally wrong. + -- Lady M. W. Montagu +% +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!!!! +% +Given my druthers, I'd druther not. +% +Gloffing is a state of mine. +% +Go 'way! You're bothering me! +% +Go away, I'm all right. + -- H. G. Wells' last words. +% +Go climb a gravity well! +% +Goals... Plans... they're fantasies, they're part of a dream world... + -- Wally Shawn +% +God is Dead. + -- Nietzsche +Nietzsche is Dead. + -- God +Nietzsche is God. + -- Dead +% +God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. +% +God isn't dead. He just doesn't want to get involved. +% +God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. +% +God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal. + -- Samuel Butler +% +God, I ask for patience -- and I want it right now! +% +Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance. +% +Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) +% +Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length. +% +Happy feast of the pig! +% +Hard reality has a way of cramping your style. + -- Daniel Dennett +% +Have at you! +% +Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you. + -- Albert Einstein +% + "Have you lived here all your life?" + "Oh, twice that long." +% +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 flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions." +% +He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT. +% +Hedonist for hire... no job too easy! +% +Help a swallow land at Capistrano. +% +Help stamp out and abolish redundancy and repetition. +% +HELP! Man trapped in a human body! +% +HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN! + -- E. E. CUMMINGS +% +Here there be tygers. +% +"His eyes were cold. As cold as the bitter winter snow that was falling +outside. Yes, cold and therefore difficult to chew..." +% +Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..." +% +Honk if you love peace and quiet. +% +Housework can kill you if done right. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? +% +How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers? +% +How come we never talk anymore? +% +How come wrong numbers are never busy? +% +How kind of you to be willing to live someone's life for them. +% +How much of their influence on you is a result of your influence on them? +% +How untasteful can you get? +% +Huh? +% +I always wake up at the crack of ice. + -- Joe E. Lewis +% +I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater. +% +I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself. +% +I can relate to that. +% +I can resist anything but temptation. +% +I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less. +% +I despise the pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise. +% +I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +"I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path." + -- Ronald Mabbitt +% +I don't understand you anymore. +% +I don't wish to appear overly inquisitive, but are you still alive? +% +I enjoy the time that we spend together. +% +I exist, therefore I am paid. +% +I fear explanations explanatory of things explained. +% +I feel sorry for your brain... all alone in that great big head... +% +"I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words." +% +I hate quotations. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +I hate trolls. Maybe I could metamorph it into something else -- like a +ravenous, two-headed, fire-breathing dragon. + -- Willow +% +I have a terrible headache, I was putting on toilet water and the lid fell. +% +I have become me without my consent. +% +I have more hit points than you can possibly imagine. +% +I have seen the Great Pretender and he is not what he seems. +% +I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it. +% +I hear the sound that the machines make, and feel my heart break, just +for a moment. +% +I hear what you're saying but I just don't care. +% +I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once. +% +I know you think you thought you knew what you thought I said, +but I'm not sure you understood what you thought I meant. +% +I know you're in search of yourself, I just haven't seen you anywhere. +% +I live the way I type; fast, with a lot of mistakes. +% +I love treason but hate a traitor. + -- Gaius Julius Caesar +% +I never did it that way before. +% +"I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!" + -- Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus) +% + [I plan] to see, hear, touch, and destroy everything in my path, +including beets, rutabagas, and most random vegetables, but excluding yams, +as I am absolutely terrified of yams... + Actually, I think my fear of yams began in my early youth, when many +of my young comrades pelted me with same for singing songs of far-off lands +and deep blue seas in a language closely resembling that of the common sow. +My psychosis was further impressed into my soul as I reached adolescence, +when, while skipping through a field of yams, light-heartedly tossing flowers +into the stratosphere, a great yam-picking machine tore through the fields, +pursuing me to the edge of the great plantation, where I escaped by diving +into a great ditch filled with a mixture of water and pig manure, which may +explain my tendency to scream, "Here come the Martians! Hide the eggs!" every +time I have pork. But I digress. The fact remains that I cannot rationally +deal with yams, and pigs are terrible conversationalists. +% +I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow! +% +I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. +% +I saw what you did and I know who you are. +% +I smell a wumpus. +% +I thought YOU silenced the guard! +% +I understand why you're confused. You're thinking too much. + -- Carole Wallach. +% +I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure. +% +I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance. +% +I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. +% +I want to reach your mind -- where is it currently located? +% +I will always love the false image I had of you. +% +I will make you shorter by the head. + -- Elizabeth I +% +I will never lie to you. +% +I will not forget you. +% +I wouldn't be so paranoid if you weren't all out to get me!! +% +I'd be a poorer man if I'd never seen an eagle fly. + -- John Denver + +[I saw an eagle fly once. Fortunately, I had my eagle fly swatter handy. Ed.] +% +I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. +% + "I'm dying," he croaked. + "My experiment was a success," the chemist retorted . + "You can't really train a beagle," he dogmatized. + "That's no beagle, it's a mongrel," she muttered. + "The fire is going out," he bellowed. + "Bad marksmanship," the hunter groused. + "You ought to see a psychiatrist," he reminded me. + "You snake," she rattled. + "Someone's at the door," she chimed. + "Company's coming," she guessed. + "Dawn came too soon," she mourned. + "I think I'll end it all," Sue sighed. + "I ordered chocolate, not vanilla," I screamed. + "Your embroidery is sloppy," she needled cruelly. + "Where did you get this meat?" he bridled hoarsely. + -- Gyles Brandreth, "The Joy of Lex" +% +I'm glad I was not born before tea. + -- Sidney Smith (1771-1845) +% +I'm going to raise an issue and stick it in your ear. + -- John Foreman +% +I'm not laughing with you, I'm laughing at you. +% +I'm not offering myself as an example; every life evolves by its own laws. +% +I'm not prejudiced, I hate everyone equally. +% +I'm not proud. +% +I'm not tense, just terribly, terribly alert! +% +I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday life. +% +I'm so broke I can't even pay attention. +% +I've Been Moved! +% +I've been there. +% +I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand. +% +Identify your visitor. +% +Idleness is the holiday of fools. +% +"If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far." + -- Paul White +% +If all men were brothers, would you let one marry your sister? +% +If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane. +% +If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something. +% +If God is dead, who will save the Queen? +% +If God is One, what is bad? + -- Charles Manson +% +If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive! + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture. +% +If I love you, what business is it of yours? + -- Johann van Goethe +% +If it doesn't smell yet, it's pretty fresh. + -- Dave Johnson, on dead seagulls +% +If it pours before seven, it has rained by eleven. +% +If it wasn't so warm out today, it would be cooler. +% +If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. +% +If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. +% +If life is merely a joke, the question still remains: for whose amusement? +% +If life isn't what you wanted, have you asked for anything else? +% +If rabbits' feet are so lucky, what happened to the rabbit? +% +If the ends don't justify the means, then what does? + -- Robert Moses +% +If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something +to do with a shortage of flowers. + -- Doug Larson + + [Not to mention, butterfly would be flutterby. Ed.] +% +If the future isn't what it used to be, does that mean that the past +is subject to change in times to come? +% +If the grass is greener on other side of fence, consider what may be +fertilizing it. +% +If the meanings of "true" and "false" were switched, then this sentence +would not be false. +% +If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances +are 50-50 it will. +% +If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? + -- Art Hoppe +% +If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same? +% +If we see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of an +oncoming train. + -- Robert Lowell +% +If you are going to walk on thin ice, you may as well dance. +% +If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. +% +If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. + -- John Galsworthy +% +If you have nothing to do, don't do it here. +% +If you knew what to say next, would you say it? +% +If you know the answer to a question, don't ask. + -- Petersen Nesbit +% +If you stick your head in the sand, one thing is for sure, you're gonna +get your rear kicked. +% +If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%? +% +Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. + -- Jules de Gaultier +% +Imagine what we can imagine! + -- Arthur Rubinstein +% +Immanuel doesn't pun, he Kant. +% +Immanuel Kant but Kubla Khan. +% +In case of fire, stand in the hall and shout "Fire!" + -- The Kidner Report +% +In my end is my beginning. + -- Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots +% +In the war of wits, he's unarmed. +% +In this world, truth can wait; she's used to it. +% +Include me out. +% +Indecision is the true basis for flexibility. +% +Indifference will certainly be the downfall of mankind, but who cares? +% +Insomnia isn't anything to lose sleep over. +% +Is death legally binding? +% +Isn't air travel wonderful? Breakfast in London, dinner in New York, +luggage in Brazil. +% +It has long been known that birds will occasionally build nests in the +manes of horses. The only known solution to this problem is to sprinkle +baker's yeast in the mane, for, as we all know, yeast is yeast and nest +is nest, and never the mane shall tweet. +% +It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, +and not in circumstances. + -- Emerson +% +It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck? +One in a million, perhaps. +% +It is better to be bow-legged than no-legged. +% +It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark. +% +It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end. + -- Leonardo da Vinci +% +It is easier to run down a hill than up one. +% +It is the business of the future to be dangerous. + -- Hawkwind +% +It is very difficult to prophesy, especially when it pertains to the future. +% +It isn't easy being a Friday kind of person in a Monday kind of world. +% +It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. +% +It occurred to me lately that nothing has occurred to me lately. +% +"It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set foot." +% +It was one of those perfect summer days -- the sun was shining, a breeze +was blowing, the birds were singing, and the lawn mower was broken ... + -- James Dent +% +It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps +I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I +don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and +the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual +charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its +novelty. Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but +yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable +man a lifetime. + -- Thomas Aldrich +% +It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more like +the rose and the teeth were in the same glass. +% +It would save me a lot of time if you just gave up and went mad now. +% +It'll be a nice world if they ever get it finished. +% +It's a .88 magnum -- it goes through schools. + -- Danny Vermin +% +It's amazing how much better you feel once you've given up hope. +% +It's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing. +% +It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth +have both failed. + -- Kim Hubbard +% +Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes! +% +Join the march to save individuality! +% +Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. + -- Irene Peter +% +Just give Alice some pencils and she will stay busy for hours. +% +Kilroe hic erat! +% +Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. +% +Kissing a fish is like smoking a bicycle. +% +Knocked, you weren't in. + -- Opportunity +% +Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. + -- Henry N. Camp +% +L'hazard ne favorise que l'esprit prepare. + -- L. Pasteur +% +La-dee-dee, la-dee-dah. +% +Lake Erie died for your sins. +% +Language is a virus from another planet. + -- William Burroughs +% +Laughing at you is like drop-kicking a wounded humming bird. +% +Lemmings don't grow older, they just die. +% +Let he who takes the plunge remember to return it by Tuesday. +% +Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. +% +Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these. + -- Ovid (43 B.C. - A.D. 18) +% +Let's remind ourselves that last year's fresh idea is today's cliche. + -- Austen Briggs +% +Life -- Love It or Leave It. +% +Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. + -- Paul Gauguin +% +Life is both difficult and time-consuming. +% +Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut. +% +Life is just a bowl of cherries, but why do I always get the pits? +% +Life is like a simile. +% +Life is like an analogy. +% +Life is not for everyone. +% +Life would be tolerable but for its amusements. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +Like winter snow on summer lawn, time past is time gone. +% +Littering is dumb. + -- Ronald Macdonald +% +Live fast, die young, and leave a flat patch of fur on the highway! + -- The Squirrels' Motto (The "Hell's Angels of Nature") +% +Look out! Behind you! +% +Look! Before our very eyes, the future is becoming the past. +% +Lookie, lookie, here comes cookie... + -- Stephen Sondheim +% +Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA, BOOGA!" +% +Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy. +% +Love the sea? I dote upon it -- from the beach. +% +Luck can't last a lifetime, unless you die young. + -- Russell Banks +% +Madness takes its toll. +% +Man who falls in blast furnace is certain to feel overwrought. +% +Man who falls in vat of molten optical glass makes spectacle of self. +% +Man who sleep in beer keg wake up sticky. +% +Marigold: Jealousy +Mint: Virtue +Orange blossom: Your purity equals your loveliness +Orchid: Beauty, magnificence +Pansy: Thoughts +Peach blossom: I am your captive +Petunia: Your presence soothes me +Poppy: Sleep +Rose, any color: Love +Rose, deep red: Bashful shame +Rose, single, pink: Simplicity +Rose, thornless, any: Early attachment +Rose, white: I am worthy of you +Rose, yellow: Decrease of love, rise of jealousy +Rosebud, white: Girlhood, and a heart ignorant of love +Rosemary: Remembrance +Sunflower: Haughtiness +Tulip, red: Declaration of love +Tulip, yellow: Hopeless love +Violet, blue: Faithfulness +Violet, white: Modesty +Zinnia: Thoughts of absent friends + * An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning. +% +May a hundred thousand midgets invade your home singing cheesy lounge-lizard +versions of songs from The Wizard of Oz. +% +May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts. +% +May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits. +% +May your camel be as swift as the wind. +% +May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a +Thousand Caramels. +% +Meester, do you vant to buy a duck? +% +Memory should be the starting point of the present. +% +Mene, mene, tekel, upharsen. +% +Metermaids eat their young. +% +Microbiology Lab: Staph Only! +% +Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images. + -- Jean Cocteau +% +Moebius strippers never show you their back side. +% +Moebius always does it on the same side. +% +Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life. +% +Most burning issues generate far more heat than light. +% +Most general statements are false, including this one. + -- Alexander Dumas +% +Mother Earth is not flat! +% +Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like. + -- Arnold Bennett +% +Mount St. Helens should have used earth control. +% +Must be getting close to town -- we're hitting more people. +% +My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my +life there. +% +My, how you've changed since I've changed. +% +'Naomi, sex at noon taxes.' I moan. +Never odd or even. +A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. +Madam, I'm Adam. +Sit on a potato pan, Otis. +Sit on Otis. + -- The Mad Palindromist +% +Never be afraid to tell the world who you are. + -- Anonymous +% +Never use "etc." -- it makes people think there is more where there is not +or that there is not space to list it all, etc. +% +Never volunteer for anything. + -- Lackland +% +New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of +Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within. +% +Nietzsche is pietzsche, but Schiller is killer, and Goethe is moethe. +% +No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. + -- William Blake +% +No guts, no glory. +% +No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up. +% +No matter how much you do you never do enough. +% +No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep +awake all day. + -- Nietzsche +% +No yak too dirty; no dumpster too hollow. +% +Nobody ever died from oven crude poisoning. +% +Non-Determinism is not meant to be reasonable. + -- M. J. 0'Donnell +% +Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades. +% +Nostalgia is living life in the past lane. +% +Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. +% +Not to laugh, not to lament, not to curse, but to understand. + -- Spinoza +% +Nothing can be done in one trip. + -- Snider +% +Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. +% +Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. + -- Michel de Montaigne +% +Nothing is so often irretrievably missed as a daily opportunity. + -- Ebner-Eschenbach +% +Nothing lasts forever. +Where do I find nothing? +% +NOTICE: + +-- THE ELEVATORS WILL BE OUT OF ORDER TODAY -- + +(The nearest working elevator is in the building across the street.) +% +Now there's a violent movie titled, "The Croquet Homicide," or "Murder +With Mallets Aforethought." + -- Shelby Friedman, WSJ. +% +Nudists are people who wear one-button suits. +% +O imitators, you slavish herd! + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +O.K., fine. +% +Odets, where is thy sting? + -- George S. Kaufman +% +Oh yeah? Well, I remember when sex was dirty and the air was clean. +% +Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes. +% +Oh, wow! Look at the moon! +% +Once I finally figured out all of life's answers, they changed the questions. +% +Onward through the fog. +% +Operator, please trace this call and tell me where I am. +% +Our houseplants have a good sense of humous. +% +Our problems are so serious that the best way to talk about them is +lightheartedly. +% +Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now +I can remember things that *have* happened before ... +% +Paranoid Club meeting this Friday. Now ... just try to find out where! +% +Pardon me while I laugh. +% +Paul Revere was a tattle-tale. +% +Peace be to this house, and all that dwell in it. +% +Phone call for chucky-pooh. +% +Piece of cake! + -- G. S. Koblas +% +Plastic... Aluminum... These are the inheritors of the Universe! +Flesh and Blood have had their day... and that day is past! + -- Green Lantern Comics +% +Please help keep the world clean: others may wish to use it. +% +Please remain calm, it's no use both of us being hysterical at the same time. +% +Predestination was doomed from the start. +% +Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future. + -- Niels Bohr +% +Preserve the old, but know the new. +% +Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Progress was all right. Only it went on too long. + -- James Thurber +% +Punning is the worst vice, and there's no vice versa. +% +Pyros of the world... IGNITE !!! +% +QED. +% +Quack! + Quack!! Quack!! +% +Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or +help speed the change by breaking them? +% +Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened! +% +Quod erat demonstrandum. + [Thus it is proven. For those who wondered WTF QED means.] +% +Rainy days and automatic weapons always get me down. +% +Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. +% +Reality -- what a concept! + -- Robin Williams +% +Remember that there is an outside world to see and enjoy. + -- Hans Liepmann +% +Remember the... the... uhh..... +% +Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a good offense! +% +Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get +another chance later on. +% +Ring around the collar. +% +Rubber bands have snappy endings! +% +Safety Third. +% +Sailors in ships, sail on! Even while we died, others rode out the storm. +% +Sank heaven for leetle curls. +% +Santa Claus is watching! +% +Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate Clauses. +% +Satire does not look pretty upon a tombstone. +% +Save the bales! +% +Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda. +% +Save the whales. Collect the whole set. +% +See, these two penguins walked into a bar, which was really stupid, 'cause +the second one should have seen it. +% +She has an alarm clock and a phone that don't ring -- they applaud. +% +She's genuinely bogus. +% + "Sheriff, we gotta catch Black Bart." + "Oh, yeah? What's he look like?" + "Well, he's wearin' a paper hat, a paper shirt, paper pants and +paper boots." + "What's he wanted for?" + "Rustling." +% +Shirley MacLaine died today in a freak psychic collision today. Two freaks +in a van [Oh no!! It's the Copyright Police!!] Her aura-charred body was +laid to rest after a eulogy by Jackie Collins, fellow member of SAFE [Society +of Asinine Flake Entertainers]. Excerpted from some of his more quotable +comments: + + "Truly a woman of the times. These times, those times..." + "A Renaissance woman. Why in 1432..." + "A man for all seasons. Really..." + +After the ceremony, Shirley thanked her mourners and explained how delightful +it was to "get it together" again, presumably referring to having her now dead +body join her long dead brain. +% +Sight is a faculty; seeing is an art. +% +Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves. + -- Thomas Carlyle +% +Silence is the only virtue you have left. +% +Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work. +% +Sleep is for the weak and sickly. +% +Smear the road with a runner!! +% +Solipsists of the World... you are already united. + -- Kayvan Sylvan +% +Some changes are so slow, you don't notice them. Others are so fast, +they don't notice you. +% +Some parts of the past must be preserved, and some of the future prevented +at all costs. +% +Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic. +% +Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. + -- Evan Davis +% +Someday you'll get your big chance -- or have you already had it? +% +Someday, Weederman, we'll look back on all this and laugh... It will +probably be one of those deep, eerie ones that slowly builds to a +blood-curdling maniacal scream... but still it will be a laugh. + -- Mister Boffo +% +Somehow I reached excess without ever noticing when I was passing through +satisfaction. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +Somehow, the world always affects you more than you affect it. +% +Sometimes, too long is too long. + -- Joe Crowe +% +Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. + -- Carl Sagan +% +Sooner or later you must pay for your sins. +(Those who have already paid may disregard this cookie). +% +Sorry. I forget what I was going to say. +% +Sorry. Nice try. +% +Stability itself is nothing else than a more sluggish motion. +% +Stamp out philately. +% +Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down. +% +Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly. +% +Stop me, before I kill again! +% +Support the Girl Scouts! + (Today's Brownie is tomorrow's Cookie!) +% +Take it easy, we're in a hurry. +% +Take what you can use and let the rest go by. + -- Ken Kesey +% +Tempt me with a spoon! +% +Thank you for observing all safety precautions. +% +That's odd. That's very odd. Wouldn't you say that's very odd? +% +That's what she said. +% +The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech. + -- Clifton Fadiman +% +The beauty of a pun is in the "Oy!" of the beholder. +% +The best prophet of the future is the past. +% +The cart has no place where a fifth wheel could be used. + -- Herbert von Fritzlar +% +The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, +and lo! now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. + -- H. D. Thoreau +% +The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life. +% +The difference between this place and yogurt is that yogurt has a live culture. +% +The eagle may soar, but the weasel never gets sucked into a jet engine. +% +The executioner is, I hear, very expert, and my neck is very slender. + -- Anne Boleyn +% +The fact that it works is immaterial. + -- L. Ogborn +% +... the flaw that makes perfection perfect. +% +The future isn't what it used to be. (It never was.) +% +The future lies ahead. +% +The future not being born, my friend, we will abstain from baptizing it. + -- George Meredith +% +The grass is always greener on the other side of your sunglasses. +% +The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its message and then +disappears. +% +The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a custom +whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary, nohow. +% +The important thing to remember about walking on eggs is not to hop. +% + "The jig's up, Elman." + "Which jig?" + -- Jeff Elman +% +The Killer Ducks are coming!!! +% +The last person who said that (God rest his soul) lived to regret it. +% +The luck that is ordained for you will be coveted by others. +% +The Martian Canals were clearly the Martian's last ditch effort! +% +The mosquito exists to keep the mighty humble. +% +The most important things, each person must do for himself. +% +The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to +cringe. +% +The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because +it isn't here. + -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) +% +The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness. + -- Wittgenstein. +% +The pollution's at that awkward stage. Too thick to navigate and too +thin to cultivate. + -- Doug Sneyd +% +The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go +to erase it. + -- Glaser and Way +% +The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is cursed. +% +The rose of yore is but a name, mere names are left to us. +% +The sheep died in the wool. +% +The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land. +% +The shortest distance between any two puns is a straight line. +% +The sixth sheik's sixth sheep's sick. + [so say said sentence sextuply...] +% +The sky is blue so we know where to stop mowing. + -- Judge Harold T. Stone +% +The tree in which the sap is stagnant remains fruitless. + -- Hosea Ballou +% +The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak. + -- Wavy Gravy +% +The whole world is a scab. The point is to pick it constructively. + -- Peter Beard +% +The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage +is so much better. +% +The world wants to be deceived. + -- Sebastian Brant +% +The worst part of valor is indiscretion. +% +Then, gently touching my face, she hesitated for a moment as her incredible +eyes poured forth into mine love, joy, pain, tragedy, acceptance, and peace. +"'Bye for now," she said warmly. + -- Thea Alexander, "2150 A.D." +% +There are no rules for March. March is spring, sort of, usually, March +means maybe, but don't bet on it. +% +There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I +can't remember. + -- Italo Svevo +% +There are two kinds of pedestrians... the quick and the dead. + -- Lord Thomas Rober Dewar +% +There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know +nothing about. +% +There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish. + -- Walt Disney +% +There is always someone worse off than yourself. +% +There is always something new out of Africa. + -- Gaius Plinius Secundus +% +There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. +% +There is nothing new except what has been forgotten. + -- Marie Antoinette +% +There seems no plan because it is all plan. + -- C. S. Lewis +% +There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get +any worse. +% +There's nothing very mysterious about you, except that +nobody really knows your origin, purpose, or destination. +% +They finally got King Midas, I hear. Gild by association. +% +They just buzzed and buzzed...buzzed. +% +Think big. Pollute the Mississippi. +% +Think honk if you're a telepath. +% +Think sideways! + -- Ed De Bono +% +This is NOT a repeat. +% +This is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. And now you know why. +% +This must be morning. I never could get the hang of mornings. +% +This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't. + -- Douglas Hofstadter +% +This sentence does in fact not have the property it claims not to have. +% +This sentence no verb. +% +Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is +irksome and three minutes is a long time. + -- A. E. Houseman +% +Three o'clock in the afternoon is always just a little too late or a little +too early for anything you want to do. + -- Jean-Paul Sartre +% +Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Time will end all my troubles, but I don't always approve of Time's methods. +% +Tis man's perdition to be safe, when for the truth he ought to die. +% +To generalize is to be an idiot. + -- William Blake +% +To love is good, love being difficult. +% +To see you is to sympathize. +% +"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?" +% +Topologists are just plane folks. + Pilots are just plane folks. + Carpenters are just plane folks. + Midwest farmers are just plain folks. + Musicians are just playin' folks. + Whodunit readers are just Spillane folks. +Some Londoners are just P. Lane folks. +% +Trouble always comes at the wrong time. +% +Trouble strikes in series of threes, but when working around the house the +next job after a series of three is not the fourth job -- it's the start of +a brand new series of three. +% +True to our past we work with an inherited, observed, and accepted vision of +personal futility, and of the beauty of the world. + -- David Mamet +% +Two cars in every pot and a chicken in every garage. +% +Use a pun, go to jail. +% +Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time. + -- Pericles +% +Wanna buy a duck? +% +Wasting time is an important part of living. +% +We have ears, earther...FOUR OF THEM! +% +We have lingered long enough on the shores of the Cosmic Ocean. + -- Carl Sagan +% +We must die because we have known them. + -- Ptah-hotep, 2000 B.C. +% +We'll cross that bridge when we come back to it later. +% +Welcome to the Zoo! +% +Well thaaaaaaat's okay. +% +Well, the handwriting is on the floor. + -- Joe E. Lewis +% +Well, we'll really have a party, but we've gotta post a guard outside. + -- Eddie Cochran, "Come On Everybody" +% +What causes the mysterious death of everyone? +% +What color is a chameleon on a mirror? +% + "What did you do when the ship sank?" + "I grabbed a cake of soap and washed myself ashore." +% +What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"? +% +What excuses stand in your way? How can you eliminate them? + -- Roger von Oech +% +What happens when you cut back the jungle? It recedes. +% +What is the sound of one hand clapping? +% +What soon grows old? Gratitude. + -- Aristotle +% + "What time is it?" + "I don't know, it keeps changing." +% +What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. + -- Wittgenstein +% +What will you do if all your problems aren't solved by the time you die? +% +What you want, what you're hanging around in the world waiting for, is for +something to occur to you. + -- Robert Frost + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to AST's.] +% +What!? Me worry? + -- Alfred E. Newman +% +What's all this brouhaha? +% +What's so funny? +% +"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" + -- The Doctor +% +Whatever became of eternal truth? +% +When a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far! +% +When a cow laughs, does milk come out of its nose? +% +When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half loop? +% +When does later become never? +% +When eating an elephant take one bite at a time. + -- Gen. C. Abrams +% +When pleasure remains, does it remain a pleasure? +% +When the English language gets in my way, I walk over it. + -- Billy Sunday +% +When things go well, expect something to explode, erode, collapse or +just disappear. +% +When you dial a wrong number you never get a busy signal. +% +When you're down and out, lift up your voice and shout, "I'M DOWN AND OUT"! +% +When you're ready to give up the struggle, who can you surrender to? +% +When your memory goes, forget it! +% +Where am I? Who am I? Am I? I +% +Where will it all end? Probably somewhere near where it all began. +% +Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. + -- Wittgenstein +% +Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? +% +Whip it, whip it good! +% +Who are you? +% +Who dat who say "who dat" when I say "who dat"? + -- Hattie McDaniel +% +Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot? +% +Who will take care of the world after you're gone? +% +Why are you so hard to ignore? +% +Why do seagulls live near the sea? 'Cause if they lived near the bay, +they'd be called baygulls. +% +Why does a ship carry cargo and a truck carry shipments? +% +Why is it called a funny bone when it hurts so much? +% +Why is it taking so long for her to bring out all the good in you? +% +Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet? + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is? +% +Why would anyone want to be called "Later"? +% +Without adventure, civilization is in full decay. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +Would that my hand were as swift as my tongue. + -- Alfieri +% +Would you care to drift aimlessly in my direction? +% +Would you care to view the ruins of my good intentions? +% +WRONG! +% +You auto buy now. +% +You can cage a swallow, can't you, + but you can't swallow a cage, can you? +Girl, bathing on Bikini, eyeing boy, + finds boy eyeing bikini on bathing girl. +A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama! + -- The Palindromist +% +You can get there from here, but why on earth would you want to? +% + "You've got to think about tomorrow!" + "TOMORROW! I haven't even prepared for *_________yesterday* yet!" +% +Zeus gave Leda the bird. +% +Well, I think we should get some bricks and some bats, and show him +the *true* meaning of Christmas!' + -- Bernice, "Designing Women", 12/2/91. +% +I used to have nightmares that the Grinch's dog would kidnap me and make me +dress up in a halter-top and hot pants and listen to Burl Ives records. + -- Robin, "Anything But Love", 12/18/91. +% +[ ] Safeguard this message - it is an important historical document. +[ ] Delete after reading -- Subversive Literature. +[ ] Ignore and go back to what you were doing. +% +Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? + -- Socrates' last words +% +I am tired of fighting...The old men are all dead...The little children +are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the +hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are...Hear +me, my Chiefs!! I am tired: my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun +now stands, I will fight no more. Chief Joseph, (Nez Perce) +% +[I]f you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an +excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right." + -- Paul Graham, "What You'll Wish You'd Known" +% +Whether your covers star a male or a female, I read your magazine for the +articles + -- Leo Costales, in "Outside July 2005" +% diff --git a/fortunes/news b/fortunes/news new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9dba29 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/news @@ -0,0 +1,260 @@ +A help wanted add for a photo journalist asked the rhetorical question: + +If you found yourself in a situation where you could either save +a drowning man, or you could take a Pulitzer prize winning +photograph of him drowning, what shutter speed and setting would you use? + -- Paul Harvey +% +A Hen Brooding Kittens + A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county, +a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three +kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring +says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that +she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young +felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at +her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861 +% + A journalist, thrilled over his dinner, asked the chef for the recipe. +Retorted the chef, "Sorry, we have the same policy as you journalists, we +never reveal our sauce." +% +A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed +on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new +game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the +pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly +along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their +heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn +around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite +direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the +paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin +colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins +fall over gently onto their backs. + -- Audobon Society Magazine +% +A New Way of Taking Pills + A physician one night in Wisconsin being disturbed by a burglar, and +having no ball or shot for his pistol, noiselessly loaded the weapon with +small, hard pills, and gave the intruder a "prescription" which he thinks +will go far towards curing the rascal of a very bad ailment. + -- Nevada Morning Transcript, January 30, 1861 +% +A newspaper is a circulating library with high blood pressure. + -- Arthure "Bugs" Baer +% +A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a +watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he +looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his +tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were +they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led +by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged, +killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting +could not be seen. A little while later the two kings of the jungle +emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of +the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions." +% +"A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked +out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon." + -- Steel City News +% +A young girl once committed suicide because her mother refused her a new +bonnet. Coroner's verdict: "Death from excessive spunk." + -- Sacramento Daily Union, September 13, 1860 +% +Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +After two or three weeks of this madness, you begin to feel As One with +the man who said, "No news is good news." In twenty-eight papers, only +the rarest kind of luck will turn up more than two or three articles of +any interest... but even then the interest items are usually buried deep +around paragraph 16 on the jump (or "Cont. on ...") page... + +The Post will have a story about Muskie making a speech in Iowa. The +Star will say the same thing, and the Journal will say nothing at all. +But the Times might have enough room on the jump page to include a line +or so that says something like: "When he finished his speech, Muskie +burst into tears and seized his campaign manager by the side of the neck. +They grappled briefly, but the struggle was kicked apart by an oriental +woman who seemed to be in control." + +Now that's good journalism. Totally objective; very active and straight +to the point. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" +% +All newspaper editorial writers ever do is come down from the hills after +the battle is over and shoot the wounded. +% +An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +"... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of +your own." + -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter Preposterous Words +% +And that's the way it is... + -- Walter Cronkite +% +Earth Destroyed by Solar Flare -- film clips at eleven. +% +Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it. +% +Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for that +rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. + -- Erwin Knoll +% +FLASH! +Intelligence of mankind decreasing. +Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the .... +% +... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, +and you would not have been informed. +% +I only know what I read in the papers. + -- Will Rogers +% +I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction. + -- Aneurin Bevan +% +I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens +who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known +something of what has been passing in their time. + -- H. Truman +% +If I were to walk on water, the press would say I'm only doing it +because I can't swim. + -- Bob Stanfield +% +If you lose your temper at a newspaper columnist, he'll get rich, +or famous or both. +% +In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth" +Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex. + -- Frank Mankiewicz +% +Isn't it conceivable to you that an intelligent person could harbor +two opposing ideas in his mind? + -- Adlai Stevenson, to reporters +% +Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism +in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with +the ignorance of the community. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Journalism is literature in a hurry. + -- Matthew Arnold +% +Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you're at it. +% +Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who +can't talk for people who can't read. + -- Frank Zappa +% +My father was a God-fearing man, but he never missed a copy of the +New York Times, either. + -- E. B. White +% +Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. + -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977 +% + *** NEWSFLASH *** + +Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven! +% +"No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of paper." + -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was + taken over by Rupert Murdoch +% +Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%. And of +TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a blazer. +% + Once Again From the Top + +Correction notice in the Miami Herald: "Last Sunday, The Herald erroneously +reported that original Dolphin Johnny Holmes had been an insurance salesman +in Raleigh, North Carolina, that he had won the New York lottery in 1982 and +lost the money in a land swindle, that he had been charged with vehicular +homicide, but acquitted because his mother said she drove the car, and that +he stated that the funniest thing he ever saw was Flipper spouting water on +George Wilson. Each of these items was erroneous material published +inadvertently. He was not an insurance salesman in Raleigh, did not win the +lottery, neither he nor his mother was charged or involved in any way with +vehicular homicide, and he made no comment about Flipper or George Wilson. +The Herald regrets the errors." + -- "The Progressive", March, 1987 +% +One of the signs of Napoleon's greatness is the fact that he once had a +publisher shot. + -- Siegfried Unseld +% +People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better +press than people who are just funny and smart. + -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post" +% +Photographing a volcano is just about the most miserable thing you can do. + -- Robert B. Goodman + [Who has clearly never tried to use a PDP-10. Ed.] +% + Reporters like Bill Greider from the Washington Post and Him +Naughton of the New York Times, for instance, had to file long, detailed, +and relatively complex stories every day -- while my own deadline fell +every two weeks -- but neither of them ever seemed in a hurry about +getting their work done, and from time to time they would try to console +me about the terrible pressure I always seemed to be laboring under. + Any $100-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this problem +to me, in thirteen or fourteen sessions, but I don't have time for that. +No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or +maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland... On +the other hand, it might be something as simple & basically perverse as +whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last +possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" +% +The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +The American Dental Association announced today that most plaque tends +to form on teeth around 4:00 PM in the afternoon. + +Film at 11:00. +% +The most important service rendered by the press is that of educating +people to approach printed matter with distrust. +% +"The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The +Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The +National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running +the country ..." + -- Robert J Woodhead +% +The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a +plausible manner and a little literary ability. The capacity to steal +other people's ideas and phrases ... is also invaluable. + -- Nicolas Tomalin, "Stop the Press, I Want to Get On" +% +The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage +is so much better. +% + "Then you admit confirming not denying you ever said that?" + "NO! ... I mean Yes! WHAT?" + "I'll put `maybe.'" + -- Bloom County +% +This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. Had there been an +actual emergency, then you would no longer be here. +% +This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an +actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you? +% +This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you +would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go. +% +Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for +those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking up. + -- Chicago Reader 4/22/83 +% +You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens +anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night, +you can always change the channel. + -- Jim Ignatowski +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/art b/fortunes/off/art new file mode 100644 index 0000000..54c428b --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/art @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +X-rated movies are all alike ... the only thing they leave to the +imagination is the plot. +% +Hamburg was fantastic. Between the whores and the groupies our dicks +all just about dropped off. + -- John Lennon, on the Beatles' early career in Germany diff --git a/fortunes/off/astrology b/fortunes/off/astrology new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c337f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/astrology @@ -0,0 +1,289 @@ +AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18) + A friend will step forward and confide in you about your breath. Rely + on your outgoing personality and winning smile to get you into a lot + of trouble. Be relaxed, things will change. Look for a pink slip on + payday. Stop wetting your bed. +% +AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18) + You are the type of person who never has enough money to do what + you want. Don't expect things to get any better today, either. + As a matter of fact they might get worse. Intensify your + relationship with your bank and any friends you have who might be + able to lend you a few bucks. +% +AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18) + You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. + You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be + careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over + and over again. People think you are stupid. +% +ARIES (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19) + Be cheerful today. People who don't like you will outnumber those + who do. You have warts. Focus on domestic status, financial matters, + and venereal disease. Look for involvement with Libra or Aquarius + natives; probably a fistfight with one of each. +% +ARIES (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19) + You are a wonderfully interesting, honest, hard-working person + and you should make many new friends, but you won't because you've + got a mean streak in you a mile wide. +% +ARIES (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19) + You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You + are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are + not very nice. +% +Astrology... just a bunch of Taurus. +% +CANCER (June 21 - July 22) + This is a good time for those of you who are rich and happy, + but a poor time for those of you born under this sign who are + poor and unhappy. To tell you the truth, any day is tough + when you're poor and unhappy. +% +CANCER (June 21 - July 22) + You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. + They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. + That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare + recipients are Cancer people. +% +CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19) + Follow your instincts. You are much too scatterbrained to do anything + else, such as think. Romance is in the air, but not for you, so forget + it. That pimple on the end of your nose will get worse. +% +CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19) + Play your hunches. This is a day when luck will play an important + part in your life. If you were smarter, you wouldn't need so much + luck and you wouldn't be reading your horoscope, either. You are + a suspicious person, and it will occur to you that astrologers + don't know what they're talking about any more than your Aunt Martha. +% +CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19) + You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do + much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn + of any importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for + too long as they tend to take root and become trees. +% +GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) + A day to take the initiative. Put the garbage out, for + instance, and pick up the stuff at the dry cleaners. Watch + the mail carefully, although there won't be anything good + in it today, either. +% +GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) + Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while you + can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy praise + and respect from those around you; everybody loves a sucker. A short + trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's room. +% +GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) + You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because + you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much + for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for + committing incest. +% +I do not take drugs -- I am drugs. + -- Salvador Dali +% +LEO (Jul. 23 - Aug. 22) + You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. + Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike honest + criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieves. +% +LEO (Jul. 23 - Aug. 22) + Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore. Your + ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because you've got + a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of fact, if you can + laugh at what happens to you today, you've got a sick sense of humor. +% +LEO (Jul. 23 - Aug. 22) + Your presence, poise, charm and good looks won't even help you today. + Look over your shoulder; an ugly person may be following you. Be on + your toes. Brush your teeth. Take Geritol. +% +LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22) + Major achievements, new friends, and a previously unexplored way + to make a lot of money will come to a lot of people today, but + unfortunately you won't be one of them. Consider not getting out + of bed today. +% +LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22) + You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. + If you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for + employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women + are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal disease. +% +LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22) + Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your + desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and + polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that. +% +PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) + Take the high road, look for the good things, carry the American + Express card and a weapon. The world is yours today, as nobody + else wants it. Your mortgage will be foreclosed. You will probably + get run over by a bus. +% +PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) + You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed + by the CIA or FBI. You have minor influence over your associates + and people resent your flaunting of your power. You lack confidence + and you are generally a coward. Pisces people do terrible things to + small animals. +% +PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) + You will get some very interesting news of a promotion today. It + will go to someone in the office you dislike and will be the job + you wanted. Don't lend anyone a car today. You don't have a car. +% +SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21) + Move slowly today, be deliberate. Indications are for bleeding + ulcers. Drink milk. Try not to be your usual offensive and + obnoxious self. Call your mother. +% +SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21) + You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless + tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority + of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People + laugh at you a great deal. +% +SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21) + Your efforts to help a little old lady cross a street will + backfire when you learn that she was waiting for a bus. Subdue + impulse you have to push her out into traffic. +% +SCORPIO (Oct. 23 - Nov 21.) + You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will + achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of + ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered. +% +SCORPIO (Oct. 23 - Nov. 21) + Friends abound today, seeking repayment of past loans. Smile. Check + for concealed weapons. Your natural cheerfulness makes others want + to throw up. Knock it off. +% +SCORPIO (Oct. 23 - Nov. 21) + You will receive word today that you are eligible to win a million + dollars in prizes. It will be from a magazine trying to get you to + subscribe, and you're just dumb enough to think you've got a chance + to win. You never learn. +% +TAURUS (Apr. 20 - May 20) + Let your self-confidence and determination shine, and people will + find you boorish and headstrong. Travel, promotion, and romance + highlighted, if you live long enough. Don't take any wooden nickels. +% +TAURUS (Apr. 20 - May 20) + Take advantage of this opportunity to get a little extra sleep, + because you're going to miss the bus again today anyway. You will + decide to lose weight today, just like yesterday. +% +TAURUS (Apr. 20 - May 20) + You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged determination + and work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bull + headed. You are a Communist. +% +Those who believe in astrology are living in houses with foundations of +Silly Putty. + -- Dennis Rawlins +% +VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sep. 22) + Get it in writing. Be careful. You are surrounded by lechers and + assholes; birds of a feather flock together. Trust no one. People + will not be offended, because they've come to recognize you for the + paranoid neurotic that you are. Your dentures are loose. +% +VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22) + Learn something new today, like how to spell or how to count + to ten without using your fingers. Be careful dressing this + morning. You may be hit by a car later in the day and you + wouldn't want to be taken to the doctor's office in some of + that old underwear you own. +% +VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22) + You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is + sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and + sometimes fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus + drivers. +% +YOUR FOAMY FUTURE + by Miss Fortune + +AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18) + You have nothing better to think about than what to wear and what + type of champagne to take to the neighbors Halloween Party. Just take + beer! Don't try to copy the "Joneses", pull them up to your level and + remember, in California Hoalloween is redundant anyhow. + +PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) + Focus on strengthening friendships this Fall. You find others are + fascinated by your intelligence, your wit, your drinking ability, and + your bank account. Just make sure you realize it's far more impressive + when other discover your good qualities without your help. +% +YOUR FOAMY FUTURE + by Miss Fortune + +ARIES (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19) + Matters are not good, where you health is concerned. This Fall, be + sure to "walk groundly, talk profoundly, drink roundly, and sleep + soundly" and you will live all the days of your life. + +TAURUS (Apr. 20 - May 20) + You spent a fortune on beer this past summer and now find yourself + in a deep depression because you can't afford even one of your favorite + brewskis. Don't fret too much, Taurus. To get back on your feet + simply miss two car payments. + +GEMINI (May 21 - June 21) + You think you're falling in love with a person who has a lot in + common with yourself. You both prefer ales, you've both tried your + hand at homebrewing, and you both want to visit every new brewpub that + opens. Sounds impressive but remember you really don't know your + partner until you meet in court. +% +YOUR FOAMY FUTURE + by Miss Fortune + +CANCER (June 22 - July 22) + You've been awarded a clean bill of health this month and you feel you + owe it all to the excessive amount of Vitamin B, Iron, and Malt you get + in your beer. Being healthy is admirable but don't you think you're + going to feel stupid one day lying in a hospital dying of nothing? + +LEO (July 23 - Aug. 22) + You will soon acquire a large sum of money and will be in seventh + heaven as you head to the nearest Liquor Barn and buy all the beer they + have in stock. Whoever said money couldn't buy happiness didn't know + where to shop. + +VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22) + Your late night, beer drinking, "life in the fast lane" parties are + affecting your job production the next morning. You feel a nine to + five job is not for a "party animal" such as yourself and may feel + the need for a career change. Just remember, people who work sitting + down get paid more than people who work standing up. +% +YOUR FOAMY FUTURE + by Miss Fortune + +SCORPIO (Oct. 24 - Nov. 21) + "Hard work never killed anybody, but why take the chance?" is your + motto. You don't do much other than sleep, eat, down brewskis, and + watch TV. Your friends and family are constantly pestering you to + clean up your act. But it's OK, Scorpio. A kick in the ass is at + least one step forward. + +SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21) + You've been on a diet for two weeks and all you've lost is two weeks. + My advice is to drink copius amounts of beer just to get the thought + of food out of your mind. Remember, a good reducing exercise consists + of placing both hands against the table edge and pushing back. + +CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19) + Remember that day you had one beer too many and did something + extremely foolish? Now your friends are coming and going and your + enemies accumulating. Cheer up! All is not lost. It's better to + be hated for what you are than loved for what you're not. +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/atheism b/fortunes/off/atheism new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4bd97ec --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/atheism @@ -0,0 +1,14254 @@ + I don't care if it rains or freezes + Long as I have my plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + Through my trials and tribulations + And my travels through the nations + With my plastic Jesus I'll go far + + Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + I'm afraid he'll have to go + His magnets ruin my radio + And if I have a wreck He'll leave a scar + + Riding down a thoroughfare + With his nose up in the air + A wreck may be ahead but he don't mind + Trouble coming He don't see + He just keeps his eye on me + And any other thing that lies behind + + Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + Though the sunshine on His back + Make Him peel, chip and crack + A little patching keeps Him up to par + + When pedestrians try to cross + I let them know who's boss + I never blow the horn or give them warning + I ride all over town + trying to run them down + And it's seldom that they live to see the morning + + Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + His halo fits just right + And I use it for a sight + And they'll scatter or they'll splatter near and far + + When I'm in a traffic jam + He don't care if I say "damn" + I can let all sorts of curses roll + Plastic Jesus doesn't hear + For he has a plastic ear + The man who invented plastic saved my soul + + Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + Once His robe was snowy white + Now it isn't quite bright + Stained by the smoke of my cigar + + If I weave around at night + And the police think I'm tight + They'll never find my bottle though they ask + Plastic Jesus shelters me + For his head comes off you see + He's hollow and I use Him for a flask + + Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + Ride with me and have a dram + Of the blood of the Lamb + Plastic Jesus is a holy bar. + + ["Plastic Jesus", circa 1969, sign-on + song of disk jockey Don Imis] +% +I don't care if it rains or freezes +Long as I've got my plastic jesus +Sitting on the dashboard of my car +Comes in colors pink and pleasant +Glows in the dark cause it's iridescent +Take it with you when you travel far. + +Get yourself a sweet madonna +Dressed in rhinestones sitting on a +Pedestal of abalone shell +Going ninety I aint scary +Cause I've got the virgin mary +Telling me that I won't go to hell. + [Paul Newman, in "Cool Hand Luke"] +% +Frisbeetarianism, n.: + + The belief that when you die, your soul goes up + on the roof and gets stuck. +% +God is real, unless declared integer. +% +God is love +Love is blind +Ray Charles is blind +Therefore, Ray Charles is God +% +Hindu speaking to a "Born again" christian: +"Of course I am born again. And again and again and again." +% + A preacher's wife proofread his Sunday sermon and wrote next + to one paragraph: "Weak point--shout loud". +% +If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions? +% +Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that +each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice. +% +"Never join a religion that has a water slide." +% +"...but when you come to Heritage USA, remember to bring your Bible + and your VISA card - because the Bible is the Holy Truth, and God + doesn't take American Express." +% +At a recent PTL convention, the hotel reported that over 80% of the +conventionites watched at least one x-rated movie on the hotel's ppv cable... +% +"There are no saints, only unrecognized villains." +% +"For god so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, + that whosoever would believe in him would believe in anything." +% +"I don't mind those who are born again, just as long as + they don't think that they get twice as many rights." +% + And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" + +They replied,"You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of +our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very +selfhood revealed." + + And Jesus replied, "What?" +% +"The only difference between God and Adolf Hitler + is that God is more proficient at genocide." +% + : #... + : # + :#####: + # : + # : + ...# : +% +"Jesus died to take our wibbles away, + so now we can go to zonk." +% +Humanity's first sin was faith; the first virtue was doubt. +% +Why be born again, when you can just grow up? +% +What a f iend we have in Jesus! +% +Blasphemy is a blast for me. +% +If you ask the wrong questions you +get answers like '42' or 'God'. +% +Keep Christ out of Christmas +% +Any belief worth having must survive doubt. +% +Traveller: God has been mighty good to your fields, Mr. Farmer. +Farmer: You should have seen how he treated them when I wasn't around. +% +Explaining the unknown by means of the unobservable +is always a perilous business. +% +It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature +and affect to despise it are among its worst and least pleasant examples. +% +Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. +You may both be wrong. +% +"I think I'll believe in Gosh instead of God. If you don't + believe in Gosh too, you'll be darned to heck." +% + + B + R + DEATH + I + N + ! + +% +Jesus -- The other white meat! +% +I love Jesus, Yes I do. Baked or broiled or in a stew... +% +Bend over for the rod and staff of Jesus! +% +The Pope has just declared that Jesus is now +an infinitly long tube of white paste. +% +Obey Psalms 137:9! +% +Jesus is coming! Wear your rubbers! +% +The only mortals who ever entered Barad-dur and came back unharmed in body and +soul were a pair of Iluvatar's Witnesses. Only days after their visit Sauron +realized that the "Minas Tirith" he had bought from them was only a pamphlet. +% +Jesus was adopted. +% +Trinity -- a three for one sale on deities +% +Surgeon General's Warning: Quitting Religion Now +Greatly Increases the Chances of World Peace. +% +Jesus rose from the dead and the apostles +came unto him saying "How's Elvis?" +% +If "he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword" holds true, then +jesus the carpenter met his end properly. After all, he was nailed to a +piece of wood, wasn't he? +% +Losing your faith is a lot like losing your virginity +you don't realise how irritating it was 'til it's gone. +% +Waco, Pensacola, The World Trade Center, Hebron, The Spanish +Inquisition, "Eat my flesh, and drink my blood" . . . + + Don't the Religiously-Correct just wanna' kill ya'? +% +Archeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to +be a missing page from the Bible and is believed to read 'To my +darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous +and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental'. +% +They found Noah's ark, but there was a sign on it: +'Made in Hong Kong' " +% +Jesus is real! I saw him at a party last week, he was +playing quarters with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny +% +Religious reasons do not excuse violence: they accuse religion. +% +Evolution is both fact and theory. +Creationism is neither. +% + Power corrupts; +Absolute power corrupts absolutely; + God is all-powerful. + Draw your own conclusions +% +Atheism makes sense for America +% +Theists think all gods but theirs are false. +Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one. +% +I went to church to confess my sins to God +And then I realized there was no God and I had no sins. +% +Jesus Christ: Imaginary Playmate to Millions of Adults! +% +It seems odd that those who scoff at sun worshippers +are apt to worship a vacuum. +% +Organized religion is responsible for the brainwashing of millions of +young children too young to know the difference between reality and the +fantasies of millions. + Save Yourself. Drop Christianity. +% +FAITH - + An attitude fostered by individuals in high places in + order to ensure the subservience of those in their charge. +% +A zealot's stones will break my bones, but gods will never hurt me. +% +Nine out of ten priests who have tried Camels, prefer young boys. +% +Autumn wind: Where there are humans +gods, Buddha-- you'll find flies, +lies, lies, lies and Buddhas. + --Shiki --Issa +% +nullifidian n. & a. (Person) having no religious faith or belief, +f. med. L nullifidius fr L nullus none + fides faith; see IAN +% +freethinker n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of +reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. +% +On the sixth day God created man +On the seventh day, man returned the favor. +% +A society without religion is like a crazed psychopath without a loaded .45 +% +Fundamentalism means never having to say "I'm wrong." +% +Christianity: The understanding that "God" is the name we give to the +answer (which we do not know) to the question, "Why is there anything at +all?" - and that Christ is the self-expression of God; the view that - +against the appearances - we are loved in the universe. +% +"Faith is to the human what sand is to the ostrich" +% +"Try new Post Jesus (tm) breakfast cereal! Chock full of bland, +tasteless little bread wafers made from 100% Jesus for that +full-body of Christ taste. Goes great with a little red wine." +% +Wouldn't it be funny if Elvis came back instead of Jesus? +% +Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; +Give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish +% +May theists be shaved with Ockham's Razor! +% +Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer +% +Why does the Vatican have lightning rods? +% +Some have for fundies then evangelists passed +Turned preachers next and proved plain fools at last. +% + ___/|__ _ + \ \_/ / Have you forgotten about Jesus? + < >LOGIC _ < Isn't it about time you did? + /_____/ \_\ +% +If Jesus loves me, why doesn't he ever send me flowers? +% + It's your god. + They're your rules. + *You* go to hell. +% +I once believed in god. I got better. +% +Faith - the ability to believe the ridiculous for the sublime. +% +The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." +The Wise Man Says it to the World. +% +Christ died for my sins, descended into Hell, and rose again + On the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures... + And all I got was this lousy t-shirt. +% +If a member of McDonalds' staff was God: +"OK, one Universe. Uh, you want fries with that?" +% +Bumper sticker seen: + Geez if you believe in Honkus. +% + ********************************************************** + * WARNING: To prevent the risk of insanity, do not * + * open the bible's cover. No user understandable * + * material inside. Please refer counseling to * + * qualified mental health personnel. * + ********************************************************** +% +Garbage In -- Gospel Out +% +A clash of doctrine is not a disaster - it is an opportunity. +% +Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. +% +Vique's Law: + A man without a religion is like a fish without a bicycle. +% +Man created God in his own image. +% +God did not create the world in 7 days. +He screwed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter. +% +Jesus loves the Ku Klux Klanners, +Jesus loves the KKK, +Pointy hats and flowing robes, +Burning crosses, homophobes! +Jesus loves the Klanners of the world! +% +Moses: the self-proclaimed meekest of all men even though he allegedly +spoke face to face with God and gave us the so-called Ten Commandments +(though they aren't really ten in number); the man who wrote (or +edited) the account of his own death and burial; the man who -- +according to himself -- was God's spokesperson in the same way that +Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, -- and a parcel of others -- +claim to speak for God. +% +In Ottawa the xians put up an "abortion stills a beating heart" +poster outside the local abortion clinic. Someone wrote over it: +"A christian with a gun stills a beating heart." +% +"Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe + something your intellect would otherwise cause + you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith." +% +A slippery day in the Bible: +When Balam went through +Jerusalem on his ass. +% +Theology: The study of elaborate verbal disguises for non-ideas. +% +God: The Immutable Chameleon; whenever the need is felt by one of his + followers, He obligingly recreates himself to suit the occasion. +% +The mind of the fundamentalist is like the pupil of the eye: +the more light you pour on it, the more it will contract. +% +Q: Jesus was renowned for his ability to heal. What was the + one affliction that proved to malignant for his cure? +A: Christianity +% +Jesus loves you all, and can't wait to +control you like a small household pet +% +Religion is the work of the Devil +% +Never make a god of your religion +% +You Go Yahweh - and I'll go Mine! +% +God hated the world so much that he sent his only +son so that whoever does not believe in him will +perish and be denied eternal life. +% +Christianity is not a religion; it's an industry. +% +=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= +Goofy and Mickey are going to burn in eternal +Hellfire for sharing an insurance policy!. Details +this Sunday at you local Southern Baptist Church. +Witch burning and pot luck supper to follow the services. +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= +% +"Belief in heaven is very difficult without + a greedy desire for it: All scams need a hook." +% +"Humanity sees its reflection in the mirrors that surround it, + and thus gratified, calls this image perfect, good, merciful, + omniscient, omnipresent, holy, just, and above all, love. So + enchanted are these hairless apes with this, that they invent + a special word for it: 'God'." +% +I have to go take a christian. I need to find some apostle to wipe +my god with, first. I hope I don't get any jesus on my fingers. +% +All jesus could do was turn water into wine. +Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers - could JC do that? +% + _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ +|_____|_____|_____| Let Us Keep a _|_____|_____|_____| +|__|_____|_____|__ Wall of Separation _|_____|_____|__| +|_____|_____|_____|____ Between ____|_____|_____|_____| +|__|_____|_____|___ Church and State __|_____|_____|__| +|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____| +|__|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|__| +% +The scientist yearns to find and eventually know the truth; +The religious man wants the truth to fit his preconceived mold. +So, as a result... +The scientist alters his perception to conform to the facts; +The religious man tries to change the facts to conform to his beliefs. +% +INRI: Idiots Need Reassuring Ideologies +% +Religions are what dreams are made of. +% +All Gods were immortal. +% +For many, faith is a suitable substitute for +knowledge, as death is for a difficult life. +% +In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the +instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible +one. In that case we believe the former as part of the latter. +% +Christian humility is preached by the clergy, +but practiced only by the lower classes. +% +The Christian lives in a nightmare and thinks it is a pleasant dream. +% +Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God: +this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues. +% +Reason is, of all things in the world, the most hurtful to a reasoning +human being. God only allows it to remain with those he intends to +damn, and his goodness takes it away from those he intends to save or +render useful in the Church . . . If reason had any part in religion, +what then would become of faith? +% +To the philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy +are far less dangerous than their virtues. +% +The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next. +% +It's a happy bishop who hasn't got a saint in his diocese. +% +It is no accident that the symbol of a bishop is a crook, +and the sign of an archbishop is a double-cross. +% +Consider the ignorance of the average fundamentalist. Then realize that +by definition fully half of them must be even dumber than that. +% + +SUNDAY SERMON + +A technician, wrapped in a stiff, white smock, + takes an albino rat from the big crate + delivered just that morning, puts it in + the God Model Box, leaves and locks the room. +The box, with random corners and angles, + is monitored by a ceiling mounted + video camera. +A switch mounted in one corner is well + protected by spring wire traps, barriers + and rat repellent. +The switch delivers an electric shock + when touched by the rat. +The experiment lasts 24 hours + or so, depending on the whim and will + of the technician. +If during that time, the rat sits on the + switch for thirty or forty seconds, + the technician will set it free in the + field behind the fence. +Otherwise, he will restrain the rat in + a vice and slowly pull off its tail and + its legs, one by one, then skin it and leave + it to die + slowly. + +Little is learned in this experiment + either by the rat or the technician + who is not at all surprised that none of + rats ever perform the required task. +But the technician does get to skin a + lot of rats, and he likes to hear them squeal. +% +JESUS IS COMING! +Are you going to spit or swallow? +% +"We preach peace, forgiveness, tolerance and love. We practice vengeance, + persecution, hatred and domination. My personal beliefs are supported and + validated by my convictions. + Oh, and never forget .... my religion is truth, yours is a lie." + [Religion, paraphrased (unknown)] +% +JWs: "If we were to tell you that there is an army of angels waiting + in Heaven, and on the Day of Judgement they will be unleashed upon + the world to slay all the unbelievers, what would your response be?" +Response: "Pre-emptive nuclear strike." +% +The Religious Right aren't, and Scientific Creationism isn't. +% +There is no God but our God +The humble Christians say. +There is no God but our God. +To Him alone we pray. + +What of the others by the score, +Gods just as great and mighty. +Of Allah, Odin, Jove and Thor, +Venus and Aphrodite. + +If to the one alone we pray, +And He is just a faker (fakir?), +There surely will be Hell to pay +When we meet our maker. + +So, good Christians take my advice. +Don't be so egotistic. +And on occasion in your prayers +Address some other mystic. + +Remember there have been a score, +A hundred, thousands, maybe more. +To say there is but one God +Might make the others sore. + +Good Christians believe in one God. +Myself, I must confess, +Am not so very different. +I believe in just one less. +% +"If the Bible proves that God exists then + comic books prove the existence of Superman." + [Seen on the #Atheism IRC] +% +A Humanist or an Atheist can't tell you to +go to hell but a Christian can and will. +% +Out of convicted rapists, 57% admitted to reading +pornography. 95% admitted to reading the Bible. +% +You'll never find a dead Christian +in a foxhole who didn't pray. +% +The Holy Father is neither +% +If the baby goes to heaven +And the doctor goes to hell +If the woman gets forgiveness +What's the problem pray tell!? +% +Read the Buy-Bull +% +Although it is said that faith can move mountains, +experience has shown that dynamite works better. +% +> + L L +% +Religion is to rationality as bullshit is to horsepower. +% +The greater your ignorance, the more evidence +you have for the existence of God! +% + __________ + / _______ \ + / \ \ _ \ \ + | / \ \ | | | + | | _\ \|__ | | + | ||__\ \__|| | + | | |\ \ | | + | | | \ \ | | + | | | |\ \| | + | | |_| \ \ | + \ \_______\ / + \__________/ + +% +"Mysticism is a disease of the mind." +% +"As long as Baptists can stagger to the polls, there + will never be liquor by the drink in this town." +% +"If God had wanted us to make sense, + He would have existed." +% +Several thousand years ago, a small tribe of ignorant near-savages wrote +various collections of myths, wild tales, lies, and gibberish. Over the +centuries, these stories were embroidered, garbled, mutilated, and torn +into small pieces that were then repeatedly shuffled. Finally, this material +was badly translated into several languages successively. The resultant text, +creationists feel, is the best guide to this complex and technical subject. +% + The last time we mixed + religion and government +people were burned at the stake. + -- bumper sticker +% +Find God? Why, is God missing? +% +Freedom is the Distance Between Church and State +% +To Hell With the Baptists, I'm Going to Disney Land +% +Focus on Your Own Damn Family +% +Wise Men Still Seek Him...Apparently, He's lost. +% +Jesus Loves Me, Yes I Know / +For the Voices Tell Me So. +% +When The Religious Right Takes Over, We'll All Live In Iran +% +Welcome to Burger God: Have it YAHWEH! +% +Want to know what happens after death? +Go look at some dead things. +% +Public prayer...Don't Stand for it! +% +A mystic is someone who wants to understand +the universe, but is too lazy to study physics +% +I am a demo religious meme which has been replicated here. +You will be blessed if you copy me and pass me on to infect +the next mind. And damned if you don't. +% +Jesus - Myth or Legend? +% +Re: God... +1) The emperor has no clothes. +2) There is no emperor. +% +Christians believe that the most wonderful thing that can happen to them +is to go to Heaven, but few of them are in a hurry to make the trip. +% +Religion is a major weapon in the war against reality. +% +Help preserve your child's belief in Santa Claus. Tell him or her +that Santa will send them to hell if they don't believe in him. +% +There are none more ignorant and useless, +than they that seek answers on their knees, +with their eyes closed. +% +God inspires men to preach what sounds like bullshit. +Men who preach the bullshit admit it sounds like bullshit. +God punishes those who hear the bullshit and characterize it as +bullshit. If God has a problem with that, it's His own damn fault. +% +"If, as they say, God spanked this town + For being much too frisky, + Why did He burn His churches down + And save Hotaling's Whiskey?" + [Poem on 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, in which + the city's largest whiskey distillery was left unscathed] +% +"If god doesn't like the way I live, + Let him tell me, not you." + [As seen on a button] +% +Person 1: Solomon had many horses, he had many wives; he did + exactly the opposite of what the bible says... +Person 2: He was the wisest of men..." + [transcript of actual talk show] +% +God wanted to have a holiday, so He asked St. Peter for suggestions on +where to go. + "Why not go to Jupiter?" asked St. Peter. + "No, too much gravity, too much stomping around," said God. + "Well, how about Mercury?" + "No, it's too hot there." + "Okay," said St. Peter, "What about Earth?" + "No," said God, "They're such horrible gossips. When I was +there 2000 years ago, I had an affair with a Jewish woman, and they're +still talking about it." +% +Christianity: Safer than a lobotomy, but just as effective. +% +Once purged of the insanity, plagiarisms, illegalities, +contradictions, and the perverse, the Bible could be +printed on match book covers while increasing it's usefulness. +% +A metaphysician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat +that isn't there, and a theologian is one who finds the cat. +% +The Christians have fathers who aren't fathers, mothers who aren't mothers, +brothers who aren't brothers, and sisters who aren't sisters, they swear +off sex, and then try to explain "family values" to the rest of us. +% +Atheism and truth, 2 words 1 meaning. +% +Cogito, ergo non credo. +% +Exploring the universe through meditation is like +studying human relationships through masturbation. +% +A god's primary function is to confirm for us deeply held beliefs that +we can't let go of, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. When +you are totally and absolutely convinced of something fundamentally +unreasonable, it helps to believe you have divine guidance. +% +At one point in time, many of us actually had Jesus as +our personal lord and saviour. Unfortunately, we later +had to dismiss him for incompetence, gross negligence, +misconduct and consistent failure to show up for work. +% +The Fundamentalist +== Knows no greater joy than the sound of his own voice. +== Knows no greater terror than the god he creates in his own image. +== Knows no greater evil than an unfettered mind. +== Knows no greater blasphemy than being told "NO." +% +religion is a socio-political institution for the control +of people's thoughts, lives, and actions; based on +ancient myths and superstitions perpetrated through +generations of subtle yet pervasive brainwashing." +% +"Probably get his dumb ass nailed to a cross..." + [Response to WWJD (What Would + Jesus Do) paraphernalia] +% +"When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, + and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove + as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense." + [Edward Abbey (from Voice Crying in the Wilderness)] +% +"The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages-- + as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already." + [Edward Abbey] +% +"Fantastic doctrines (like Christianity or Islam or Marxism) require + unanimity of belief. One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions. + Thus the fear and hate; thus the torture chamber, the iron stake, the + gallows, the labor camp, the psychiatric ward." + [Edward Abbey] +% +"Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination." + [Edward Abbey] +% +"We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government + can constitutionally force a person 'to profess a belief or disbelief in any + religion.' Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements + which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those + religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those + religions founded on different beliefs." + [School District of Abington TP. PA. v. Schempp/Murray v. Curlett, 1963] +% +"The world holds two classes of men -- intelligent men + without religion, and religious men without intelligence." + [Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri (973-1057; Syrian poet)] +% +"Who made who?" + [AC/DC] +% +"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. + That unalterable rule applies both to God and man." + [John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (Lord Acton) in + a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5,1887] +% +"Thought is one of the manifestations of human energy, and among + the earlier and simpler phases of thought, two stand conspicuous + -- Fear and Greed. Fear, which, by stimulating the imagination, + creates a belief in an invisible world, and ultimately develops a + priesthood; and Greed, which dissipates energy in war and trade." + [Brooks Adams (1848-1927), The Law of Civilization and Decay] +% +"The power of the priesthood lies in the submission to a creed. + In their onslaughts on rebellion they have exhausted human torments; + nor, in their lust for earthly dominion, have they felt remorse, + but rather joy, when slaying Christ's enemies and their own." + [Brooks Adams, The Emancipation of Massachusetts] +% +"If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!" + [Clark Adams] +% +"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having + to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" + [Douglas Adams] +% +"I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies + faith, and without faith, I am nothing." +"Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't + it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't. Q.E.D." +"Oh, I hadn't thought of that." says God, who promptly vanishes + in a puff of logic. + [Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"] +% +"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do + irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. + This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion." + [Scott Adams, "The Dilbert Principle"] +% +"Eat a big plate of jambalya, head off to the can, and meditate + on this, "defecating is more productive than praying." + [Todd Adamson] +% +"Walking on water is easy. It is what we do for a + living. You just have to know where the rocks are. + Step from rock to rock, and those on the shore will + think you are performing a miracle." + [advice from professional prophets] +% +"A spokesman for the Lyon Group, producers of _Barney and + Friends_, denied that Barney is an instrument of Satan." + [the Advocate, spring 1994] +% +"The truth which makes men free is for the most + part the truth which men prefer not to hear." + [Herbert Agar, "A Time for Greatness" 1942] +% +"When you see a cross sticking in the ground, that usually means that + someone is buried there, or someone got killed there. Perhaps, by + wearing that cross around their neck, what they're saying is that + they're dead from the neck up? That would explain a *lot* of things." + [Wayne Aiken, on AACHAT] +% +"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee." + [Wayne Aiken] +% +"The so-called religious right of the Republican Party- the Christian + right, they call themselves, although in my view they are neither + Christian nor right- is after a totalitarian state." + [Edward Albee, interview in Progressive August 1996 issue] +% +"Had I been present at the creation of the world, + I would have proposed some improvements." + [Alfonso X (Alfonso the Wise; + 1226-1284; King of Castile)] +% +"Sensible men no longer believe in miracles; they + were invented by priests to humbug the peasants." + [King Alfonso] +% +"Goodnight, thank you, and may your god go with you" + [Dave Allen, Irish Comedian, + at the end of all of his shows] +% +"Most of us spend the first 6 days of each week sowing wild oats, + then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure." + [Fred Allen] +% +"Religions change; beer and wine remain" + [Harvey Allen] +% +"...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured + we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful + inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion as + it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive. + As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be + advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do us the + same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their + protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear + that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in + God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect + for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the + most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians + are frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure + of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. + Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every + recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, + resort to formal lying to obscure such reality." + [Steve Allen] +% +"As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject + of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction + in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless + conversions -- to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and + has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with. The + problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to + a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy + is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and + irrational -- the powers of reason are surprisingly ineffective in + changing the believer's mind." + [Steve Allen] +% +"One social evil for which the New Testament is + clearly in part responsible is anti-Semitism." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"There is not the slightest question but that the God of the Old + Testament is a jealous, vengeful God, inflicting not only on the + sinful pagans but even on his Chosen People fire, lighting, + hideous plagues and diseases, brimstone, and other curses." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"There are hundreds of millions who believe the Messiah has come. + If he did, then it is unfortunately the case that his heroic + sacrifice and death have had no effect whatsoever on the very + problem his coming might have been expected to address, for + history demonstrates, beyond question, that we Christians have + been just as dangerous, singly and en masse, as non-Christians." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"The Bible has been interpreted to justify such evil practices as, for + example, slavery, the slaughter of prisoners of war, the sadistic murders + of women believed to be witches, capital punishment for hundreds of + offenses, polygamy, and cruelty to animals. It has been used to encourage + belief in the grossest superstition and to discourage the free teaching + of scientific truths. We must never forget that both good and evil flow + from the Bible. It is therefore not above criticism." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"Ideas have consequences, and totally erroneous + ideas are likely to have destructive consequences." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen, + on the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"God is by definition the holder of all possible knowledge, it + would be impossible for him to have faith in anything. Faith, + then, is built upon ignorance and hope." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen, + on the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"No actual tyrant known to history has ever been guilty of + one-hundredth of the crimes, massacres, and other atrocities + attributed to the Deity in the Bible." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen, + on the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"If...we assume that there is no God, it follows that morality is even + more important than if there is a Deity. If God exists, his unlimited + power can certainly redress imbalances in the scale of human justice. + But if there is no God, then it is up to man to be as moral as he can." + [Steve Allen] +% +"It is not hardness of heart or evil passions that drive certain + individuals to atheism, but rather a scrupulous intellectual honesty." + [Steve Allen, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. + If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. + The same happens in the absence of prayers." + [Steve Allen, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"To those who wish to punish others--or at least to see them punished, if + the avengers are too cowardly to take matters in to their own hands-- the + belief in a fiery, hideous hell appears to be a great source of comfort." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"An all-powerful being would have the power to punish a sinner, by any means + he might choose to employ. However, the Scriptures not only attribute to + God a horrible vengefulness but also suggest that God is incredibly stupid. + It would be stupid if an individual, intent on punishing a sinner or group + of them, expended his destructive energy not only on those who it might be + said deserved such punishment but also on enormous numbers of innocent people + who simply had the bad luck to be in the physical proximity of evildoers. + To argue that God works in this way is to put him precisely on the same moral + plane as those modern terrorists who, to kill a particular individual or + small group, will place a bomb on an airplane in the full knowledge that in + addition to the five or six intended victims all the other occupants, in whom + the terrorists have no particular interest, will be killed." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen on + the Bible Religion, & Morality"] +% +"Believing that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God, certain human + beings are prepared to suspend not only reason but even common sense about + any and all passages found within, no matter how vile or bloodthirsty." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen on + the Bible Religion, & Morality"] +% +"Another philosopher suggests that saying prayers is equivalent + to believing that the universe is governed by a Being who changes + his mind if you ask him to." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen On the + Bible, Religion and Morality," 1990] +% +"In every single instance where churchmen placed themselves squarely + athwart the path of science, as regards a particular knotty question, + the religious forces were eventually defeated for the very sound + reason that they were wrong." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen On the + Bible, Religion and Morality," 1990] +% +"In less than an hour, the Parliament of Toulouse, France publicly burned + 400 unfortunate women, having convicted them of crimes that existed only in + the deluded minds of their sentences. Five hundred women were burned at the + stake in the city of Geneva in one month, and approximately a thousand were + murdered in the Italian province of Como. A French judge, over the course of + 16 years, could boast that he had sentenced some 800 women to the stake. + This entire vast atrocity was said to be "justified" by the Bible. In + reality, it is the Bible that is blackened by such crimes." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen On the + Bible, Religion and Morality," 1990] +% +"Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends." + [Woody Allen] +% +"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] +% +"How can I believe in God when just last week I got my + tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?" + [Woody Allen] +% +"I do not believe in an afterlife, although + I am bringing a change of underwear." + [Woody Allen] +% +"We face the nineties with a Court that relegates First Amendment + rights to the level of any law, a Justice Department quite willing + to establish first- and second-class citizenship determined by + religious belief....a Christian arrogance and exclusivism reminiscent + of earlier centures of religious persecution." + [Robert S. Alley, "Christian Exclusivism and + Second-Class Citizenship", in Free Inquiry] +% +"If we encounter in a personality fear of divine punishment as the sole + sanction for right doing, we can be sure we are dealing with a childish + conscience, with a case of arrested development." + [Gordon W. Allport, "Becoming"] +% +"Imagine encouraging [a child] to participate in such 'twisted' rituals + and worshiping of tortuous crucifixes and such like this from birth. + No wonder we have so many hateful and sadistic people in our society." + [Brent Allsop 10-27-95 (news:alt.atheism)] +% +"Immaculate deceptions going on every day, still you + follow the clowns who give the circus away" + [The Almighty] +% +"Is God something that exists 'out there," beyond, and independent of us? + Or is God merely the product of an inherited human perception, the + manifestation of an evolutionary adaptation, a coping mechanism that + emerged in our species in order to enable us to survive our unique and + otherwise debilitating awareness of death?" + [Matthew Alper, "The God Part of the Brain", Rogue + Press, Brooklyn NY, 1999, on the back cover] +% +"Adam was deceived by Eve, not Eve by Adam.....it is right + that he whom that woman induced to sin should assume the + role of guide lest he fall again through feminine instability." + [St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, letter 63, 396] +% +"More than half the world is hungry and the environment of the world is + deteriorating rapidly because of over-population. Any action which impedes + efforts to halt the world population perpetuates the misery in which millions + now live and promotes death by starvation of millions this year and many more + millions in the next few decades. + It has been stated by Roman Catholics that the Pope is not evil, but + simply unenlightened, and we must agree. But, whatever the motives, the evil + consequences of his encyclical are manifest... + (conclusion) The world must quickly come to realize that Pope Paul VI has + sanctioned the deaths of countless numbers of human beings with his misguided + and immoral encyclical. The fact that this incredible document was put forth + in the name of a religious figure whose teachings embodies the highest respect + for the value of human dignity and life should serve to make the situation + even more repugnant to mankind." + [American Association for the Advancement of Science, + Signed by about 2000 Scientists, Dallas, 1968, + on Pope Paul VI's "Humanae Vitae" encyclical] +% +"Prayer won't cure AIDS. Research will." + [Public service advertisement of the American + Foundation for AIDS Research, dropped because + of complaints by religionists, from + Freethought Today, March 1997] +% +"In order to see Christianity, one + must forget almost all Christians." + [Henri F. Amiel] +% +"A belief is not true because it is useful." + [Henri Frederic Amiel] +% +"I acted alone on God's orders." + [Yigal Amir, assassin of + Yitzak Rabin, Israeli PM] +% +"Father says bow your head, + Like the Good Book says. + I think the Good Book is + missing some pages..." + [Tori Amos] +% +"This whole Christian theology thing is that god came down to experience + life through his son. Well, how's he experiencing life if he doesn't get + laid? Give me a break. And why would he not get laid, as he created the + apparatus in the first place?" + [Tori Amos, interview in _Vox_, May, 1994, by Steve Maline] +% +"I got enough guilt to start my own religion" + [Tori Amos] +% +"I always thought I'd make a good girlfriend for Jesus" + [Tori Amos] +% +"I used to get really pissed off that my life was so dictated by when this + Jesus guy was born and when he was dying every year. I felt really resentful + that I couldn't get on with my own life because I was so busy with his." + [Tori Amos] +% +"God sometimes you just don't come through + God sometimes you just don't come through + Do you need a woman to look after you? + God sometimes you just don't come through + + You make pretty daisies pretty daisies love + I gotta find what you're doing about things here + A few witches burning + Get a little toasty here + Gotta find why you always go when the wind blows + Tell me you're crazy maybe then I'll understand + You got your 9 iron in the back seat just in case + Heard you've gone south + Well babe you love your new 4 wheel + I gotta find why you always go when the wind blows + + Will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall + Will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky" + + [Tori Amos, "God" from the "Under the Pink" album] +% +"that kind of god is always man-made + they made him up then wrote a book + to keep you on your knees" + [Skunk Anansie, "Selling Jesus"] +% +"Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is + not a god but a great rock and the sun a hot rock." + [Anaxagorus, ca. 475 BC] +% +"No, no, no -- you don't argue with concepts. You have to claim + Dogma, and therefore leave no room for rational thought." + [Kevin J. Anderson, _Flashback_] +% +"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. + Religion is answers that may never be questioned." + [Anemones] +% +"People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction + considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able + to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest + existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human being become more + affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material + scale, God descends the scale of respectability at a commensurate speed." + [Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", p. 101] +% +"Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is." + [Jean Anouilh (1910-87) French dramatist, playwright] +% +"Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent and + the serpent didn't have a leg to stand on." + [Anonymous] +% +"There are ten church members by inheritance for every one by conviction." + [Anonymous] +% +"A good rule for interpretation is: 'If the literal sense makes good + sense, seek no other sense lest you come up with nonsense'" + [Anonymous] +% +"Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us + where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going?" + [Anonymous] +% +"Unfalsifiable propositions are not amenable to any method at all. + If they were, then religions would be able to find a way to resolve + internal conflicts over differing versions of their unfalsifiables + without resorting to schism, excommunication, torture, or jihad. + In science, however, there are no permanent schisms, because there + is a recognized final court of appeal, namely the universe itself." + [Anonymous] +% +"I believe that there is no God, but that matter is God and God is + matter; and that it is no matter whether there is any God or no." + [Anon., "The Unbeliever's Creed," 1754] +% +"A cardinal doctrine in the Christian faith is total depravity." + [Letter to the editor, Antelope Valley + Press, Lancaster CA, June 20, 1998] +% +"I distrust those people who know so well what + God wants them to do because I notice it always + coincides with their own desires." + [Susan B. Anthony] +% +"To no form of religion is woman + indebted for one impulse of freedom..." + [Susan B. Anthony] +% +"I was born a heretic. I always distrust people who know + so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows." + [Susan B. Anthony] +% +"Stating the 'The Constitution guarantess that government may not coerce + anyone to support or participate in religious exercises,' the court held + the First Amendment is violated by including clerical members who offer + prayer as part of an official school graduation ceremony, even though + attendance was supposedly voluntary. The court concluding that attendance + was in a real sense obligatory with the students indiced to conform." + [Lee v. Weisman (1992, U S) 120 L Ed 2d 467, 112 S Ct 2649, from + the 1996 pocket part for the book "Modern Constitutional Law, + Vol. I: The Individual And The Government", by Chester J. Antieau] +% +"...our constitutional tradition, from the Declaration of Independence and + the first inaugural address of Washington... down to the present day, has, + with a few aberrations, see Church of Holy Trinity v. United States, + 143 U.S. 457, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226 (1892), ruled out of order + government-sponsored endorsement of religion--even when no legal coercion + is present, and indeed even when no ersatz, "peer-pressure" psycho-coercion + is present--where the endorsement is sectarian, in the sense of specifying + details upon which men and women who believe in a benevolent, omnipotent + Creator and Ruler of the world are known to differ (for example, the + divinity of Christ)." + [Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, + _Lee v. Weisman_, 505 U.S. 577, 641 (1992)] +% +"We are asked to recognize the existence of a practice of nonsectarian prayer, + prayer within the embrace of what is known as the Judeo-Christian tradition, + prayer which is more acceptable than one which, for example, makes explicit + references to the God of Israel, or to Jesus Christ, or to a patron saint. + There may be some support, as an empirical observation, to the statement of + the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, picked up by Judge Campbell's + dissent in the Court of Appeals in this case, that there has emerged in this + country a civic religion, one which is tolerated when sectarian exercises are + not. Stein, 822 F.2d at 1409; 908 F.2d 1090, 1098-1099 (CA1 1990) + (Campbell, J., dissenting) (case below); see also Note, Civil Religion and + the Establishment Clause, 95 Yale L.J. 1237 (1986). If common ground can be + defined which permits once conflicting faiths to express the shared conviction + that there is an ethic and a morality which transcend human invention, the + sense of community and purpose sought by all decent societies might be + advanced. But though the First Amendment does not allow the government to + stifle prayers which aspire to these ends, neither does it permit the + government to undertake that task for itself." + [Supreme Court, Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)] +% +"The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority + is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of + the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven + days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from + the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the + Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one + 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that ... + The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat + lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., + Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the + Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E) temperature of the earth (-300K), + gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed... + (However) Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall + have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake + of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the + boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than + Hell at 445C." + [From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972] +% +"For it is a much more serious matter to corrupt faith, through which comes the + soul's life, than to forge money, through which temporal life is supported. + Hence if forgers of money or other malefactors are straightway justly put to + death by secular princes, with much more justice can heretics, immediately + upon conviction, be not only excommunicated but also put to death." + [Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Summa Theologica] +% +"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, Summa Theologica,Q92, art. 1, Reply Obj. 1] +% +"I suggest that the anthropomorphic god-idea is not a harmless infirmity + of human thought, but a very noxious fallacy, which is largely responsible + for the calamities the world is at present enduring" + [William Archer (1856-1924), _Theology and War_] +% +"To me it seems that mankind can never achieve its highest potentialities + till it has thrown off the incubus of historic (and prehistoric) religion..." + [William Archer (1856-1924), "Is the Battle,Won?"] +% +"'Theocracy' has always been the synonym for a bleak and + narrow, if not a fierce and blood-stained tyranny." + [William Archer (1667-1735)] +% +"If you were taught that elves caused rain, every + time it rained, you'd see the proof of elves." + [Ariex] +% +"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. + Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom + they consider godfearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less + easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side." + [Aristotle (384-322 BCE), "Politics"] +% +"Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard + to their form but with regard to their mode of life." + [Aristotle, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"(R)eligious teaching has had effects the precise opposite + of those commonly held to be its prerogative - the advocacy + of truth and high conduct." + [Dr. Henry Edward Armstrong, "The Outlook for Reason"] +% +"In a pluralistic society, no group, no matter how numerous or powerful, + has a right to prescribe a set of beliefs or a code of ethics for all." + [Bishop James Armstrong, United Methodist Church, Address, + Phoenix, Arizona February 4, 1975, from Menendez and Doerr, + The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom] +% +"Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an + insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover + that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same + care and imagination as a zebra. Apparently it does not occur to nature + whether or not a creature is within our range of vision, and the suspicion + arises that even the zebra was not designed for our benefit." + [Rudolf Arnheim] +% +"All the biblical miracles will at last + disappear with the progress of science." + [Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)] +% + "Miracles do not happen." + [Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, + last words of preface to 1883 edition] +% +"It is almost impossible to exaggerate the proneness of the human mind + to take miracles as evidence, and to seek for miracles as evidence." + [Matthew Arnold, "Literature and Dogma"] +% +"We are only fabulous + beasts, after all." + [John Ashbery] +% +"Whatever the Life-Goddess Eve was originally like, she appears in + Genesis as a Hebrew Pandora, the villainess in a story about the origin + of human misfortune....She has dwindled to being merely the first woman, + a troublemaker, created from a rib of the senior and dominant first man." + [Geoffrey Ashe, "The Virgin," 1976] +% +"I've come to the conclusion that there can be little or no dialogue + between 'proclaimers of truth' (religious and secular ideologues) + and 'discoverers of truth' (empiricists). The former tend to debate, + the latter tend to discuss." + [Edward H. Ashment] +% +"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] +% +"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always + been premature, and it remains premature today." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, + totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries + since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most + uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would + make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their + feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries + and homes. I personally resent it bitterly and warn the people of Canada..." + [Isaac Asimov, Canadian Atheists Newsletter, 1994] +% +"To rebel against a powerful political, economic, religious, or social + establishment is very dangerous and very few people do it, except, perhaps, + as part of a mob. To rebel against the "scientific" establishment, however, + is the easiest thing in the world, and anyone can do it and feel enormously + brave, without risking as much as a hangnail. Thus, the vast majority, who + believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do + than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close + a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic about + the bilge when a group of astronomers denounces it." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"...if I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose +to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the +pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous +atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose +every deed is foul, foul, foul." + [Isaac Asimov, _I. Asimov: A Memoir_] +% +"As it happens, Josephus, who mentions John the Baptist, does not mention + Jesus. There is, to be sure, a paragraph in his history of the Jews which + is devoted to Jesus, but it interrupts the flow of the discourse and seems + suspiciously like an afterthought. Scholars generally believe this to + have been an insertion by some early Christian editor who, scandalized + that Joesphus should talk of the period without mentioning the Messiah, + felt the insertion to be a pious act." + [Isaac Asimov, _Asimov's Guide To The Bible_ ISBN 0-517-34582-X] +% +"Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying + and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the + popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for + removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism." + [Isaac Asimov, "On Religiosity", Free Inquiry] +% +"We owe it to ourselves as respectable human beings, as thinking human + beings, to do what we can to make humanity more rational...Humanists + recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, + using reason as their guide, that they are best capable of developing + values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"It is rather remarkable that such a deed would be overlooked when + many more far less wicked deeds of Herod were carefully described." + [Isaac Asimov, "Guide to the Bible", on Herod's allegedly + killing all young male children to prevent the messiah] +% +"No other country has as diverse religious groups as the U.S., which + has at least 52 major denominations with memberships exceeding 100,000. + The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches lists 223 sects, cults, + and denominations, not counting groups such as the First Church of + Christ, Scientist, which provide no membership statistics." + [Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts] +% +"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is + something you dreamt up after being drunk all night." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"I certainly don't believe in the mythologies of our society, in heaven and + hell, in God and angels, in Satan and demons. I've thought of myself as an + 'atheist,' but that simply described what I didn't believe in, not what I + did. Gradually, though, I became aware there was a movement called 'humanism,' + which used that name because, to put it most simply, humanists believe that + human beings produced the progressive advance of human society and also the + ills that plague it. They believe that if the ills are to be alleviated, it + is humanity that will have to do the job. They disbelieve in the influence + of the supernatural on either the good or the bad of society." + [Isaac Asimov, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"The fundamentalists deny that evolution has taken place; they deny that + the earth and the universe as a whole are more than a few thousand years + old, and so on. There is ample scientific evidence that the fundamentalists + are wrong in these matters, and that their notions of cosmogony have about + as much basis in fact as the Tooth Fairy has." + [Isaac Asimov, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"I am not responsible for what other people think. I am responsible only + for what I myself think, and I know what that is. No idea I've ever come + up with has ever struck me as a divine revelation. Nothing I have ever + observed leads me to think there is a God watching over me." + [Isaac Asimov, "Religiosity", from Isaac + Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine Jan. 1992] +% +"The bible must be seen in a cultural context. It didn't just + happen. These stories are retreads. But, tell a Christian that + -- No, No! What makes it doubly sad is that they hardly know + the book, much less its origins." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole + life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the + tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"Naturally, since [the Sumerians] didn't know what caused the flood + anymore than we do, they blamed the gods. (That's the advantage of + religion. You're never short an explanation for anything.)" + [Isaac Asimov, in essay "The Last Man on Earth", + 1982, reprinted in his essay collection "The + Tyrannosaurus Prescription"] +% +"...anger is the common substitute for logic among those who + have no evidence for what they desperately want to believe." + [Isaac Asimov, in essay "Hobgoblin", 1980, reprinted in + his essay collection "The Tyrannosaurus Prescription"] +% +"Every religion seems like a fantasy to outsiders, + but as holy truth to those of the faith." + [Isaac Asimov, in essay "Is Fantasy Forever", + 1982, reprinted in his essay collection + "The Tyrannosaurus Prescription"] +% +"Properly read, the Bible is the most + potent force for atheism ever conceived." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. + You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. + Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe." + [Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverberg _Nightfall_] +% +"It seems to me that it's insulting to human beings to imply that + only a system of rewards and punishments can keep you a decent + human being...I have a conscience. It doesn't depend on religion." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"It's rather a shame. Now that the creationists are deprived of their + chance of burning people at the stake, their best argument is gone." + [Isaac Asimov, "Life and Time," 1979] +% +"It is precisely because it is fashionable for Americans to know no science, + even though they may be well educated otherwise, that they so easily fall + prey to nonsense. They thus become part of the armies of the night, the + purveyors of nitwittery, the retailers of intellectual junk food, the + feeders on mental cardboard, for their ignorance keeps them from + distinguishing nectar from sewage." + [Isaac Asimov, "The Armies of the Night"] +% +"Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight + for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued + defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the + rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual + we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand + who hug superstition to their breasts." + [Isaac Asimov, when asked why he fights religion with no hope for victory] +% +"In medieval times, church bells were often consecrated to ward off + evil spirits. Because thunderstorms were attributed to the work + of demons, the bells would be rung in an attempt to stop the storms. + Lots of bellringers were killed by lightning." + ["Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts" © 1979] +% +"We will inevitably recede into the backwater of civilization, and + those nations that retain opened scientific thought will take over the + leadership of the world and the cutting edge of human advancement. I + don't suppose that the creationists really plan the decline of the + United States, but their loudly expressed patriotism is as + simpleminded as their "science." If they succeed, they will, in their + folly, achieve the opposite of what they say they wish." + [Isaac Asimov, 'The "Threat" of Creationism', + essay in "Science and Creationism," 1984 + http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/azimov_creationism.html] +% +"My aim is to argue that the universe can come into existence without + intervention, and that there is no need to invoke the idea of a + Supreme Being in one of its numerous manifestations." + [Peter William Atkins, preface to _The Creation_] +% +"Someone with a fresh mind, one not conditioned by upbringing and + environment, would doubtless look at science and the powerful + reductionism that it inspires as overwhelmingly the better mode of + understanding the world, and would doubtless scorn religion as + sentimental wishful thinking. Would not that same uncluttered mind also + see the attempts to reconcile science and religion by disparaging the + reduction of the complex to the simple as attempts guided by + muddle-headed sentiment and intellectually dishonest emotion?" + [P. W. Atkins, "The Limitless Power of Science" essay in "Nature's + Imagination", John Cornwell, ed.; 1995 Oxford University Press, p.123] +% +"Religion closes off the central questions of existence by attempting to + dissuade us from further enquiry by asserting that we cannot ever hope to + comprehend. We are, religion asserts, simply too puny. Through fear of + being shown to be vacuous, religion denies the awesome power of human + comprehension. It seeks to thwart, by encouraging awe in things unseen, + the disclosure of the emptiness of faith. Religion, in contrast to + science, deploys the repugnant view that the world is too big for our + understanding. Science, in contrast to religion, opens up the great + questions of being to rational discussion, to discussion with the + prospect of resolution and elucidation. Science, above all, respects the + power of the human intellect. Science is the apotheosis of the intellect + and the consummation of the Rennaissance. Science respects more deeply + the potential of humanity than religion ever can." + [P. W. Atkins, "The Limitless Power of Science" essay in "Nature's + Imagination", John Cornwell, ed.; 1995 Oxford University Press, p.125] +% +"It's a vacuous answer . . . To say that 'God made the world' is + simply a more or less sophisticated way of saying that we don't + understand how the universe originated. A god, in so far as it + is anything, is an admission of ignorance." + [Peter Atkins, British Association + for the Advancement of Science] +% +"I enjoy a little christian-bashing, now and then." + [Atlanta Freethought Society member survey] +% +"People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are + not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves + and taking responsibility for what they know." + [Brook Atkinson, "Once Around the Sun"] +% +"Atheists!? I bet you're feeling a right bunch of charlies..... + And Christians!? Over here please. Yes, you see, I'm afraid + that the jews were right after all." + [Rowan Atkinson as The Devil (or 'Toby') + welcoming new arrivals to Hell] +% +"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make + empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made + a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the + bonds of Hell." + [Saint Augustine] +% +"Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and + the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and + even their sizes and distances,... and this knowledge he holds with + certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful + for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, + claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all + that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as + ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn." + [St. Augustine, "De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim" + (The Literal Meaning of Genesis)] +% +"I feel that nothing so casts down the manly mind from + it's height as the fondling of women and those bodily + contacts which belong to the married state." + [St. Augustine, De Trinitate 7.7] +% +"All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons; + chiefly do they torment freshly-baptized Christians, + yea, even the guiltless new-born infants." + [Saint Augustine (354-430)] +% +"It is indeed better (as no one ever could deny) that men should be led to + worship God by teaching, than that they should be driven to it by fear of + punishment or pain; but it does not follow that because the former course + produces the better men, therefore those who do not yield to it should be + neglected. For many have found advantage (as we have proved, and are daily + proving by actual experiment), in being first compelled by fear or pain, so + that they might afterwards be influenced by teaching, or might follow + out in act what they had already learned in word." + [St. Augustine, Treatise on the + Correction of the Donatists (417), p.214] +% +"Nothing is so much to be shunned as sex relations." + [St. Augustine (354-430), "Soliloquies"] +% +"Women should not be enlightened or educated in any way. + They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause + of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men." + [St. Augustine] +% +"This then is not God, if thou has comprehended it; + but if this be God, thou hast not comprehended it." + [St. Augustine, "Sermo LII"] +% +"It is impossible that there should be inhabitants on the + opposite side of the Earth, since no such race is recorded + by Scripture among the descendants of Adam." + [St. Augustine, from "The Dark Side of Christian + History" by Linda Ellerbe, 1995, Morningstar Books] +% +"Any woman who does not give birth to as many + children as she is capable is guilty of murder." + [St. Augustine] +% +"If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in + thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, + which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in + self-delusion and ignorance which does harm." + [Marcus Aurelius] +% +"God loves all his children, by gum. + That don't mean he won't incinerate some. + Can't you feel those hot flames licking you..." + [Austin Lounge Lizards, "Jesus Loves Me"] +% +"A prevalent fallacy is the assumption that a proof of an after-life would + also be a proof of the existence of a deity. This is far from being the case. + If - as I hold -there is no good reason to believe that a god either created + or presides over this world, there is equally no good reason to believe that + a god created or presides over the next world, on the unlikely supposition + that such a thing exists." + [Sir A. J. Ayer, in the Sunday Telegraph, Aug. 28, 1988, pg. 5] +% +"The fact that people have religious experiences is interesting from + the psychological point of view, but it does not in any way imply that + there is such a thing as religious knowledge...Unless he can formulate + his "knowldege" in propositions that are empirically verifiable, we + may be sure that he is deceiving himself." + [A. J. Ayer, "Language, Truth and Logic"] +% +"Religious Cult: The church down the street from yours." + [_B.C._ cartoon, 30 April 1994] +% +"The earth is flat, and anyone who disputes this claim + is an atheist who deserves to be punished." + [Muslim religious edict, 1993 + Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz + Supreme religious authority, Saudi Arabia] +% +"For they heard that command of our Creator, if they truly listened to + His instructions to be responsible stewards, then their entire framework + of human rationalizations for tearing apart Act comes to naught" + [U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, using + religious arguments to defend the 1973 Endangered Species + Act from conservatives who wish to limit or abolish it] +% +"The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and + not when they miss and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other." + [Sir Francis Bacon] +% +"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to + laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral + virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all + these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men...the + master of superstition is the people; and arguments are fitted to + practice, in a reverse order." + [Sir Francis Bacon "Of Superstition"] +% +"A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint." + [Francis Bacon] +% +"The trinitarian believes a virgin to be + the mother of a son who is her maker." + [Sir Francis Bacon, quoted in "2000 Years of + Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to + Doubt", by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"People prefer to believe what they prefer to be true." + [Francis Bacon] +% +"Hey Brother Christian with your high and mighty errand + Your actions speak so loud I can't hear a word you're saying(...) + Hey Moral Soldier you've got righteous proclamations + And precious tomes to fuel your pulpy conflagrations" + [Bad Religion, "I want to conquer the world"] +% +"I don't know what stopped Jesus Christ + from turning every hungry stone into bread, + And I don't remember hearing how Moses reacted + when the innocent first born sons lay dead, + Well I guess God was a bit more demonstrative + back when he flamboyantly parted the sea, + Now everybody's praying, Don't prey on me." + [Bad Religion, "Don't Pray on Me", + on the Recipe for Hate album] +% +"And I want to conquer the world, + Give all the idiots a brand new religion..." + [Bad Religion] +% +"Life ever-after is what they're in business for + See them brandish the key to their kingdom's door + It's persuasive upon a part of you and me + But not overwhelming as they wish it to be + If no one believed in faery tales + There's nothing they could do but fail" + [Bad Religion, "Operation Rescue"] +% +"No one really knows why we die + No one gets a break, so we try + Ignoring mortality, we worship mediocrity + And wait to see what happens up on high" + [Bad Religion, "In so Many Ways"] +% +"Speak of Truth with a mighty voice + But politics are your real choice + Hire men to change the Law + Protect and serve with one small flaw + The Voice of God is government!" + [Bad Religion] +% +"So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will + always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them + it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong." + [Walter Bagehot, Literary Studies] +% +"When someone comes and proselytizes for another god or another final authority + (and by the way, that god may be man)--when someone tries to undermine the + commitment to Jehovah which is fundamental to the civil order of a godly + state--then that person needs to be restrained by the magistrate. However, + this does not mean that individuals should be punished for holding heretical + views, the views that Baptists think are heretical or Lutherans think are + heretical and so forth. It simply means that those who will not acknowledge + Jehovah as the ultimate authority behind the civil law code which the + magistrate is enforcing would be punished and repressed. You would, therefore, + be open, I believe, to hold Muslim views or Hindu views in the privacy of your + own home, provided it was not a Christian home that you've now come into to + subvert and draw away from Jehovah. You would be able to hold these views as a + private conviction. But you would not be allowed to proselytize and undermine + the order of the state. Before people who are non-theonomists get too terribly + upset about this view, I would at least ask them to reflect on this fact: + every civil order protects its foundations." + [Greg Bahnsen, Christian Reconstructionist, in "An Interview + with Greg L. Bahnsen," Calvinism Today, Jan. 1994, p. 23] +% +"On the other hand, in a theonomic society the civil government would + promote virtues that it often works against today. It would reinstitute + laws protecting the observance of the Sabbath." + [Greg Bahnsen, God and Politics, ed. by Gary Scott Smith, + (New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1989), p. 263] +% +"For Christianity, the world must be regarded as the "creation" of a + kind of Superman, a person possessing all the human excellences to an + infinite degree and none of the human weaknesses, Who has made man in His + image, a feeble, mortal, foolish copy of Himself. In creating the universe, + God acts as a sort of playwright-cum-legislator-cum-judge-cum-executioner." + [Kurt E. M. Baier, "The Meaning of Life"] +% +"...Jesus was almost certainly not 'of Nazareth'. An overwhelming + body of evidence indicates that Nazareth did not exist in biblical + times. The town is unlikely to have appeared before the third century." + [Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, _The Messianic Legacy_] +% +"Why is it that Christianity more than any other of the + world's religions has succumbed to the racist disease?" + [John Austin Baker, the former Bishop of Salisbury UK, + Theology and Racism, quoted by Edward Patey, Dean of + Liverpool Cathedral in "Questions for Today", 1986, p81] +% +"It's not listed in the Bible, but my spiritual gift, my specific + calling from God, is to be a television talk-show host." + [James Bakker] +% +"I wake up every morning and I wish I were dead, and so does Jim." + [Tammy Fae Bakker] +% +"...and now we're down to our last $37,000." + + "But just last week you said you were down to your last $50,000, + what happened to $13,000 since then?" + +"Uh...um...I don't know." + [Tammy Fae Bakker] +% +"You can educate yourself right out of a relationship with God." + [Tammy Faye Bakker (1942-), U.S. television evangelist, + former co-host of PTL TV ministry and wife of Jim Bakker + who was imprisoned for defrauding his followers. + From "Observer" (London), 28 Feb. 1988] +% +"There's times when I just have to quit thinking... and + the only way I can quit thinking is by shopping." + [Tammy Faye Bakker, in "And I Quote," + by Ashton Applewhite, 1992] +% +"I take Him shopping with me. I say, "OK, Jesus, help me find a bargain." + [Tammy Faye Bakker, from "Food for Thought," + internet collection by Jack Tourette] +% +"You don't have to be dowdy to be a Christian." + [Tammy Faye Bakker, "Newsweek," 8 Jun. 1987] +% +"I always say shopping is cheaper than a psychiatrist." + [Tammy Faye Bakker, in "And I Quote," + by Ashton Applewhite, 1992] +% +"A Boss in Heavan is the best excuse for a boss on earth, + therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished." + [Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (1814-1876) Russian + anarchist, atheist author, and founder of Nihilism, + from "God and the State", 1874] +% +"The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; + it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily + ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice. He + who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about + the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity." + [Mikhail Bakunin, from "Federalism, + Socialism, and Anti-Theologism"] +% +"All religions, with their gods, demigods, prophets, messiahs + and saints, are the product of the fancy and credulity of men + who have not yet reached the full development and complete + personality of their intellectual powers." + [Mikhail A. Bakunin, "God and the State" (Dieu et l'etat) + 1874, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first free-thinker and + emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and + obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and + humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge." + [Bakunin, _God and the State_ (1874)] +% +"A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute + condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I + reverse the phrase of Voltaire and say, 'if God really + existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.'" + [Mikhail Bakunin, "God and the State", 1874] +% +"If God is, man is a slave; now, man can and + must be free; then, God does not exist." + I defy anyone whomsoever to avoid this circle; + now, therefore, let all choose." + [Mikhail Bakunin, "God and the State", 1874] +% +"They [religious idealists] say in a single breath: "God and the liberty + of man," "God and the dignity, justice, equality, fraternity, prosperity + of men" -- regardless of the fatal logic by virtue of which, if God + exists, all these things are condemned to nonexistence. For, if God is, + he is necessarily the eternal, supreme, absolute master, and, if such a + master exists, man is a slave. Now, if he is a slave, neither justice, + nor equality, nor fraternity, nor prosperity are possible for him. In + vain, flying in the face of good sense and all the teachings of history, + do they represent their God as animated by the tenderest love of human + liberty. A master, whoever he may be and however liberal he may desire + to show himself, remains none the less always a master." + [Mikhail Bakunin, "God and the State", 1874] +% +"With the name of God they imagine that they can establish fraternity among + men, and on the contrary, they create pride, contempt; they sow discord, + hatred, war; they establish slavery. For with God came the different + degrees of divine inspiration; humanity is divided into men highly inspired, + less inspired, uninspired. All are equally insignificant before God, it is + true; but compared with each other, some are greater than others; not only + in fact- which would be of no consequence, because inequality in fact is + lost in the collectivity when it cannot cling to some legal fiction or + institution- but by the divine right of inspiration, which immediately + establishes a fixed, constant, petrifying inequality. The highly inspired + must be listened to and obeyed by the less inspired, and the less inspired + by the uninspired. Thus we have the principle of authority well established, + and with it the two fundamental institutions of slavery: Church and State." + [Mikhail Bakunin, "Church and State", 1872, p. 53] +% +"For ten centuries Christianity, armed with the omnipotence of the Church + and State and opposed by no competition, was able to deprave, debase, and + falsify the mind of Europe. It had no competitors, because outside the + Church there was neither thinkers nor educated persons. It along taught, + it alone spoke and wrote, it alone taught." + [Mikhail Bakunin, "Church and State", 1872, p. 78] +% +"The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, + of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, + we will be slaves on earth." + [Mikhail A. Bakunin, "God and the State," from + James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"Christianity is the complete negation of common sense and sound reason." + [Mikhail A. Bakunin, God and the State, from + James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"All temporal or human authority proceeds directly from spiritual authority. + But authority is the negation of liberty. God, or rather the fiction of God, + is thus the sanction and the intellectual and moral cause of all the slavery + on earth, and the liberty of men will not be complete, unless it will + have completely annihilated the inauspicious fiction of a heavenly master." + [Mikhail A. Bakunin, Oeuvres, Vol. I, p. 283] +% +"Replacing the cult of God by respect and love of humanity, we + proclaim human reason as the only criterion of truth; human + conscience as the basis of justice; individual and collective + freedom as the only source of order in society." + [Bakunin, "Revolutionary Catechism" in _Bakunin on Anarchy_] +% +"...the Bible as we have it contains elements that are scientifically + incorrect or even morally repugnant. No amount of "explaining away" + can convince us that such passages are the product of Divine Wisdom." + [Bernard J. Bamberger, _The Story of Judaism_] +% +"Love your drag, honey, but did you know your purse is on fire?" + [Tallulah Bankhead, to the censer preceding + the bishop up the aisle at Catholic service] +% +"Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present." + [Iain M Banks] +% +"The very concept of sin comes from the bible. Christianity offers to + solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person + who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"How happy can you be when you think every action and + thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a + bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say + "God is love," they will claim that *you* are taking things out of context!" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never + again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and + suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. + Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal + torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. + Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love + that iscontingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is + respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a + healthy, unafraid human being." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say + anything positive: You are an intelligent human being. Your life is + valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, + deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently + evil--you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential + to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"There is joy in rationality, happiness in clarity of mind. + Freethought is thrilling and fulfilling--absolutely essential + to mental health and happiness." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief + is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why + many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"For my money, I'll bet on reason and humanistic kindness. Even if I am wrong + I will have enjoyed my life, the existence of which is under little dispute." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"The longer I have been an atheist, the more amazed + I am that I ever believed Christian notions." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"Not thinking critically, I assumed that the "successful" prayers + were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof + that there was something wrong with me." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance + and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"Without "The Law of Moses" would we all be wandering around like little gods, + stealing, raping, and spilling blood whenever our vanity was offended?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, + singing, "yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I + believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. + Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it." + [ex-preacher Dan Barker] +% +"Just say NO to religion." + [Dan Barker] +% +"You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time, + But I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime." + [Dan Barker] +% +"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, + demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people + walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive + stories, and you say that _we_ are the ones that need help?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the + only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then + you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits." + [Dan Barker Former evangelist, author, critic] +% +"I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. + That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist"] +% +"If the answers to prayer are merely what God wills all along, then why pray?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist"] +% +"We were blood brothers, pals forever. He was my very best friend. + Nobody else could see him. I now know he was just pretend." + [Dan Barker] +% +"I threw out all the bath water, and there was no baby there." + [Dan Barker, referring to the Bible in a debate, 1989] +% +"God is the anthropomorphized Aesop character who represents the + culmination of all the guilt (i.e. vulnerability) we feel whenever + our own megalomaniacal self-support structure (sense of internal reality + control) fails to distract us from the dread of our imminent demise." + [Br0d Barkett] +% +"If there were a god, there would be no need for religion. + If there were not a god, there would be no need for religion." + [Ron Barrier, Rbargodnow@aol.com] +% +"There is no such thing as a god. If such a creature existed, + belief would be rendered unnecessary, and the entire system + of organized religion would collapse." + [Ron Barrier, Rbargodnow@aol.com] +% +"Atheism - Your Gain, No Pain!" + [Ron Barrier] +% +"God is a placebo for your own mortality." + [Robert Barron] +% +"In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians + called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" + and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People + passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy + Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!" + [Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"] +% +"In fact, when you get right down to it, almost every explanation + Man came up with for *anything* until about 1926 was stupid." + [Dave Barry] +% +"Pretty rowdy behavior for Jesus. He'd get a buzz off + the beer and go squealing out of the parking lot." + [Bartender in Waco, TX] +% +"If you have seen me cross myself, it was to Science, Art and Nature." + [Bela Bartok] +% +"There should be absolutely no 'Separation of Church and State' in America." + [David Barton, president of Wallbuilders and a close ally of + the Christian Coalition, 1994 Anti-Defamation League Report] +% +"After all, any religion that can get numerous Christians to ignore a simple + and direct command from jesus in the name of "context" obviously is going + to have a hard time with teaching better morality to everybody else. + Maybe this explains the widespread explosion of religion in America and + the widespread rise in hatefulness, racism, right winged savagery, and + widespread lack of honesty." + [William Barwell, wbarwell@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM] +% +"If a man achieves or suffers change in premises which are deeply + embedded in his mind, he will surely find that the results of that + change will ramify throughout his whole universe." + [Gegory Bateson] +% +"We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There's a lot of talk + in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody's values will + prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe." + [Gary Bauer, religious-right Family Research Council] +% +"Do you want 'Transvestite Coming Out Week?' 'Sado-masochist Coming + Out Week?' People can do all sorts of things in the privacy of their + bedrooms, and they will bear the consequences of what they do. But I + don't understand this insistence in putting it in our face." + [Gary Bauer, Pres., Family Research Council and 2000 US + Presidential candidate, from USA Today Oct. 15, 1999] +% +"Cockroach: An ugly, greasy, universally reviled, six-legged freeloader + with a fondness for procreation and leftovers. One of nature's + all-time success stories, suggesting that God must love an obscene joke." + [adapted from Rick Bayan's The Cynic's Dictionary Hearst Books, N.Y., 1992] +% +"All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in + point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have + it in his power to destroy them." + [Simone de Beauvoir, "The Second Sex", 1949] +% +"Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; + and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially + fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. + For the Jews, Mohammedans and Christians among others, man is master by + divine right; the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse towards + revolt in the downtrodden female." + [Simone de Beauvoir, "The Second Sex", 1949] +% +"I cannot be angry at God, in whom I do not believe." + [Simone de Beauvoir, from James A. + Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"Hey Butt-Head check this book out! There's a talking snake, + a naked chick, then some guy puts a leaf on his SCHLONG!!" + [Beavis and Butt-Head Do America] +% +"Christ came, and Christianity arose...But originating in Judaism, which + knew woman only as a being bereft of all rights, and biased by the Biblical + conception which saw in her the source of all evil, Christianity preached + contempt for women." + [August Bebel, "Woman and Socialism", 1893] +% +"We aim in the domain of politics at republicanism; in the + domain of economics at socialism; in the domain of what + is today called religion, at atheism." + [August Bebel, Summary of Views] +% +"Enough of acting the infant who has been told so often how he was found under + a cabbage that in the end he remembers the exact spot in the garden and the + kind of life he led there before joining the family circle." + [Samuel Beckett] +% +"There was never such a gigantic lie told as the fable of the Garden of Eden." + [Henry Ward Beecher, early American preacher, from + "What Great Men Think Of Religion" by Ira Cardiff] +% +"Applaud, friends, the comedy is over." + [Beethoven's sarcastic remarks after a priest's last rites as he + lay dying in 1827; the priest had been summoned by religious + friends. Fellow composer Joseph Haydn considered Beethoven an + atheist. As quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with + the Courage to Doubt", by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America + and to the republic for which it stands, + one nation, + indivisible, + with liberty and justice for all." + [Francis Bellamy, 1892] +% +"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous + as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin." + [Cardinal Bellarmino 1615, during the trial of Galileo] +% +"To affirm that the Sun ... is at the centre of the universe and only rotates + on its axis without going from east to west, is a very dangerous attitude and + one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians + but also to injure our holy faith by contradicting the Scriptures" + [Cardinal Bellarmino, 17th Century Church Master Collegio Romano, + who imprisoned and tortured Galileo for his astronomical works] +% +"We are told by the church that we have accomplished nothing... Is it a + small thing to make men truly free, to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, + prejudice and power, the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from + the beautiful face of earth the fiend of fear?" + [D. M. Bennett, _Champions of the Church_] +% +"Faith - the ability to believe the ridiculous for the sublime." + [Rich Bennett] +% +"No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to + establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion." + [Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code from George + Seldes, The Great Quotations 1967, p. 813] +% +"Miracles happen to those who believe in them. Otherwise + why does not the Virgin Mary appear to Lamaists, Mohammedans, + or Hindus who have never heard of her." + [Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), + New York Times Book Review] +% +"Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also + the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable." + [Henri Bergson, "Two Sources + of Morality and Religion," 1935] +% +"For what is it but an exquisite and priceless chance of salvation + due to God alone, that the omnipotent should deign to summon to + His service, as though they were innocent, murderers, ravishers, + adulterers, perjurers, and those guilty of every crime?" + [St. Bernard, appeal for recruits for the Second Crusade, + quoted by Brooks Adams, _The Law of Civilization and + Decay_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1943), p. 144] +% +"The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, + because thereby Christ himself is glorified." + [Saint Bernard of Clairvaux] +% +"Culture is powerfully conservative. It enforces obedience to authority, + the authority of parents, of history, of custom, of superstition." + [Richard Bernstein, "Dictatorship of Virtue"] +% +"The proper place for the study of religious beliefs is in a church or temple, + at home, or in a course on comparative religions, but not in a biology + class. There is no place in our world for an ideology that seeks to close + minds, force obedience, and return the world to a paradise that never was. + Students should learn that the universe can be confronted and understood, + that ideas and authority should be questioned, that an open mind is a good + thing. Education does not exist to confirm people's superstitions, and + children do not learn to think when they are fed only dogma." + [Tim Berra, "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism"] +% +"Fundamentalists long for the return of a more moral America, an America + that may never have been. All around them they see what they perceive as + declining morality and spirituality. They reason that if humans share + ancestry with the other animals, we have no reason to behave as anything + other than animals. This view neglects the fact that humans are the only + known animals with the ability to contemplate the consequences of their own + actions. It also fails to recognize that there is a great deal of good in + the world, the nightly news notwithstanding. Crime existed long before the + theory of evolution, even before the writing of the Bible, and biologists + do not like crime any more than the creationists do. Evolutionary theory is + not a license to run amok, and neither is a belief in the literal + interpretation of the Bible a guarantor of moral behavior." + [Tim Berra, "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism"] +% +"About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had + earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican + hill ... Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis + (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He + was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was + reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday + and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection." + [Gerald L. Berry, "Religions of the World"] +% +"Modern societies march towards morality in + proportion as they leave religion behind." + [Paul Bert] +% +"[N]o philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a + message to the world as this good news of Atheism." + [Annie Besant, "The Gospel of Atheism"] +% +"I do not believe in God. My mind finds no grounds on which to build up a + reasonable faith. My heart revolts against the spectre of an Almighty + Indifference to the pain of sentient beings. My conscience rebels against + the injustice, the cruelty, the inequality, which surround me on every + side. But I believe in Man. In man's redeeming power; in man's remoulding + energy; in man's approaching triumph, through knowledge, love and work." + [Annie Besant (1847-1933)] +% +"Never yet has a God been defined in terms which were not palpably + self-contradictory and absurd; never yet has a God been described + so that a concept of Him was made possible to human thought." + [Annie Besant] +% +"I think it was Whitehead who said that religion is whatever a + person does when alone. I'd say that religion is whatever a + person does with their life. In either case, the national + religion of America is television and jacking off." + [Carl Bettis] +% +"While it cannot be proved retrospectively that any experience of possession, + conversion, revelation, or divine ecstasy was merely an epileptic discharge, + we must ask how one differentiates "real transcendence" from neuropathies + that produce the same extreme realness, profundity, ineffability, and sense + of cosmic unity. When accounts of sudden religious conversions in TLEs + (temporal-lobe epileptics) are laid alongside the epiphanous revelations of + the religious tradition, the parallels are striking. The same is true of + the recent spate of alleged UFO abductees. Parsimony alone argues against + invoking spirits, demons, or extraterrestrials when natural causes will + suffice." + [Barry L. Beyerstein, "Neuropathology and the Legacy of Spiritual + Possession", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 3, pg. 255] +% +"As a man can drink water from any side of a full tank, so the skilled + theologian can wrest from any scripture that which will serve his purpose." + [Bhagavad Gita [The Lord's Song] (250 B.C.-A.D. 250)] +% +"If you love god, burn a church" + [Jello Biafra] +% +"...balance the budget? Tax religion." + [Jello Biafra] +% +"Can God fill teeth?" + [Jello Biafra] +% +"Christianity is like tying a rubber hose around + your common sense and shooting up with God." + [Jello Biafra] +% +"See god? That is the easiest thing in the world. He always + appears to me in the bottom of the tenth glass of beer... and + sometimes as a beautiful, young, female nude." + [theologian Franz Bibfeldt on the reality of visions] +% +"It is of course always best to be led by god, and have him + personally whisper into your ear. Only, when it is the devil + talking he will tell you he is god, for the devil is a crafty + liar. So you never know who is talking to you." + [German-born Theologian Franz Bibfeldt + in his magnum opus "Vielleicht"] +% +"Any idiot can believe in Jesus H. Christ. To truly understand all + that confusion in the gospels takes a real contortionist scholar." + [Franz Bibfeldt, German theologian] +% +"What, me worry about the historical Jesus? The gospel writers made up their + story; the church fathers invented the virgin birth on the winter solstice; + the pope thought up the immaculate conception; so I can imagine any damn + thing I please about Jesus, or the Spook, or about the big guy himself." + [Theologian Franz Bibfeldt, on how to write religious history] +% +"Christianity: + An invisible and all-knowing friend of mine made our male ancestor out of + dirt, and made our female ancestor out of his rib, but our ancestors were + tempted by a snake which was actually an enemy of my invisible friend and + they ate a forbidden apple, so now all of us go to burn forever after we + die unless we believe that my friend's son's blood is on us and in us and + that this son died and rose zombie-like from the dead and floated up to + heaven and sent his ghost to live inside of us. He is coming soon!" + [Biblical Errancy list] +% +Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of + a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Religions are conclusions for which the + facts of nature supply no major premises." + [Ambrose Bierce, "Collected Works" (1912)] +% +Evangelist, n., + A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as + assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbours. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Scriptures: The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished + from the false and profane writings on which all other + faiths are based. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Religion, n: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to + Ignorance the Nature of the Unknowable. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Christian, n.: + One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired + book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who + follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent + with a life of sin. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks + without knowledge, of things without parallel. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian + religion; in Constantinople, one who does. + [Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), American author] +% +"Ocean: A body of water occupying 2/3 of a world made + for man -- who has no gills." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of + their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while + you expound on yours. + [Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) American author] +% +Clergyman, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual + affairs as a method of better his temporal ones. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to + meditate upon the sin of idleness. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary] +% +Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Irreligion. The principal one of the great faiths of the world. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"The pig is taught by sermons and epistles, + To think the god of swine has snout and bristles." + [Ambrose Bierce, "The Devils Dictionary"] +% +"Immortality, A toy which people cry for, + And on their knees apply for, + Dispute, contend and lie for, + And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for." + [Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)] +% +"Funeral: a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by + enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an + expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Mammon: the god of the world's leading religion." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Prophecy: the art and practice of selling one's + credibility for future delivery." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed + all that he knew. The revealing is done by the + commentators, who know nothing." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Take not God's name in vain -- select + A time when it will have effect." + [Ambrose Bierce, "The + Devil's Dictionary"] +% +"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment + of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." + [First Amendment, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution] +% +"The true fanatic is a theocrat, someone who sees himself as acting on + behalf of some superpersonal force: the Race, the Party, History, the + proletariat, the Poor, and so on. These absolve him from evil, hence + he may safely do anything in their service. + [Lloyd Billingsley. "Religion's Rebel + Son: Fanaticism in Our Time"] +% +"Religion is a means of exploitation employed by the strong against + the weak; religion is a cloak of ambition, injustice and vice." + [Georges Bizet, letter to Edmond Galabert, 1866] +% +"None of the people who claim to have found God have given us any reason + to accept that they have, indeed, found anything but their own delusions." + [Kelsey Bjarnason] +% +"One would no more join Christianity to show love and acceptance + than one would become a Nazi to show racial tolerance." + [Kelsey Bjarnason] +% +"Never before have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded + perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church?" + [Black Adder II] +% +Witchsmeller: "You are a witch." + Edmund: "You are a quack." +Witchsmeller: "A what?" + Edmund: "Quack, QUACK". +Witchsmeller: [turning to crowd] "BEHOLD how the evil spirit + of the duck speaks through him. He is indeed a witch" +Crowd: "Burn him, burn him!" + [Black Adder, starring Rowan Atkinson as Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh, + accused of being a witch by the Witchsmeller Pursuivant] +% +"Babble about 'The wages of sin' serves to cover up 'the sin of wages'. We + want rights, not rites -- sex, not sects. Only Eros and Eris belong in our + pantheon. Surely the Nazarene necrophile has had his revenge by now. + Remember, pain is just God's way of hurting you." + [Bob Black, "The Abolition of Work"] +% +"The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at + least this: neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. + Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer + one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go + to or remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a + belief or disbelief in any religion." + [U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, Majority opinion + Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947)] +% +"No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious + beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or nonattendance." + [U.S. Supreme Court justice Hugo Black, Majority opinion + Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947)] +% +"No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any + religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, + or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion." + [Hugo L. Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, majority opinion + in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)] +% +"Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, + participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups + and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against + establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of + separation between church and state.'" + [Hugo L. Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, majority opinion + in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)] +% +"The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and + state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We + could not approve the slightest breach." + [Hugo L. Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, + majority opinion in Everson v. Board of + Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947),last words] +% +"Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of + government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion." + [Justice Black, US Supreme Court Justice, on the 1st Amendment] +% +"[The First Amendment] requires the state to be a neutral in + its relations with groups of believers and non-believers." + [Justice Black, lead opinion, Everson v. + Board of Education, 330 US 1 (1947)] +% +"The manifest object of the men who framed the institutions of this country, + was to have a _State without religion_, and a _Church without politics_ -- + that is to say, they meant that one should never be used as an engine for + any purpose of the other, and that no man's rights in one should be tested + by his opinions about the other. As the Church takes no note of men's + political differences, so the State looks with equal eye on all the modes + of religious faith. ... Our fathers seem to have been perfectly sincere in + their belief that the members of the Church would be more patriotic, and the + citizens of the State more religious, by keeping their respective functions + entirely separate." + [Chief Justice of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania + Jeremiah S. Black, from "Essays and Speeches," 1885, p. 53] +% +"Well I don't want no preacher telling me about the god in the sky + No I don't want no one to tell me where I'm gonna go when I die + I wanna live my life with no people telling me what to do + I just believe in myself, 'cause no one else is true" + [O. Osbourne/T. Iommi/W. Ward/T. Butler, From "Under the Sun/ + Every Day Comes and Goes" Black Sabbath. _Sabbath Vol 4_] +% +"It's hard for me to believe that in the year 2000 I am walking + into court to defend my daughter against charges of witchcraft." + [Tim Blackbear, in Tulsa World 10/28/2000, whose + daughter was expelled from Oklahoma public school + and forbidden to wear Wiccan symbols amid charges + that she had cast "spells" on teachers] +% +"The Bible doesn't forbid suicide. It's Catholic directive, + intended to slow down their loss of martyrs." + [Ellen Blackstone] +% +"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds." + [Edmund Blake (1729-1797)] +% +"Whenever I think of how religion started, I picture some frustrated + old man making out a list of all the ways he could gain power, until + he finally came up with the great solution of constant fear and guilt, + then he leaped up and started planning a new wardrobe." + [Steve Blake] +% +"The ancient poets animated all objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them + by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, + mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous + senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the genius of each + city & country, placing it under its mental deity; Till a system was formed, + which some took advantage of, & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize + or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began priesthood; + Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. + And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things. + Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast." + [William Blake, from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"] +% +"As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs + on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys." + [William Blake, from "Proverbs of Hell"] +% + THE GARDEN OF LOVE + + I went to the Garden of Love, + And saw what I never had seen: + A Chapel was built in the midst, + Where I used to play on the green. + + And the gates of this Chapel were shut, + And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door; + So I turn'd to the Garden of Love + That so many sweet flowers bore; + + And I saw it was filled with graves, + And tomb-stones where flowers should be; + And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, + And binding with briars my joy and desires. + [William Blake, from "Songs of Experience"] +% + A LITTLE BOY LOST + + "Nought loves another as itself, + Nor venerates another so, + Nor is it possible to thought + A greater than itself to know: + + "And Father, how can I love you + Or any of my brothers more? + I love you like the little bird + That picks up crumbs around the door." + + The Priest sat by and heard the child, + In trembling zeal he seiz'd his hair: + He led him by his little coat, + And all admir'd the priestly care. + + And standing on the altar high, + "Lo! what a fiend is here!" said he, + "One who sets reason up for judge + Of our most holy Mystery." + + The weeping child could not be heard, + The weeping parents were in vain; + They strip'd him to his little shirt, + And bound him in an iron chain; + + And burn'd him in a holy place, + Where many had been burn'd before: + The weeping parents wept in vain. + Are such things done on Albion's shore? / england's + + [William Blake, from "Songs of Experience"] +% +"Prisons are built with stones of Law, + Brothels with bricks of Religion." + [William Blake, "The Marriage + of Heaven and Hell"] +% +"Religions are not revealed: they are evolved. If a religion were revealed + by God, that religion would be perfect in whole and in part, and would be as + perfect at the first moment of its revelation as after ten thousand years of + practice. There has never been a religion which fulfills those conditions." + [Robert Blatchford, "God and My Neighbor," 1903] +% +"The Christians were the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma + of the church. What is the use in a Pope if there is no Devil?" + [Elena Blavatsky] +% +"There has never been a religion in the annals of the + world with such a bloody record as Christianity." + [Elena Blavatsky] +% +"Religion is like chemotherapy, it may solve one + problem, but it can cause a million more." + [John Bledsoe] +% +"Anti-intellectualism among millenarians and Bible Literalists is a + recurrent phenomenon, but no other religious movement in America ever + has been as programatically set against its intellect as are Jehovah's + Witnesses. The Fundamentalist majority wing of the Southern Baptist + Convention are devotees of pure reason compared to Jehovah's Witnesses." + [Harold Bloom, The American Religion, pg. 162] +% +"Sure, there's still war in the Balkans, but the Supreme Being + of the universe seems to have become shallow and spends all his + time intervening in sporting events." + [John Bloom (aka Joe Bob Briggs), + comment after the Super Bowl] +% +"Though there are a number of rather savage apocalyptic scenarios current + among American Fundamentalists, I am aware of none quite so inhumane as the + Jehovah's Witnesses' accounts of the End of our Time. There is something + peculiarly childish in these Watchtower yearnings: they remind me of why very + small children cannot be left alone with wounded and suffering household pets." + [Harold Bloom, The American Religion, pg. 169-170] +% +"There is a God, but He drinks" + [Blore] +% +"At the first evidence of the onset of cyclic events + pertaining to seventeen for the first, then obviously + we reserve green hurt sliding down the billiard house + on the second corner after dinner. Other than that, + blue interspersed with flying bats.......... + + The above is an example of what bleater-logic sounds + like to me." + [bob ] +% +"Gilles de Rais supposedly sodomized, mutilated, and murdered more + than 700 children. At his trial he told of his usual procedure of + sexually assaulting boys, cutting open their chests and burying his face + in their lungs, and opening their abdomens and handling their intestines. + He also confessed to necrophilia with the dismembered bodies and to + attempted intercourse with a fetus he cut out of a pregnant woman. + At his trial de Rais REPENTED, and the bishop of Nantes WAS FORCED + TO RECEIVE HIM BACK INTO THE CHURCH." + [_Bodies_Under_Siege_ p.9-10] +% +"Considering all the evil that exists in the world, the fact that all + of religion's condemnation is focused on expressing disapproval of + two people loving each other proves just how evil religion is." + [Jan deBoer] +% +"Everything is more or less organized matter. To think + so is against religion, but I think so just the same." + [Napoleon Bonapart] +% +"If I had to choose a religion, the sun as + the universal giver of life would be my god." + [Napoleon Bonaparte] +% +"How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when + one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, + he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an + authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' Religion is + excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet." + [Napoleon Bonaparte] +% +"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." + [Napoleon Bonaparte] +% +"I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly + that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet + they lay their hands on everything they can get." + [Napoleon Bonaparte] +% +"Religion divides us, while it is our human + characteristics that bind us to each other." + [Sir Hermann Bondi, interview + in Free Inquiry magazine] +% +"...I will never understand why the advent of tourists and beer is + considered damaging to the culture [of the Bahinemo people in Papua + New Guinea] while introducing Jesus is not. These people have survived + centuries with their own beliefs, invoking their own gods." + [Richard A. Boni of Budapest, Hungary, in letter + to the editor, National Geographic, June 1994] +% +"I want to boldly affirm Uncle Tom. The black community + must stop criticizing Uncle Tom. He is a role model." + [Wellington Boone, editorial board member of New Man, the + Promise Keepers' official magazine, in Breaking Through, p. 77] +% +"All women have been sexually abused by the Bible teachings, and institutions + set on set on its fundamentalist interpretations. There would be no need + for the women's movement if the church and Bible hadn't abused them." + [Father Leo Booth] +% +"One must keep in mind that religious liberty did not come easily. It + did not simply ripen and fall to nonChristians as a gift. It had to be + fought for in the legislative halls, in constitutional conventions and + in the courts. What has been achieved, easily can be lost." + [Morton Borden, Reason magazine June, 1987, from Menendez + Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom] +% +"'Believing' cannot tip the scales in making a historical judgment about + whether something really happened. I can choose to believe that George + Washington threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock, but my believing + that he did it has nothing to do with whether or not he really did to it. + So also with the story of Jesus walking on the water: Believing that he did + it has nothing to do with whether he really did do it. 'Belief' cannot be + the basis for historical conclusion; it has no direct relevance." + ["Faith and Scholarship" by Marcus J. Borg + August, 1993 issue of _Bible Review_] +% +"3. Interpreting the Bible: All reading of Scripture (including a literalist + approach) involves subjective interpretation. For example, to read the + stories of Jesus' birth as literal historical accounts involves an act of + interpretation just as much as reading them as symbolic narratives (namely, + it involves a decision to read them literally). The recognition that all + interpretations are subjective does not, however, mean that all are equally + good. About any interpretation, one may ask (or be asked), "what have you + got to go on? Why do you read it that way?" + ["Faith and Scholarship" by Marcus J. Borg + August, 1993 issue of _Bible Review_] +% +"If God has made the world a perfect mechanism, He has at least + conceded so much to our imperfect intellect that in order to predict + little parts of it, we need not solve innumerable differential + equations, but can use dice with fair success." + [Max Born] +% +"Freedom is the distance between church and state." + [John Boston] +% +"Pray, and all your sins are hooked upon the sky. + Pray, and the heathen lie will disappear. + Prayers, they hide the saddest views, + Believing the strangest things, Loving the alien." + [David Bowie] +% +"The Boy Scouts of America maintain that no member can grow into the + best kind of citizen without recognizing his obligation to God." + [Boy Scouts of America, statement on membership form] +% +"The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the + universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and + blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship..." + [Boy Scouts of America policy, 1970] +% +"No man is much good unless he believes in God and obeys + His laws. So every Scout should have religion." + [BSA Scouting Handbook, first edition] +% +"...Any organization could profit from a 10-year-old member with + enough strength of character to refuse to swear falsely." + [New York Times editorial, 12/12/93, on the Boy Scouts' refusing + membership to Mark Welsh, who would not sign a religious oath] +% +"Those that scaped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, + others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatche, + and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this + time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the + streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke and sente + there of, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers + thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose + their enemise in their hands, and gave them so speedy a victory over so + proud and insulting an enimie." + [William Bradford, "History of the Plymouth Plantation", on the + massacre of the friendly Pequot Indians by Puritans in 1637; + their village had been set on fire and 900 men, women, and + children were slaughtered as they tried to escape the flames.] +% +"The word heretic ought to be a term of honour..." + [Charles Bradlaugh] +% +"The atheist does not say "there is no God," but he says "I know not what + you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the word 'God' is to me a sound + conveying no clear or distinct affirmation." ... The Bible God I deny; the + Christian God I disbelieve in; but I am not rash enough to say there is no + God as long as you tell me you are unprepared to define God to me." + [Charles Bradlaugh, "A Plea for Atheism", 1864] +% +"The Atheist does not say "there is no god", but he says "I do not know what + you mean by god; I am without the idea of god; the word god is to me a + sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny god, because + I cannot deny that of which I have no conception and the conception of which + by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me." + [Charles Bradlaugh, _National Review_, Nov. 25, 1883] +% +"I cannot follow you Christians; for you try to crawl through your + life upon your knees, while I stride through mine on my feet." + [Charles Bradlaugh] +% +"As an unbeliever, I ask leave to plead that humanity has been a real + gainer from scepticism, and that the gradual and growing rejection of + Christianity - like the rejection of the faiths which preceded it - + has in fact added, and will add, to man's happiness and well-being." + [Charles Bradlaugh, "Humanity's Gain from Unbelief," 1889] +% +"Atheists would teach men to be moral now, not because God offers as an + inducement reward by and by, but because in the virtuous act itself + immediate good is insured to the doer and the circle surrounding him." + [Charles Bradlaugh, "A Plea for Atheism", 1864] +% +"If it stood alone it would be almost sufficient to plead asjustification + for heresy the approach towards equality and liberty for the utterance + of all opinions achieved because of growing unbelief." + [Charles Bradlaugh, "Humanity's Gain from Unbelief," 1889] +% +"If special honor is claimed for any, then heresy + should have it as the truest servitor of humankind." + [Charles Bradlaugh, speech in London, September 25, 1881, + from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"Oh great, but not necessarily superior, being who dwells beyond this plane of + existence and who is accessible only through prayer, meditation, or crystals, + we salute you without thereby acknowledging that you are entitled to greater + respect than that accorded any other endangered species. We hope to pass + through your plane of existence at some point on our psychic journey to the + same exalted status as marine mammals or even snail darters. Moreover, to the + extent your design for the universe coincides with the U.S. Constitution and + includes low-cost access to cable, we ask you to provide us our minimum daily + requirement of essential vitamins and nutrients consistent with FDA + guidelines, and when judging us be duly mindful or our status as victim, which + provides full justification for what might appear on superficial examination + to be felonious. In the same vein, we will endeavor to excuse and forgive those + who have transgressed against us, with the possible exception of our parents, + teachers, policemen and clergy about whom we have just resurrected disturbing + memories. We ask all this in the name of your prophet --------. (Here on + alternating weeks substitute names drawn from the consensus of the class. Some + suggestions for early in the year: L. Ron Hubbard, Ayatollah Khomeini, + Patricia Ireland, Mike Wallace.)" + [John F. Bramfeld, a lawyer in Urbana, Ill., as printed in "Wall + Street Journal" Pg A-18 Thurs, Jan 12, 1995, contemplating what + would happen to school prayer after it was filtered through the + apparatus of politically correct educrats.] +% +"The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a world of law + and order; do not add to them by believing it to be a world of miracles." + [U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis] +% +"In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued + above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, + and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their + self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions." + [Nathaniel Branden, _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_, + Bantam Books, (New York, 1994), p. 296] +% +"If, in any culture, children are taught, 'We are all equally + unworthy in the sight of God' - + +"If, in any culture, children are taught, 'You are born in sin + and are sinful by nature' - + +"If children are given a message that amounts to 'Don't think, + don't question, *believe*' - + +"If children are given a message that amounts to 'Who are you to + place your mind above that of the priest, the minister, the rabbi?' - + +"If children are told, 'If you have value it is not because of anything + you have done or could ever do, it is only because God loves you' - + +"If children are told, 'Submission to what you cannot understand + is the beginning of morality' - + +"If children are instructed, 'Do not be "willful", self-assertiveness + is the sin of pride' - + +"If children are instructed, 'Never think that you belong to yourself' - + +"If children are informed, 'In any clash between your judgement and that + of your religious authorities, it is your authorities you must believe', - + +"If children are informed, 'Self-sacrifice is the foremost + virtue and the noblest duty' - + +"- then *consider what will be the likely consequences for the + practice of living consciously, or the practice of self-assertiveness, + or any of the other pillars of healthy self-esteem*." + + [Nathaniel Branden, _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_, + Bantam Books, (New York, 1994), p. 295-296] +% +"Whether one believes in a God, and whether one believes we are God's children, + is irrelevant to the issue of what self-esteem requires. Let us imagine that + there is a God and that we are his/her/its children. In this respect, then, + we are all equal. Does it follow that everyone is or should be equal in + self-esteem, regardless of whether anyone lives consciously or unconsciously, + responsibly or irresponsibly, honestly or dishonestly? Earlier in this book + we saw that this is impossible. There is no way for our mind to avoid + registering the choices we make in the way we operate and no way for our + sense of self to remain unaffected. If we are children of God, the question + remains: What are we going to do about it? What are we going to make of it? + Will we honor our gifts or betray them? If we betray ourselves and our + powers, if we live mindlessly, purposelessly, and without integrity, can + we buy our way out, can we acquire self-esteem, by claiming to be God's + relatives? Do we imagine we can thus relieve ourselves of personal + responsibility? + [Nathaniel Branden, _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_, + Bantam Books, (New York, 1994), p. 108-109] +% +"Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts + every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion." + [Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D. Psychologist, + author The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem] +% +"You go back and tell Brigham Young that I'll give up the Lord's + money when he sends me a receipt signed by the Lord, and no sooner." + [Sam Brannan, as quoted in "California Saints" p. 153] +% +"My response to the statement that AIDS is God's punishment + against homosexuals is that in that case, God has very bad aim." + [David Bratman] +% +"Answer Just one question for me. Assume I am the leader on a country. I + invade a neighboring country and conquer it. I order all the men killed. + I order all the boys killed. I have all the women checked for virginity, + those that aren't I have killed. The remaining virgin girl children I + split up and let my soldiers do to them what they will, keeping a good + portion of the best looking ones for my own use." The question is: Under + what circumstances would it be good and moral to do the above? And the + answer is: Because God commanded it. I'm sure you are hoping for another + holy war, so you can finally get laid." + ["Johnny Bravo", on alt.atheism] +% +"Entering the city [Jerusalem, July 15, 1099], our pilgrims pursued and killed + Saracens up to the Temple of Solomon, in which they had assembled and where + they gave battle to us furiously for the whole day so that their blood flowed + throughout the whole temple. Finally, having overcome the pagans, our + knights seized a great number of men and women, and the killed whom they + wished and whom they wished they let live.... Then, rejoicing and weeping + from extreme joy, our men went to worship at the sepulchre of jour Saviour + Jesus and thus fulfilled their pledge to Him.... They also ordered that all + the Saracen dead should be thrown out of the city because of the extreme + stench, for the city was almost full of their cadavers. The live Saracens + dragged the dead out before the gates and made piles of them, like houses. + No one has ever heard of or seen such a slaughter of pagan peoples since + pyres were made of them like boundary marks, and no one except God knows + their number." + [Histoire anonyme de la premiere croisade, L. Brehier, ed. + Paris: Champion, 1924 (From The Portable Medieval Reader, + Ed. James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin)] +% +"But in what sense can [the United States] be called a Christian nation? + Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or the + people are compelled in any manner to support it. On the contrary, the + Constitution specifically provides that 'congress shall make no law + respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise + thereof.' Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are + either in fact or in name Christians. On the contrary, all religions have + free scope within its borders. Numbers of our people profess other + religions, and many reject all. Nor is it Christian in the sense that a + profession of Christianity is a condition of holding office or otherwise + engaging in public service, or essential to recognition either politically + or socially. In fact, the government as a legal organization is independent + of all religions." + [Justice David Brewer, "The United States: A Christian Nation", 1905. + Brewer is famous for his remarks in the non-legally binding Obiter Dictum + from the 1892 Holy Trinity Church v. U.S. decision which states that "this + is a Christian nation", frequently cited as "proof" by groups seeking to + amend the Constitution to endorse Christianity. Brewer wrote this to + clarify his position regarding the law. From "Why the Christian Right Is + Wrong about Separation of Church & State." by Robert Boston, pg. 84-85] +% +"No myth of miraculous creation is so + marvelous as the face of man's evolution." + [Robert Briffault (1876-1948) + "Rational Education",1930] +% +"I find homosexuality disgustingly disturbing. This calls God + and his designs into question. I feel a strong sense of fear + for anyone who questions God's designs." + [Arizona State Rep. Debra Brimhall (R-Snowflake) + quoted in Arizona Republic, Feb. 4, 1999] +% +"There is no faith, however respectable, no interest, however + legitimate, which must not accommodate itself to the progress + of human knowledge and bend before truth." + [Paul Broca] +% +"If God dislikes gay so much, how come he picked Michaelangelo, + a known homosexual, to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling while + assigning Anita to go on TV and push orange juice?" + [Greg R. Broderick] +% +"Rationalism is the explanation of the world as human adventure, and it is + not less human because it is an intellectual adventure--it is more human. + Why do those who belittle science always behave as if the mind were the + least human of our gifts? The inquiring mind is the godhead of man." + [Joseph Bronowski] +% +"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to + explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." + [David Brooks, "The Necessity of Atheism"] +% +"There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, + the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the + political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few." + [Van Wyck Brooks, The Nation, 14 August 1954] +% +"I hope you don't like my posts...that is the intent!" + [Brother Orchid, demonstrating how to be christian] +% +"The pursuit of happiness belongs to us, but we + must climb around or over the church to get it." + [Heywood Broun (1888-1939)] +% +"God, as some cynic has said, is always on + the side which has the best football coach." + [Heywood Broun] +% +"Once again decent citizens will be able to enter this house of worship, + kneel down in front of a nearly-naked man hanging from a wooden apparatus + by a series of gruesome body piercings, and engage in their bizarre + practices of ritualized blood-drinking and cannibalism without being + assaulted by graphic images of attractive young women with bare breasts." + [A. Whitney Brown, "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central] +% +"I do not see how anyone could come fresh to the Bible and see any regard + for human life at all in the early parts. From the extermination of every + living thing outside the ark to the ethnic cleansing of the promised land, + the story is one of utter disregard to human life except when it suits God's + purposes..... it does not license anyone to preach on the excellence of the + Ten Commandments asa sort of constitution document for modern society." + [Andrew Brown, religious correspondent for + the Independent, a national UK paper] +% +"If the Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from, + how can we trust it to tell us where we're going?" + [Justin Brown] +% +"My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity. + All those women out there are praying for a + man, and I'm giving them my share." + [Rita Mae Brown] +% +"There are many extraordinary tales from antiquity, including women with snakes + for hair, creatures whose gaze turns you to stone, creatures with equine + bodies and human torsos, many accounts of people rising from the dead, lots of + tales of magic, and numerous accounts of physical encounters with fantastic + beings. Ancient people were a superstitious, scientifically primitive lot, + and believed in many things that today we know are silly. I find it bizarre + that so many people see nothing suspicious about the extraordinary or + supernatural claims of the bible, yet don't hesitate to express disbelief in + equally well documented claims of minotaurs, basilisks, and wizards." + [Scott Brown] +% +"There's nothing shameful in acknowledging that you don't have the answers + to every question about life. Just accept the fact that you know only a + fraction of what's going on in the world. You don't have to attach + explanations in terms of a special revelation of God's will, a glimpse + at the supernatural, evidence of a conspiracy, or anything else." + [Harry Browne, "How I Found Freedom in an + Unfree World", Avon Books, 1973, p. 151] +% +"I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches; they + that doubt them do not only deny them, but [all] spirits, and are + obliquely and upon consequence a sort, not of infidels, but of atheists." + [Sir Thomas Browne, "Religio Medici"] +% +"If Jesus had been killed 20 years ago, Catholic school children would be + wearing little Electric Chairs around their necks instead of crosses" + [Lenny Bruce] +% +"He is a born again christian. The trouble is, + he suffered brain damage during rebirth." + [Lenny Bruce] +% +"Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers + suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and + illegal abortions--and unwanted children living in misery." + [Gro Harlem Brundtland, at the Cairo population conference] +% +"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses + or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not + change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people. + [Giordano Bruno (1548-burned at the stake,1600)] +% +"You pronounce sentence upon me with greater fear than I receive it." + [Giordano Bruno to his inquisitors] +% +"Who so itcheth to Philosophy must set to + work by putting all things to doubt." + [Giordano Bruno, "The Threefold Leas and + Measure of the Three Speculative Sciences + and the Principle of Many Practical Arts"] +% +"A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were." + [Jean de La Bruy re (1645-1696)] +% +"If we have to give up either religion or education, + we should give up education." + [William Jennings Bryan] +% +"All the ills from which America suffers can be traced to the + teaching of evolution." + [William Jennings Bryan] +% +"If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it." + [William Jennings Bryan] +% +"The parents have a right to say that no teacher paid by their money shall + rob their children of faith in God and send them back to their homes + skeptical, or infidels, or agnostics, or atheists." + [William Jennings Bryan, testifying at the Scopes trial, July 16, 1925] +% +"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically + reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children." + [Anita Bryant, 1977] +% +"The atheist staring from his attic window is + often nearer to God than the believer caught + up in his own false image of God." + [Martin Buber] +% +"An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support." + [John Buchan (1875-1940) + British author, statesman] +% +"Who are beneficiaries of the Court's protection? Members of various + minorities including criminals, atheists, homosexuals, flag burners, + illegal immigrants (including terrorists), convicts, and pornographers." + [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, Address + to the Heritage Foundation, January 29, 1996] +% +"And how can we ever again succeed in educating children to become + moral men and women if, in America's public schools, we consciously + deny them all religious instruction, and deny them access to that + primary source of morality, God's own word. The Bible is the one book + from which they are expressly not allowed to be taught." + [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, + "The City and The Crusade", Commencement + Address for Christendom College, May 6, 1996] +% +"What's the Christian-bashing all about? Simple- a struggle for the + soul of America is under way, a struggle to determine whose views, + values, beliefs and standards will serve as the basis of law." + [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, + Washington Times, June 15, 1995] +% +"And it is, I am persuaded, not some deep-seated love of the downtrodden + Xhosa or Zulu that has caused America's press and clergy to insist upon + the most severe of sanctions upon South Africa. (After all, Ndebele, Hutu, + Tutsi, Ibo and countless tribal peoples have been massacred in far greater + numbers in modern Africa, without a peep of protest from these same sources.) + + The spirit driving the anti-apartheid coalition worldwide is not love at + all; it is hatred, and not just hatred of apartheid, but hatred of the Boer, + hatred of Botha, his party and people, hatred of the 19th century idea they + embody - the idea that the Christian West, because of the superiority of + its values and the civilization those values produced, has an inherent + right to rule over other peoples." + [Patrick J. Buchanan. "Why has Appeal + of Communism Endured for So Many?"] +% +"In a GQ profile of Pat Buchanan, journalist John Judis asks the presidential + candidate his views about teaching creationism in school. 'Look, my view is, + I believe God created heaven and earth,' said Buchanan. 'I think this: What + ought to be taught as fact is what is known as fact. I don't believe it is + demonstrably true that we have descended from apes. I don't believe it. I + do not believe all that." + [Leah Garchik, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 November 1995] +% +"Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our + religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free." + [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, speech to the Christian + Coalition, Sept. 1993, as reported in ADL Report, 1994] +% +"We need to do more than win an election or win the House or + win the presidency, my friends: we need to make this beloved + country of ours God's country once again." + [Pat Buchanan at the Christian Coalition 1995 + Road to Victory Conference, as reported in + the October 1995 issue of Church and State] +% +"Education must be founded upon knowledge, not upon faith; and religion + itself should be taught in the public schools only as religious history..." + [Friederich Buchner, "Man in the Past, Present, and Future"] +% +"Therefore man does not stand outside or above + nature, but wholly and thoroughly in her midst..." + [Ludwig Buchner, "Force and Matter"] +% +"I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front + line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism." + [Frank Buchman (1878-1961), U.S. evangelist. + New York World-Telegram (25 Aug. 1936)] +% +"I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. + Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and + the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels." + [Pearl S. Buck] +% +"Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be + born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the + burden of original sin, not under the doom of Salvation." + [Pearl S. Buck, Advice to Unborn Novelists] +% +"That the system of morals expounded in the New Testament contained no + maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that some of the most + beautiful passages in the apostolic writings are quotations from Pagan + authors, is well known to every scholar.... To assert that Christianity + communicated to man moral truths previously unknown, argues on the part + of the asserted either gross ignorance or wilful fraud." + [Henry Thomas Buckle, "History of Civilization," Vol. I, p. 129] +% +"As long as men refer the movements of the comets to the immediate finger + of God, and as long as they believe that an eclipse is one of the modes + by which the deity expresses his anger, they will never be guilty of the + blasphemous presumption of attempting to predict such supernatural + appearances. Before they could dare to investigate the causes of these + mysterious phenomena, it is necessary that they should believe, or at all + events that they should suspect, that the phenomena themselves were capable + of being explained by the human mind." + [Buckle, "History of Civilization," vol. I, p. 345] +% +"If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction of the supreme + importance of some moral or religious doctrine; if you can make him + believe that those who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal + perdition; if you then give that man power, and by means of his + ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act,-he + will infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine." + [Henry Thomas Buckle, "History of Civilization in England"] +% +"Be not misled by reports or tradition or common opinion. Be not misled by + proficiency in the scriptures, nor by speculation and conclusions, nor by + attractive theories and favorite ideas, nor by impressions of personal merits + (of the teacher) and not by the authority of some master. But rather, + Kalamas, when you discern yourselves: these things are unprofitable, these + things are blameworthy, these things are censured by the wise; these things, + when performed and undertaken are conducive to misfortune and sorrow, indeed + do you then reject them." + +"...And when you discern yourselves: these things are profitable, these things + are not blameworthy, these things are praised by the wise; these things, when + performed and undertaken are conducive to good fortune and happiness, indeed + do you then accept them." + [G. Buddha, from the Anguttara Nikaya] +% +"Believe nothing, O monks, merely because you have been told it ... or + because it is traditional, or because you yourselves have imagined it. + Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for + the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you + find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings + -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide." + [Buddha [Siddhartha Gautama] (?563-?483 BCE), founder of Buddhism] +% +"Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not + because it is your national belief, believe not because you have + been made to believe from your childhood, but reason truth out, and + after you have analyzed it, then if you find it will do good to one + and all, believe it, live up to it and help others to live up to it." + [Buddha] +% +"Xianity: the braindead, educating the clueless on how to show the + blind how to tell the mute how to witness to the deaf so they can + galvanize the paraplegic into lifelong slavery to a non-existent god" + ["Budikka", on alt.atheism] +% +"Jesus Christ: A common exclamation indicating surprise, + disgust, anger or bewilderment." + [Chaz Bufe, The American Heretic's Dictionary] +% +"Agnostic, n. A person who feels superior to atheists by merit + of his ignorance of the rules of logic and evidence." + [Chaz Bufe, The American Heretic's Dictionary] +% +"Fundamentalist, n. One in whom something is fundamentally wrong - most + commonly lack of reasoning ability and vicious intolerance toward those + not sharing the fundamentalist's delusions. Thus, fundamentalists are + especially intolerant of those able to draw obvious conclusions from + observed facts, those who refuse to seek shelter in comforting falsehoods, + and those who wish to lead their own lives. Members of the fundamentalist + subspecies known as "Slack-Jawed Drooling Idiots" have been known to give + so much of their income to "electronic churches" that they subsist on Alpo + at the end of the month. In herds, fundamentalists are about as useful to + society as wandering bands of baboons brandishing machetes." + [Charles Bufe "The American Heretic's Dictionary"] +% +"Religion, religion. Oh, there's a fine line + between Saturday night and Sunday morning... + Where's the church, who took the steeple, + Religion's in the hands of some crazy ass people, + Television preachers with bad hair and dimples, + The God's honest truth is, it's not that simple." + ["Fruitcakes", Jimmy Buffett] +% +"Armies of Bible scholars and theologians have for centuries + found respected employment devising artful explanations of + the Bible often not really meaning what it says." + [J. S. Bullion, Jr., U.S. freethinker, writer] +% +"The attack on the peasant economy was accompanied by a fierce campaign + against the Orthodox Church, the center of traditional peasant culture, + which was seen by the Stalinist leadership as one of the main obstacles + to collectivization." + [Alan Bullock, "Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives" (Alfred A. Knopf, + 1992, ISBN 0-394-58601-8), p. 264, in the chapter "Stalin's Revolution", + showing that Stalin's motivation for destroying churches was because + of their threat to his political plans and not communistic "atheism"] +% +"Of greater significance was the reconciliation with the Russian Orthodox + Church, the traditional bastion of Russian nationalism and the tsarist + regime, which now became associated with the cult of Stalin and resumed + its role as a state church." + [Alan Bullock, "Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives" (Alfred A. Knopf, + 1992, ISBN 0-394-58601-8), chapter, "Stalin's New Order," pp 906-907, + on Stalin's wartime reconciliation with the church, showing that the + the "atheism" of the communist party had nothing to do with the + treatment accorded religions or the religious during Stalin's regime] +% +"We have an *eclectic* tradition in the United States... Christians of + various stripes are part of this, as are humanists and agnostics, but + this does not make the United States a Christian nation or even a Judeo- + Christian one. We are a mixed accumulation of our past, and it is the + Christian dogmatists, not the secularists, who are the major threat to + our pluralistic democratic tradition." + [Vern Bullough, "Do We Have a Judeo- + Christian Heritage?" in Free Inquiry] +% +"It's called faith. Faith is believing something + that no one in his right mind would believe." + [Archie Bunker, "All in the Family" sitcom by Norman Lear, + replying to Michael's questioning why God would tell women + that they should go forth and multiply and then prohibit + pain killers in child birth] +% +"God and Country are an unbeatable team; they + break all records for oppression and bloodshed." + [Luis Buquel] +% +"If someone were to prove to me-right this minute-that God, in all his + luminousness, exists, it wouldn't change a single aspect of my behavior." + [Luis Buquel (1900-1983), Spanish filmmaker. + My Last Sigh, ch. 15 (1983)] +% +"The idea that a good God would send people to a burning Hell is utterly + damnable to me. The ravings of insanity! Superstition gone to seed! + I don't want to have anything to do with such a God. No avenging + Jewish God, no satanic devil, no fiery hell is of any interest to me." + [Luther Burbank, address to Science + League of San Francisco, Dec. 1924] +% +"All my work in the field of science and research has come through a change + in my earlier opinions on religion. Growth is the law of life. Orthodoxy + is the death of scientific effort." + [Luther Burbank, from "Burbank the Infidel" by Joseph Lewis] +% +"Do not feed children on maudlin sentimentalism or dogmatic religion; give + them nature... Do not terrify them in early life with the fear of an after- + world. Never was a child made more noble and good by the fear of a hell." + [Luther Burbank, "The Training of the Human Plant," 1907] +% +"Most people's religion is what they want to believe, not what they + do believe. And very few of them stop to examine its foundations." + [Luther Burbank quoted by Edgar Waite, also in "2000 Years + of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", + by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"Those who take refuge behind theological barbed wire fences, quite often + wish they could have more freedom of thought, but fear the change to the + great ocean of scientific truth as they would a cold bath plunge." + [Luther Burbank, "Why I Am an Infidel," 1926] +% +"I have learned from Nature that dependence on unnatural beliefs + weakens us in the struggle and shortens our breath for the race." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"The time has come for honest men to denounce + false teachers and attack false gods." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"Science, unlike theology, never leads to insanity." + [Luther Burbank as quoted by Joseph McCabe] +% +"This should be enough for one who lives for truth and service + to his fellow passengers on the way. No avenging Jewish God, + no satanic devil, no fiery hell is of any interest to me." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"The scientist is a lover of truth for the very + love of truth itself, wherever it may lead." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"Let us read the Bible without the ill-fitting colored spectacles + of theology, just as we read other books, using our own judgment + and reason, listening to the voice within, not to the noisy babel + without. Most of us possess discriminating reasoning powers. Can + we use them or must we be fed by others like babes?" + [Luther Burbank] +% +"Prayer may be elevating if combined with work, and they who + labor with head, hands or feet have faith and are generally + quite sure of an immediate and favorable reply." + [Luther Burbank quoted by Joseph Lewis] +% +"Nature is not personal. She is the compound of all these processes which + move through the universe to effect the results we know as Life and of + all the ordinances which govern that universe and that make Life continuous. + She is no more the Hebrew's Jehovah than she is the Physicist's Force; she + is as much Providence as she is Electricity; she is not the Great Pattern + any more than she is the Blind Chance." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"I do not believe what has been served to me to believe. + I am a doubter, a questioner, a skeptic." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"However, when it can be proved to me that there is immortality, + that there is resurrection beyond the gates of death, then will + I believe. Until then, no." + [Luther Burbank quoted by Edgar Waite] +% +"Religion grows with the intelligence of man, but all religions of the + past and probably all of the future will sooner or later become petrified + forms instead of living helps to mankind. Until that time comes, however, + if religion of any name or nature makes man more happy, comfortable, and + able to live peaceably with his brothers, it is good." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"But as a scientist I cannot help feeling that all religions are on + a tottering foundation. None is perfect or inspired. As for their + prophets, there are as many today as ever before, only now science + refuses to let them overstep the bounds of common sense." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly + damnable to me. I don't want to have anything to do with such a God. But + while I cannot conceive of such a God, I do recognize the existence of a + great universal power -- a power which we cannot even begin to comprehend + and might as well not attempt to. It may be a conscious mind, or it may + not. I don't know. As a scientist I should like to know, but as a man, + I am not so vitally concerned." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"As for Christ -- well, he has been most outrageously belied. His followers, + like those of many scientists and literary men, have so garbled his words + and conduct that many of them no longer apply to present life. Christ was + a wonderful psychologist. He was an infidel of his day because he rebelled + against the prevailing religions and government. I am a lover of Christ as + a man, and his work and all things that help humanity, but nevertheless + just as he was an infidel then, I am an infidel today." + [Luther Burbank quoted by Edgar Waite] +% +"If a person's personal religious beliefs are sacred, they + should not be peddled door-to-door like Girl Scout Cookies." + [Marilyn Burge] +% +"The language of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment is at best opaque, + particularly when compared with other portions of the Amendment. Its authors + did not simply prohibit the establishment of a state church or a state + religion, an area history shows they regarded as very important and fraught + with great dangers. Instead they commanded that there should be "no law + respecting an establishment of religion." A law "respecting" the proscribed + result, that is, the establishment of religion, is not always easily + identifiable as one violative of the Clause. A given law might not establish + a state religion but nevertheless be one "respecting" that end in the sense + of being a step that could lead to such establishment and hence offend + the First Amendment." + [Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing for + the majority in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971] +% +"It is hard to say whether the doctors of law or divinity have + made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery." + [Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society, 1757] +% +"Bertrand Russell viewed faith as, on the whole, contemptible. If religious + persons were honest and rational, they would not be religious--with that I + agree. But I'm not certain that it's always the fault of the believer that + he cannot abandon his absurd fairytales and fables. I often view the + religious person not with scorn, but with pity--with the same pity that one + would regard a heroin addict or a delusional psychotic. There comes an odd + sinking in my stomach when someone confesses to me his faith, as if he'd + just told me he was ill with a terminal disease." + [J. S. Burke, "Why Religion Persists"] +% +"It must be admitted that so-called evangelical scholars aren't out to + seek any kind of historical truth about the New Testament; rather, they + are out to justify their narrow literalist interpretations... but in the + light of scholarship more careful and critical than theirs, they should + rightly come to grief, as I did when I first sought to justify my former + Christian beliefs with examination of the scriptures. Almost without + exception, they confuse second-hand accounts with first-hand accounts, + and mere tradition with the pronouncements of apostles. Many uncritically + accept any word of the Church Fathers that could possibly be construed + to support their view. _Ad hoc_ defines evangelical musings on the New + Testament, and I have good doubts about the honesty of anyone who takes + their talk seriously." + [J. S. Burke, "An Examination of the Wellsian Thesis"] +% +"In Biblical terms, my biggest sin is answering the fool. I debate + creationists, evangelical 'scholars', and assorted theists who declare + that _their_ version of the ontological argument works." + [J. S. Burke, Usenet post] +% +"If members of the early Christian church ever came into + contact with any Christian living today, each side would, + no doubt, condemn the other as heretical." + [J. S. Burke, "Why Religion Persists"] +% +"The popular notion that witches were burned is quite false. In fact, no + witches were burned at any time in Salem or anywhere else in America. Nor + were witches by any means all women; in fact, they were not all even human + beings. Two dogs were actually put to death in Salem for 'witchcraft.' + The means of execution in all cases, including the unfortunate dogs, was by + hanging, with one exception: an old man named Giles Corey. ...Corey's death + was by 'pressing'; heavy stones were placed upon his chest in an attempt to + force him to plead [he protected his kin by refusing to plead either way]. + ...Nor was the witchcraft hysteria confined to Salem; Andover, Massachusetts, + was caught up in it before the affair had run its course, and at least one + witch was found in Maine. Salem was not, as a matter of fact, even the first + to hang a witch. An old woman in Boston had confessed to witchcraft and been + hanged in 1688, four years before the first execution in Salem." + [Tom Burnam, The Dictionary of Misinformation, 1975] +% +"Why has a religious turn of mind always a + tendency to narrow and harden the heart?" + [Robert Burns] +% +"God knows, I'm not the thing I should be, + Nor am I even the thing I could be, + But twenty times I rather would be + An atheist clean, + Than under gospel colours hid be + Just a screen." + [Robert Burns, "Epistle + to the Rev. John McMath] +% +"Her people had no gods, only devils - which answer just as good + a purpose among the ignorant and superstitious as do gods among + the educated and superstitious." + [Edgar Rice Burroughs, "Tarzan and the Ant Men"] +% +"Everyone was fooled except Obebe, who was old and wise and did not + believe in river devils, and the witch doctor who was old and wise + and did not believe in them either, but realized that they were + excellent things for his parishioners to believe in." + [Edgar Rice Burroughs, "Tarzan and the Ant Men"] +% +"Science has done more for the development of western civilization in + one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years." + [John Burroughs (1837-1921) + American naturalist, _The Light of Day_] +% +"Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most + serious and significant occupation of his sojourn in the world." + [John Burroughs] +% +"It is always easier to believe than to deny. + Our minds are naturally affirmative." + [John Burroughs] +% +"When I look up into the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what + it is I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'there is no god'." + [John Burroughs (1837-1921) + American naturalist, _The Light of Day_] +% +"Science makes no claim to infallibility; it + leaves that claim to be made by theologians." + [John Burroughs (1837-1921), from Thomas + S. Vernon, Great Infidels, M&M Press, 1989] +% +"In fact they recapitulate the story of Christianity word for word, like the + inevitable course of some unsightly disease: criminal ignorance, brutish + stupidity, self-righteous bigotry, paranoid fear of outsiders. For the + cultist, psychiatrists, the media, Government agencies have become Satan + incarnate. Like the fundamental Christians, they have to be _right_." + [William S. Burroughs] +% +"If you're gonna do business with a religious son of a bitch.. + GET IT IN WRITING. His word ain't worth shit, not with the good + Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal" + [William S. Burroughs, from the CD + "Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales"] +% +"Now Christianity sounded good at first to the naive convert. Love, + peace, and charity - what's wrong with that? I'll tell you what's + wrong - a series of unprecedented horrors perpetrated by so called + Christians: The Inquisition, the Conquistadors, the American Indian + wars, slavery, Hiroshima and the present-day Bible Belt." + [William S. Burroughs] +% +"Any belief in Creators or Purpose is wishful thinking. And when you point + out that perhaps ALL thinking is wishful, reactions of intense irritation + give evidence that we are not dealing with logic but with faith." + [William S. Burroughs] +% +"I think there are innumerable gods. What we on earth call God is + a little tribal God who has made an awful mess. Certainly forces + operating through human consciousness control events." + [William S. Burroughs. Interview in Writers at Work + (Third Series, ed. by George Plimpton, 1967)] +% +"The more I study religions the more I am convinced + that man never worshipped anything but himself" + [Sir Richard F. Burton] +% +"There is no Heaven, there is no Hell; + These are the dreams of baby minds; + Tools of the wily Fetisheer, + To fright the fools his cunning blinds." + [Richard Francis Burton, The Kasidah] +% +"One religion is as true as another." + [Robert Burton (1577-1640), + The Anatomy of Melancholy] +% +"It is a common saying that thought is free. A man can never be hindered from + thinking whatever he chooses so long as he conceals what he thinks. The + working of his mind is limited only by the bounds of his experience and the + power of his imagination. But this natural liberty of private thinking is of + little value. It is unsatisfactory and even painful to the thinker himself, + if he is not permitted to communicate his thoughts to others, and it is + obviously of no value to his neighbors. Moreover it is extremely difficult + to hide thoughts that have any power over the mind. If a man's thinking leads + him to call in question ideas and customs which regulate the behaviour of + those about him, to reject the beliefs which they hold, to see better ways of + life than those they follow, it is almost impossible for him, if he is + convinced of the truth of his own reasoning, not to betray by silence, chance + words, or general attitude that he is different from them and does not share + their opinions. Some have preferred, like Socrates, some would prefer today, + to face death rather than conceal their thoughts. Thus freedom of thought, + in any valuable sense, includes freedom of speech." + [J. B. Bury, "A History of Freedom of Thought", 1913] +% +"[T]he ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and + the decline of ecclesiastical power go together." + [J. B. Bury, "A History of Freedom of Thought," 1913, from + Menendez and Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom] +% +"No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor + should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God." + [Republican Presidential Nominee George Bush, 1987 + to reporter Rob Sherman at Chicago's O'Hare airport] +% +"Abraham Lincoln said he couldn't handle the job except on his knees. + Have you found recourse to God in prayer often in your presidency?" + +"You have to. I don't believe that an atheist could be President of the + United States - anybody that did not have something bigger than himself + or herself. And faith is the answer, and I've said this to friends. To some + degree religion for me has been a private thing. But I can tell you that + when the going is tough, and even when it's not - in our family we say our + prayers. We say our prayers at meals and we say our prayers when we go to + bed. Barbara and I do. But it's something that the more I'm there, the + more I understood what Lincoln meant." + [President George Bush, in a August 27, 1992 "700 Club" interview] +% +"I don't think witchcraft is a religion. I would hope the military + officials would take a second look at the decision they made." + [Texas Governor George W. Bush, on the US military's + decision to allow Wiccans at Fort Hood to practice + their religion, Good Morning America show, June 24, 1999] +% +"Therefore, I, George W. Bush, Governor of Texas, do hereby proclaim + June 10, 2000, Jesus Day in Texas and urge the appropriate recognition + whereof, + In official recognition whereof, + I hereby affix my signature this + 17th day of April, 2000." + [Texas Governor George W. Bush, "Jesus Day 2000" Proclamation] +% + "Our priorities is our faith." +[George W. Bush, Greensboro, N.C., Oct. 10, 2000] +% +"Our new faith-based laws have removed government as + a roadblock to people of faith who hear the call." + [George W. Bush, September, 2000] +% +"Awe is a large flower, but a short-lived one. Besides, when God cracks + a joke or two and clearly hopes you'll ask him over for a drink, you + lose respect. If God wants worship, he'd better stay lonely. If he + wants love, he'll have to eat shit with the rest of us." + [Jack Butler, "Nightshade", p. 107] +% +"God:" The word that comes after "go-cart." + [Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English author] +% +"An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have + heard one side of the case. God has written all the books." + [Samuel Butler, "Notebooks"] +% +"It is death, and not what comes after death, + that men are generally afraid of." + [Samuel Butler] +% +"As an instrument of warfare against vice, or as a tool + for making virtue, Christianity is a mere flint implement." + [Samuel Butler, Note-Books, c. 1890] +% +"Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world + dreams of, but he has wisely refrained from saying whether they are good + things or bad things. It might perhaps be as well if the world were to + dream of, or even become wide awake to, some of the things that are + being wrought by prayer." + [Samuel Butler, _The Way of All Flesh_] +% +"Religion is the interest of the churches + That sell in other worlds in this to purchase." + [Samuel Butler] +% +"Not only were a good many of the revolutionary leaders more deist than + Christian, the actual number of church members was rather small. Perhaps + as few as five percent of the populace were church members in 1776" + [Lynn R. Buzzard, Exec Dir of Christian Legal Society, as quoted in + _They Haven't Got a Prayer_, Elgin IL: David C. Cook, 1982, p. 81] +% +"I fear your Lordship has been reading religious + publications of the sensational and morbid type." + [Donn Byrne, "Tale of the Gypsy Horse"] +% +"Believing is easier than thinking. Hence + so many more believers than thinkers." + [Bruce Calvert] +% +"God foreordained, for His own glory and the display of His attributes + of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of + their own, to eternal salvation and another part, in just punishment + of their sin, to eternal damnation." + [John Calvin, "Institutes of the Christian Religion," 1536] +% +"We are all made of mud, and as this mud is not just on the hem of our + gown, or on the sole our boots, or in our shoes. We are full of it, + we are nothing but mud and filth both inside and outside." + [John Calvin, attacking mankind] +% +"We may rest assured that God would never have suffered + any infants to be slain except those who were already + damned and predestined for eternal death." + [John Calvin, rationalizing the slaughter + of infants in the Old Testament] +% +"No efficiency. No accountability. I tell you, + Hobbes, it's a lousy way to run a universe." + [Calvin & Hobbes comic] +% +"It's hard to be religious when certain people + are never incinerated by bolts of lightning." + [Calvin, "Calvin and Hobes" strip by Bill Waterson] +% +"Mom and dad say I should make my life an example of the principles + I believe in. But every time I do, they tell me to stop it." + [Calvin & Hobbes] +% +Calvin: Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being + dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man? +Hobbes: I'm not sure that man needs the help. + [Calvin & Hobbes comic by Bill Waterson] +% +Calvin: Well. I've decided I *do* believe in Santa Claus, + no matter how preposterous he sounds. +Hobbes: What convinced you? +Calvin: A simple risk analysis. I want presents. *Lots* of presents. + Why risk not getting them over a matter of belief? Heck, + I'll believe anything they want. +Hobbes: How cynically enterprising of you. +Calvin: It's the spirit of Christmas. + [Calvin & Hobbes comic by Bill Waterson] +% +"It does not pay a prophet to be too specific." + [L. Sprague de Camp] +% +"There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but + many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral." + [Rev. Alexander Campbell] +% +"A one sentence definition of mythology? +"Mythology" is what we call someone else's religion." + [Joseph Campbell] +% +"The priests used to say that faith can move mountains, and + nobody believed them. Today the scientists say that they + can level mountains, and nobody doubts them." + [Joseph Campbell] +% +"The night of December 25, to which date the Nativity of Christ was + ultimately assigned, was exactly that of the birth of the Persian savior + Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born the night of + the winter solstice (then dated December 25) at midnight, the instant + of the turn of the year from increasing darkness to light." + [Joseph Campbell, _The Mythic Image_, Bollingen + Series C, Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 33] +% +"...god is a metaphor for that which trancends all + levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that" + [Joseph Campbell, American mythologist (1904-1987)] +% +"Too many of our best scholars, themselves indoctrinated from infancy in a + religion of one kind or another based upon the Bible, are so locked into + the idea of their own god as a supernatural fact - something final, not + symbolic of transcendence, but a personage with a character and will of + his own - that they are unable to grasp the idea of a worship that is not + of the symbol but of its reference, which is of a mystery of much greater + age and of more immediate inward reality than the name-and-form of any + historical ethnic idea of a deity, whatsoever...and is of a sophistication + that makes the sentimentalism of our popular Bible-story theology seem + undeveloped." + [Joseph Campbell, American mythologist (1904-1987)] +% +"What gods are there, what gods have there ever + been, that were not from man's imagination?" + [Joseph Campbell, "Myths to Live By" (1972)] +% +"Creation 'scientists' must be aware that the informed workers in literary + interpretation and in physical and biological sciences regard their stance + as irresponsible, and that in the scholarly world as well as in the schools + they are doing irreparable damage to the Christian cause." + [Prof. Ken Campbell, Australian National University, in + St. Mark's Review 137 (Autumn, 1989) (Anglican)] +% +"I don't know whether this world has a meaning which transcends it. + But I do know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible + for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean + to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch - what resists + me - that is what I understand. And these two certainties - my appetite + for the absolute and for unity, and the impossibility of reducing this + world to a rational and reasonable principle - I also know that I cannot + reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without + bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my + condition?" + [Albert Camus (1913-1960), "The Myth of Sisyphus"] +% +"It is a matter of persisting. At a certain point on his path the absurd + man is tempted. History is not lacking in either religions or prophets, + even without gods. He is asked to leap. All he can reply is that he + doesn't fully understand, that it is not obvious. Indeed, he does not want + to do anything but what he fully understands. He is assured that this is + the sin of pride, but he does not understand the notion of sin; that + perhaps hell is in store, but he has not enough imagination to visualize + that strange future; that he is losing immortal life, but that seems to + him an idle consideration. An attempt is made to get him to admit his + guilt. He feels innocent. To tell the truth, that is all he feels -- + his irreparable innocence. This is what allows him everything. Hence, + what he demands of himself is to live /solely/ with what he knows, to + accommodate himself with what is, and to bring in nothing that is not + certain. He is told that nothing is. But this at least is certainty. + And it is with this that he is concerned: he wants to find out if it + is possible to live without /appeal/." + [Albert Camus, "An Absurd Reasoning"] +% +"If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not + so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another + life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life." + [Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"] +% +"Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable + offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years." + [Criminal Code of Canada sec. 296(1)] +% +"Most religions do not make men better, only warier." + [Elias Canetti] +% +"The Lord is not my shepherd + As I am not a sheep" + [Peter Canning] +% +"But I don't know a soul who doesn't maintain two separate + lists of doctrines - the ones that they believe that they + believe; and the ones that they actually try to live by" + [Orson Scott Card, Jan. 2001, "Shadow of the Hegemon"] +% +"And by the time they took him, it was too late. To raise Peter and + Valentine in our faith. If you don't teach children when they're little, + it's never really inside them. You have to hope they'll come to it later, + on their own. It can't come from the parents, if you don't begin when + they're little." +"Indoctrinating them." +"That's what parenting is," said Mrs. Wiggin. "Indoctrinating your + children in the social patterns that you want them to live by. The + intellectuals have no qualms about using the schools to indoctrinate + our children in their foolishness." + [Orson Scott Card, Jan. 2001, "Shadow of the Hegemon") +% +"U.S. Adults (Gallup): humans didn't evolve, 46 percent; evolution + guided by God, 40; evolution occurred by itself, 10 percent." + [Quoted by Adam L. Carley, Free Inquiry, Fall 1994] +% +"The whole of religion has been one uniform curse to the human race..." + [Richard Carlile, "As to God"] +% +"The enemy with whom I have to grapple is one with whom no peace can be + made. Idolatry will not parley; superstition will not treat on covenant. + They must be uprooted for public and individual safety." + [Richard Carlisle] +% +"I would never want to be a member of a group whose + symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood". + [George Carlin] +% +"We created god in our own image and likeness!" + [George Carlin] +% +"I credit that eight years of grammar school with nourishing me in a + direction where I could trust myself and trust my instincts. They + gave me the tools to reject my faith. They taught me to question and + think for myself and to believe in my instincts to such an extent + that I just said, 'This is a wonderful fairy tale they have going here, + but it's not for me.'" + [George Carlin, in the _New York Times_ 20 August 1995, pg. 17. + He attended Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, but left + during his sophomore year in 1952 and never went back to school. + Before that he attended a Catholic grammar school, Corpus + Christi, which he called "an experimental school."] +% +"If churches want to play the game of politics, + let them pay admission like everyone else" + [George Carlin] +% +"This is a lttle prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. + I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they + might as well have a nice prayer like this: + Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, + thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day + as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation + but deliver us from the twilight's last gleaming. Amen and Awomen." + [George Carlin, on "Saturday Night Live"] +% +"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. + My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on + their own, so both of them together is certain death." + [George Carlin] +% +"Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the + sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't + want you to do or else you'll to to a burning place with a lake of + fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! ...And he needs + money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!" + [George Carlin, on Politically Incorrect, May 29, 1997] +% +"The only good thing ever to come out of religion was the music." + [George Carlin, _Brain Droppings_] +% +"I've begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike + some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every + day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, + light, food, a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't + have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, + I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly + offered to "God" are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"A man came up to me on the street and said "I used to be messed up out of + my mind on drugs but now I'm messed up out of my mind on Jeeesus Chriiist." + [George Carlin] +% +"I have as much authority as the pope, I just + don't have as many people who believe it." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% + "Jesus was a cross dresser" +[George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"I finally accepted Jesus. not as my personal savior, + but as a man I intend to borrow money from." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"Instead of school busing and prayer in schools, which are both controversial, + why not a joint solution? Prayer in buses. Just drive these kids around all + day and let them pray their fuckn' empty little heads off." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"When it comes to BULLSHIT...BIG-TIME, MAJOR LEAGUE BULLSHIT... + you have to stand IN AWE, IN AWE of the all time champion of + false promises and exaggerated claims, religion." + [George Carlin] +% +"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about + it, religion has actually convinced people that there's an INVISIBLE + MAN...LIVING IN THE SKY...who watches every thing you do, every minute + of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten special things + that he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, + he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture + and anguish where he will send to live and suffer and burn and choke and + scream and cry for ever and ever 'til the end of time...but he loves you." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"I want you to know, when it comes to believing in god- I really tried. I + really really tried. I tried to believe that there is a god who created + each one of us in his own image and likeness, loves us very much and + keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe that, but I gotta + tell you, the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you + realize...something is FUCKED-UP. Something is WRONG here. War, disease, + death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption + and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is NOT good + work. If this is the best god can do, I am NOT impressed. Results like + these do not belong on the resume of a supreme being. This is the kind + of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just + between you and me, in any decently run universe, this guy would have + been out on his all-powerful-ass a long time ago." + [George Carlin] +% +"Trillions and trillions of prayers every day asking and begging and pleading + for favors. 'Do this' 'Gimme that' 'I want a new car' 'I want a better job'. + And most of this praying takes place on Sunday. And I say fine, pray for + anything you want. Pray for anything. But...what about the divine plan? + Remember that? The divine plan. Long time ago god made a divine plan. Gave + it a lot of thought. Decided it was a good plan. Put it into practice. And + for billion and billions of years the divine plan has been doing just fine. + Now you come along and pray for something. Well, suppose the thing you want + isn't in god's divine plan. What do you want him to do? Change his plan? + Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a divine plan. What's + the use of being god if every run-down schmuck with a two dollar prayer book + can come along and fuck up your plan? And here's something else, another + problem you might have; suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you + say? 'Well it's god's will. God's will be done.' Fine, but if it gods will + and he's going to do whatever he wants to anyway; why the fuck bother praying + in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me. Couldn't you just + skip the praying part and get right to his will?" + [George Carlin] +% +"You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Joe Pesci. Two reasons; first of all, + I think he's a good actor. Ok. To me, that counts. Second; he looks like + a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn't fuck around. Doesn't + fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that + god was having trouble with. For years I asked god to do something about + my noisy neighbor with the barking dog. Joe Pesci straightened that + cock-sucker out with one visit." + [George Carlin] +% +"I noticed that of all the prayers I used to offer to god, and all the prayers + that I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answer at about the same 50% rate. + Half the time I get what I want. Half the time I don't. Same as god 50/50. + Same as the four leaf clover, the horse shoe, the rabbit's foot, and the + wishing well. Same as the mojo man. Same as the voodoo lady who tells your + fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles. It's all the same; 50/50. So just + pick your superstitions, sit back, make a wish and enjoy yourself. And for + those of you that look to the Bible for it's literary qualities and moral + lessons; I got a couple other stories I might like to recommend for you. You + might enjoy The Three Little Pigs. That's a good one. It has a nice happy + ending. Then there's Little Red Riding Hood. Although it does have that one + x-rated part where the Big-Bad-Wolf actually eats the grandmother. Which I + didn't care for, by the way. And finally, I've always drawn a great deal of + moral comfort from Humpty Dumpty. The part I liked best: ...and all the + king's horses, and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. + That's because there is no Humpty Dumpty, and there is no god. None. + Not one. Never was. No god." + [George Carlin] +% +"Religion is kind of like wearing lifts in your shoes. If it helps + you to feel better about yourself or whatever, fine, I don't have + a problem with that. Just don't ask me to wear your shoes." + [George Carlin] +% +"Here's another question I've been pondering- What is all this shit about + Angels? Have you herd this? 3 out of 4 people believe in Angels. Are you + FUCKING STUPID? Has everybody lost their mind? You know what I think it is? + I think it's a massive, collective, psychotic chemical flashback for all + the drugs smoked, swallowed, shot, and absorbed rectally by all Americans + from 1960 to 1990. 30 years of street drugs will get you some fucking + Angels my friend! + + What about Goblins, huh? Doesn't anybody believe in Goblins? You never + hear about this.. Except on Halloween and then it's all negative shit. + And what about Zombies? You never hear from Zombies! That's the trouble + with Zombies, they're unreliable! I say if you're going to go for the + Angel bullshit you might as well go for the Zombie package as well.." + [George Carlin, "You are all Diseased"] +% +"I used to be Irish Catholic, now i'm American. You know, you grow" + [George Carlin] +% +"God -- + it's a wonderful idea. + It's a nice fantasy. + It's a way of keeping people in line. + It's a way of controlling people. + There is as much proof of the existence of God -- + or even evidence, forget proof. + There's as much evidence for the existence of God as + there is for the existence for UFSs and extraterrestrials. + And yet, if you mention them for a moment, you're + considered outside, beyond the pale, you're a kook, + you're marginalized, you're crazy. + If you mention -- + if you don't love God, then you're -- + there's something wrong with you." + [George Carlin, on the "Politically Incorrect show, 5/16/2001 + http://abc.go.com/primetime/politicallyincorrect/ + transcripts/transcript_20010516.html] +% +"Never attribute to Devil-worshipping conspiracies what opportunism, + emotional instability, and religious bigotry are sufficient to explain." + [Shawn Carlson, Ph.D.] +% +"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] +% +"Just in the ratio knowledge increases, faith decreases." + [Thomas Carlyle, English writer] +% +"Having a reasonable grounding in statistics and probability and + no belief in luck, fate, karma, or god(s), the only casino game + that interests me is blackjack." + [John Carmack, programmer/cofounder + of id software. (Doom, Quake)] +% +"That's why the religious people are so freaked out about the + Internet, not because of the smut but because NO religion can + stand up to access to information." + [Robert Carr, Lamprey Systems + http://members.aol.com/lampreysys/index.html] +% +"I don't believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man + to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life." + [Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919] +% +"How do you steam clams? Make fun of their religion." + [Johnny Carson, stand-up monologue + on NBC's "The Tonight Show"] +% +"I'm not in favor of the government mandating a prayer in school because our + country was founded on the fact that no particular religious faith would + have ascendance over or preferential treatment over any other." + [U.S. President Jimmy Carter] +% +"I realized that a psychological need for belief also + resulted from childhood indoctrination, and that it + had all the characteristics of addiction." + [Neal Cary, American Atheists + National Outreach Director] +% +"Take a hard look at the Grand Canyon. Try to explain that through evolution." + [Freddie Cash, net.fundie.idiot] +% +"You know, having finally met the Good Lord, I think I can honestly say + that He's a bit of a prick." +"Yeah, I know. Son of a bitch keeps running away from me." + [Cassidy and Custer, "Preacher" comics] +% +"I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the + ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure. [Jesus Christ]" + [Fidel Castro, Cuban communist leader] +% +"Both the Magisterium of the Church...and the moral sense of the + faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that + masturbation is an intrisically and gravely disordered action. + The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, + outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." + ["Catechism of the Catholic Church", 1994] +% +"We [Catholics] are also under an obligation to keep secrets faithfully. + And sometimes the easiest way to fulfill that duty is to say what is + false, or to tell a lie." + [Catholic Encyclical X, 195] +% +"So that a false statement knowingly made to one who has a + right to the truth will not be a lie." + [Catholic Encyclical IX, 471] +% +"If, therefore, the Catholic Church also claims the right of dogmatic + intolerance with regard to her teachings, it is unjust to reproach her + for exercising this right...She regards dogmatic intolerance not alone + as her contestable right, but also as a sacred duty...According to + Romans 8:11, the secular authorities have the right to punish, especially + grave crimes with death; consequently, 'heretics may be not only + excommunicated, but also justly put to death.'" + [The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 Edition, Vol. 14, pp.776,768] +% +"I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in + the hands of the rulers not only the civil, but also the religious power." + [Caius Valerius Catullus, Roman poet 87-54 BC] +% + Here in hell's hammock just thinking up deviltry + planet-wide panic's a hat that's so old + i'd rather write about her in my diary + could she be mine without selling her soul + dirty deeds from a demon seed + don't excite me any more + is there one girl, just one girl who says + i'm bigger than jesus now + and i love her + i'm bigger than jesus now + up above her + i'm stage dining off the church of the holier than thou + and i'm bigger than jesus now + + he's got his uptight white virginal followers + i've got these metal chicks dumber than rocks + dated one once but i hated the music + and all her ex-boyfriends were there on the bus + it's never good to be "understood" + by a girl in acid wash + and god only knows what it is that i really want + guess i could ask but he's not the best confidant + puts me down in the biblical sense + in this basement apartment with hell-to-pay rent + is there one girl, just one girl who says.... + + [The Caulfields, "Devil's Diary"] +% +"I hear stories from the chamber, + how Christ was born into a manger, + like some ragged stranger. + He died upon the cross, and might I say, + it seems so fitting in its way, + he was a carpenter by trade, + or at least that's what I'm told." + [Nick Cave "The Mercy Seat"] +% +"This is my religious problem: it would be wonderful to believe in the most + fundamental way. It would make life easier, it would explain everything, it + would give meaning where none is apparent, it would make tragedies bearable. + If I went to a revival meeting, I have no doubt I could be one of the first + to go down on his knees. It seems as if the only religion worth having is the + simplest possible religion. But something about the fact that all it takes to + make it so is deciding it IS so puts me off. Knowing it could instantly make + me much happier makes it somehow unworthy of having." + [Dick Cavett interview, on his lack of religious faith] +% +"...I hope there is a God for Grandpa Richards's sake, + but don't much care if there is one for mine." + [Cavett by Dick Cavett and Christopher Porterfield + (New York: Bantam Books, 1974), pp. 56-7. Cavett's + grandfather was a fundamentalist Baptist minister] +% +"The order of creation in the Bible is woefully incorrect and + violates even the most simple and obvious rules of natural science." + [Charles Cazeau, U.S. professor of geology] +% +"Taking its root in the lower classes, the religion continues to spread + among the vulgar: nay, one can even say it spreads because of its vulgarity + and the illiteracy of its adherents. And while there are a few moderate, + reasonable, and intelligent people who interpret its beliefs allegorically, + yet it thrives in its purer form among the ignorant." + [Celsus, on the spread of Christianity, + _True Discourse_, c. 170 CE] +% +"Christians, it is needless to say, utterly detest each other. They + slander each other constantly with the vilest forms of abuse and cannot + come to any sort of agreement in their teaching. Each sect brands its + own, fills the head of its own with deceitful nonsense, and makes + perfect little pigs of those it wins over to its side." + [Celsus (2nd Century C.E.)] +% +"By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none." + [Charlie Chaplin, in "Manual of a Perfect Atheist" by Rius] +% +"We found that we didn't have much problem with him [J.C.], + it was his followers we found questionable". + [Graham Chapman, discussing making of "Life of Brian"] +% +"Kneeling is not an heroic attitude. It more becomes the fearful slave + than the brave free man.....These stories of men becoming pious when + terrified confirm our conviction that fear begot the gods." + [Charles ??, in The Truth Seeker, July 1942] +% +"Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and demand. + The less of either the people have, the less they want." + [Charlotte Observer, 1897] +% +"In God we rust." +[Gordon Charrick] +% +"It is usually when men are at their most religious that they + behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty." + [Ilka Chase] +% +"One must be impressed by the zealous concern of today's consumer for what he + consumes. there has been a veritable renaissance of such interest in light of + the current realization that many products do not live up to their names and + claims. But it is not yet widely recognized that religion, like many of these + products, also can be useless and even dangerous, at least from a psychiatric + point of view...I am concerned, therefore, with the effects that religion can + be shown to have on mental health as well as on mental illness." + [Eli S. Chese] +% +"I am not espousing atheism or any other religious stance. I am merely setting + down a series of conclusions based upon the observations of case histories + that are representative of literally thousands of others..they are, rather, + typical cases seen every day in the offices of privately practicing + psychiatrists and on the wards of most mental health facilities. ...The range + of emotional difficulty in these patients varies from the existence of subtle + disturbances to major ones in which at times the person does not know who he + is but, rather, thinks that he is Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, or God. + In each instance... tenacious religious beliefs can be an active thread + interwoven into the tapestry of a disturbed thinking process..." + [Eli S. Chese] +% +"This world was not molded by a supreme being, and + anyone who thinks so is just full of themselves." + [ChesterNutzo@yahoo.com, more at his + website: http://chesternutzo.8m.com/] +% +"To downgrade the human mind is bad theology." + [C. K. Chesterton] +% +"The villa's and the chapel's where + I learned with little labor + The way to love my fellow man + And hate my next-door neighbor." + [C. K. Chesterton] +% +"From time to time, as we all know, a sect appears in our midst announcing + that the world will very soon come to an end. Generally, by some slight + confusion or miscalculation, it is the sect that comes to an end." + [G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)] +% +"Let's leave religion to the televangelists. + After all, they're the professionals." + [Cheviot, "Max Headroom"] +% +"My answers are in a blade of grass, in a swath of cobalt blue sky, in + the intricacies of language and social interaction, in glowing dots on + a phosphor screen, in the stratified remains of an Israeli tell, in the + procession of the equinoxes, in the genetic makeup of drosophilia.... + They are physical, touchable, testable and repeatable. Not one of these + answers requires a supernatural force to sustain it or justify it." + ["Chib" on Usenet] +% +"...once a person admits to not believing in God, this raises the + question of whether or not that person believes in America...." + [Chief spokesman for national office of the Boy Scouts] +% +"Worship the gods as if they were present." + [Motto inscribed on door of Chinese temple] +% +"The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history" + [Noam Chomsky] +% +"When society is in decline, people are bound to turn to belief + in gods; when a man is foolish, he eagerly prays for good luck." + [Wang Chong (A.D. 27-91), early Chinese materialist + philosopher, quoted in "China Reconstructs", Feb. 1988, p. 60] +% +"Knowing what to render unto Caesar and what unto God requires wisdom of + any president. Candidates who reduce religion to a sound bite may not + understand that....[W]e hope the candidates exercise restraint by wearing + religion more in their heart than on their sleeves. The US, after all, + is electing a president, not a preacher, who will run a country, not a + church. Faith is a personal guide best seen in action." + [Christian Science Monitor editorial on the 2000 elections] +% +"Laughter does not seem to be a sin, but it leads to sin." + [St. John Chrysostom, "Homilies"] +% +"Among all the savage beasts, none is so bestial as the woman." + [St. John Chrysostom] +% +"We must not hold back in the battle for children's minds" + [Church of England spokesman] +% +"Today, Jesus' name is used to divide us, to make us intolerant, + bigoted, hateful. There is nowhere Jesus could be born today + were he would feel comfortable. Jesus is being betrayed by the + people who claim to believe in him." + [F. Forrester Church, Unitarian minister and author of + _God and Other Famous Liberals_, quoted in Life Magazine, + Dec. 1994 "Jesus" issue] +% + "History aside, the almost universal opinion that one's own religious +convictions are the reasoned outcome of a dispassionate evaluation of all the +major alternatives is almost demonstrably false for humanity in general. If +that really were the genesis of most people's convictions, then one would +expect the major faiths to be distributed more or less randomly or evenly over +the globe. But in fact they show a very strong tendency to cluster...which +illustrates what we all suspected anyway: that social forces are the primary +determinants of religious belief for people in general. To decide scientific +questions by appeal to religious orthodoxy would therefore be to put social +forces in place of empirical evidence..." + [Paul Churchland,"_Matter and Consciousness: A + Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind_] +% +"I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh + whenever he sees another soothsayer." + [Marcus Tullius Cicero] +% + "Tuez-les tous! Dieu reconnaitra les siens!" +"Kill them all; for the Lord knoweth them that are His." + [Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux and Papal Legate, 1209, + referring to 2 Tim. 2.19, when asked how to distinguish + between Catholics and Cathars by Crusaders attacking the + city of Beziers. Story by Caesarius of Heisterbach in + "Dialogue on Miracles", also "Broadview Book of Medieval + Anecodotes", p. 227-228] +% +"Well, I'm all packed and ready to go. I'm an aged agnostic, + unafraid of death and undeluded with thoughts of life hereafter." + [Gregory Clark] +% +"In the relationship between man and religion, the state + is firmly committed to a position of neutrality." + [Thomas Campbell Clark] +% +"...[T]his court has rejected unequivocally the contention that the + Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment] forbids only + governmental preference of one religion over another." + [Justice Tom Clark, lead opinion, School Dist. of + Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 US 203 (1963)] +% +"It is insisted that, unless the [practices of school prayer] are permitted, + a 'religion of secularism' is established in the schools. We agree, of + course, that the State may not establish a 'religion of secularism' in + the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus + 'preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe' + Zorach v. Clauson supra at 314. We do not agree, however, that this + decision in any sense has that effect." + [Justice Tom Clark, Opinion for the Court in School + District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. + Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) at 255.] +% +"It may be that our role on this planet is + not to worship God, but to create him." + [Arthur C. Clarke] +% +"You don't believe in organized religion, yet a major theme + in so many of your works seems to be a quest for God." + +"Yes, in a way--a quest for ultimate values, whatever they are. + My objection to organized religion is the premature conclusion + to ultimate truth that it represents..." + [Arthur C. Clarke, in _Playboy_ interview with Ken Kelly, + 1986, from _Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography_ + by Neil McAleer, Contemporary Books, 1992] +% +"You will find men like him in all of the world's religions. They know + that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may + be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not + necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. + Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving + its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the + nonexistance of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now." + [Arthur C. Clarke, "Childhood's End"] +% +"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] +% +"A faith that cannot survive collision with + the truth is not worth many regrets." + [Arthur C. Clarke] +% +"The statement that God created man in his own image is ticking + like a time bomb in the foundations of Christianity." + [Arthur C. Clarke] +% +"I have encountered a few "creationists" and because they were usually + nice, intelligent people, I have been unable to decide whether they + were _really_ mad, or only pretending to be mad. 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," pp 1532-3] +% +"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." + [Arthur C. Clarke, "Clarke's Third Law" from "Profiles of + the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible"] +% +"When I was last in New York I met Woody Allen and I agree with him: "I'm + not frightened of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens.' + When I joined the RAF they put me down as C of E. I got hold of the man + handling the paperwork and made them change it to "pantheist'. Now I say + I'm a crypto-Buddhist, but I'm anti-mysticism and I have a long-standing + bias against organised religion. I don't believe in God or an afterlife." + [Arthur C. Clarke, interview, http://www.smh.com.au/ + news/0012/21/entertainment/entertain1.html] +% +"If only more Christians read their bibles there'd be less Christians." + [Derek W. Clayton] +% +"For what is hairy is by nature drier and warmer than what is bare; + therefore, the male is hairier and more warm blooded than the female; + the uncastrated, than the castrated; the mature than the immature." + [Clement of Alexandria, church father, Paedagogus 3.3] +% +"Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman." + [St. Clement of Alexandria from The Tutor, as quoted + in "The Natural Inferiority" of Women compiled by + Tama Starr (New York: Poseidon Press, 1991) p. 45.] +% +"Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative + positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our + civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours." + [Grover Cleveland, 1905] +% +"Saying your prayers could be a health hazard according to a report in the + Medical Journal of Australia. Dr. Margaret T. Taylor traced a case of lead + poisoning to the rosary beads an eight-year-old girl was in the habit of + kissing. Dr. Taylor suggested that lead poisoning from the same source could + account for anemia among nuns and other members of the Catholic faith." + [Cleveland Press, as quoted in _True Facts_] +% +"It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to + believe anything upon insufficient evidence." + [W. K. Clifford essay + "The Ethics of Belief"] +% +"If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of + afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in + his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men + that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those + questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it--the life + of that man is one long sin against mankind. " + [W. K. Clifford, "Ethics of Belief"] +% +"We are a people of faith. We have been so secure in that faith + that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people + who profess no faith. And good for us for doing so. That is + what the First Amendment is all about. " + [Pres. Bill Clinton] +% +"Sometimes I think the environment in which we operate is too secular. + That fact that we have freedom of religion doesn't mean we need to try + to have freedom from religion. It doesn't mean that those of us who + have faith shouldn't frankly admit that we are animated by that faith." + [Pres. Bill Clinton] +% +"The Bible is the authoritative Word of God and contains all truth." + [Pres. Bill Clinton, at a prayer breakfast] +% +"I ask you this whole week to pray for me and pray for the members of + Congress; ask us not to turn away from our ministry. Our ministry is + to do the work of God here on earth" + [Pres. Bill Clinton] +% +"One of the ugly realities of this world is that it is possible to grow + old without ever learning anything besides religious superstitions." + [Clothaire] +% +"Thou shalt have one God only; who would be at the expense of two?" + [Arthur Hugh Clough, The Latest Decalogue] +% +"You read the Bible in your own special ways + you're fond of quoting certain things it says + Mouth full of righteousness and wrath from above + When do we hear about forgiveness and love?" + [Bruce Cockburn, "Gospel of Bondage"] +% +"If life were to be found on a planet, then it would also have + been contaminated by original sin and would require salvation." + [Piero Coda, theology professor in Rome, in a statement to + the Vatican, as reported by Ecumenical News International] +% +"A Roman Catholic priest and theologian has called on his church to + consider the possibility of evangelizing extraterrestrials, according + to published reports. After two Swiss astronomers said they had + discovered the first planet in a solar system similar to Earth's, + Piero Coda, a theology professor in Rome, said any beings living + on the planet would be in need of salvation." + [Associated Baptist Press article, as quoted Jennifer Graham, + Knight-Ridder Newspaper, in "Mork from Ork is going to hell? Some + scholars say extraterrestrials would be tainted by original sin."] +% +"There is no 'Complete Idiots Guide to + Creationism,' but perhaps one is not needed." + [Andrei Codrescu, on NPR Aug. 25, 1999, monologue + on the "Complete Idiot" and "For Dummies" books] +% +"The devil and God are components of a Siamese twin. Neither has any + existence apart from the other. In denying the existence of the one, + Christians have helped to kill the other. If there need to be no fear + of hell, people may well ask what is the attraction of heaven? Gods and + devils were born together. Gods and devils will die together." + [Chapman Cohen, "The Devil", Pamphlets for the People, no. 6] +% +"Regularity in Nature is not proof of the control of Nature by a Divine + intelligence; it is rather the reverse. If something- call it matter, + or ether, or x - exists, it must operate in accordance with its innate + qualities; and so long as this x remains uncontrolled, its manifestations + will continue unchallenged- in other words, there will be "order". The + same causes, the same results. That is the manifest signs of a natural + "order" that knows nothing of God." + [Chapman Cohen] +% +"Now, primitive man is neither a metaphysician nor an idealist. He does not + concern himself with the origin and destiny of the universe, nor even with + its nature, except so far as his necessities compel him to form some + conclusions as to the nature of the forces around him. His gods are in no + sense a creation of an "idealising faculty," they are the most concrete + matter-of-fact expressions. It is not even a question of morality. He does + not say, "Let us make gods in the interest of morality and the higher life"; + it is the sheer pressure of facts upon an uninformed mind that leads him to + believe in those extra-natural beings, whose anger he is bound to placate." + [Chapman Cohen] +% +"Freethinkers who accompany their statement of unbelief with a "wistful + regret"... express their unbelief in so mournful a manner as to furnish + some little support to the religious theorist. But the fully-fledged + Atheist will not live up to the character. Instead of weeping, he laughs. + Instead of being miserable, he is happy. Instead of regretting the loss + of his old faith, he unblushingly declares his joy of having got rid of it. + Insted of being grateful for the sympathy of the Christian, he confounds + his impertinence and expresses his sympathy with the deluded believer by + seeking to convince him of the error of his ways." + [Chapman Cohen] +% +"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by + a whiff of science or a dose of common sense." + [Chapman Cohen] +% +"Who knows the origin of religion? Certainly not the one who + believes in it. Understanding and belief are quite antagonistic. + The man who understands religion does not believe in it, the + man who believes in it does not understand it." + [Chapman Cohen, "Essays in Freethinking"] +% +"If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good." + [Morris Cohen] +% +"A whole generation started the day with prayer and ended up not + benefiting very much from it. After all, it was not 7-year-olds + who gathered stoned and naked at Woodstock." + [Richard Cohen] +% +"Ignorance is the mother of devotion." + [Dean Henry Cole] +% +"He who begins by loving Christianity more than Truth, will proceed + by loving his sect or church better than Christianity, and end in + loving himself better than all." + [Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English poet, critic. + Aids to Reflection, "Moral and Religious Aphorisms," aph. 25 + (1825; repr. in Works, vol. 1, ed. by Professor Shedd, 1853)] +% +"To doubt has more of faith ... than that blank negation + of all such thoughts and feelings which is the lot of + the herd of church-and-meeting trotters." + [Samuel Taylor Coleridge] +% +"Christianity demands entire subordination to its edicts. + Until the majority of the people are emancipated from + authority over their minds, we are not safe." + [Lucy Colman, abolitionist, in her autobiography, + "Reminiscences" (1891), p. 7, from James A. Haught, + ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"A religion that has a personal God, outside of humanity, to worship and to + please, is quite apt to get appointed an official to regulate the people, + and particularly to execute punishment adequate to the offense committed + against an Infinite Ruler of the Universe. Humanity so likes authority, + it seems sometimes as if it gloated upon the sufferings of its fellows." + [Lucy Colman] +% +"We are approaching a time when Christians, especially, may have to + declare the social contract between Enlightenment rationalists and + biblical believers -- which formed the basis of the Constitution written + at our nation's founding-- null and void because it has been breached." + [Charles Colson, ex-Watergate crook/prison evangelist] +% +"He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, + but by no means that he was not a fool." + [Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832), + English author & clergyman, "Lacon"] +% +"Some reputed saints that have been canonized ought to have been cannonaded." + [Charles Caleb Colton, "Lacon", from James A. + Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"All theological tendencies, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Deist, really + serve to prolong and aggravate our moral anarchy, because they hinder the + diffusion of that social sympathy and breadth of view without which we can + never attain fixity of principle and regularity of life." + [August Comte, from "General View of + Positivism," a published speech] +% +"I told the priest- + "don't count on + any second coming. + God got his ass kicked + the first time he + came down here slumming + He had the balls to come, + the gall to die and then + forgive us- + No, I don't wonder why + I wonder what he thought + it would get us." + [Concrete Blonde, "tomorrow, Wendy" + from "Bloodletting" album, 1991] +% +"Do unto another what you would have him do unto you, and do not + do unto another what you would not have him do unto you. Thou + needest this law alone. It is the foundation of all the rest." + [Confucious' version of the "Golden Rule", + predating the Christian version by 500 years] +% +"(9) Phyllis receives Holy Communion this morning without fasting. For the + past five weeks she has been a patient in the hospital. She is not in + danger of death, and will not be discharged from the hospital for a week + or ten days. At 7:00 o'clock [sic] this morning the nurse gave her a glass + of orange juice and some medicine; at 8 o'clock she enjoyed a glass of milk. + The priest came with Holy Communion at 8:30 and permits [sic] her to receive + without fasting. Please explain matters." + [Connell, Rev. Francis J., C.SS.R., S.T.D. The New Confraternity + Edition Revised Baltimore Catechism No. 3. The Text of the official + revised edition, 1949, with summarizations of doctrine and study helps. + Benziger Bros. Inc., New York, 1949. Study Helps, page 220] +% +"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; + men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." + [Joseph Conrad] +% +"For every age is fed on illusions, lest men should + renounce life early, and the human race come to an end." + [Joseph Conrad] +% +"Skepticism... is the agent of truth." + [Joseph Conrad] +% +"Christianity has lent itself with amazing facility + to cruel distortion . . . and has brought an infinity + of anguish to innumerable souls on this earth." + [Joseph Conrad (Korzeniowski), Polish-born + English author (1857-1924)] +% +"And I just want to say...anyone who quotes the bible...that's bullshit. + Because the bible is a book that has fucked up the world more than any + other single book. A book that was written by a bunch of male chauvinists." + [Consolidated, "Dominion"] +% +"No person who denies the being of God shall hold any + office [in] the civil departments of this State, nor + be competent to testify as a witness in any court." + [Constitution of the State of Arkansas, Art. 19, + Sec.1; violates the US Constitutional prohibition + against religious tests for public office, and + was ignored by Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton] +% +"Surprisingly, recent research suggests that a religious person is more likely + to commit a crime than a non-religious person. One can even argue that the + more religious the society, the more likely it is to have high crime rates." + ["Religion and Crime: Do They Go Together?", by Lisa Conyers + and Philip D. Harvey, Summer 1996 issue of _Free Inquiry_] +% +"In the beginning, God created the Baptists. And the Baptists looked + at themselves and said: We good. And God saw it was too late. And + on the 8th day God said, OK Murphy, you take over. I disbelieved + in reincarnation in my last life, too." + [coolsig.com website, August 4, 1999] +% +"Surely, it would be fascinating to have a real encounter with + another intelligence [i.e., an alien]. I think we'd have to + consider whether we should baptize him." + [Rev. Chris Corbally, Catholic astronomer, scientist] +% +"Screw guilt, I could have sex with 10 men and it + wouldn't bother me, I'm an atheist!" + [Adam Corolla, host of MTV's "Loveline" show, + responding to a licensed minister who couldn't + suppress his feelings of homosexuality] +% +"As "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make one drink," so also, + "You can drag a Christian to the truth, but you can't make one think." + [Delmar Coughlin] +% +"The problem with Protestantism is that it's not + quite silly enough to be rejected out of hand." + [R. Craig Coulter] +% +"I am a prophet sent by God to declare the destruction + of the United States because of abortion." + [Michael Courtney, net.fundie] +% +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, Poem 96 + from _War_Is_Kind_, 1899] +% +"Why does god cause tornados and train wrecks?" + [Crash Test Dummies] +% +"Out of your palaces, princes and queens + Out of your churches, you clergy, you christs + I'll neither live nor die for your dreams + I'll make no subscription to your paradise + JESUS DIED FOR HIS OWN SINS, NOT MINE" + [Crass] +% +"When God the Son squeezed energy into atoms, he squeezed and held the atom so + tightly that there were no unstable elements and therefore no radioactivity. + At the fall [of Adam and Eve], He relaxed His grip slightly... which affected + every atom and allowed some to become unstable, i.e., radioactivity! + [Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1982] +% +"Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. + For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are + told--and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The + characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the + characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for + territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings + fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, + which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when + our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume + we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. + Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion." + [Michael Crichton in "The Lost World"] +% +"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a + woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of + the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?" + [Quentin Crisp] +% +"It was man who first made men believe in gods." + [Critias (480-403 B.C.E.)] +% +"Philosophy removes from religion all reason for existing." + [Benedetto Croce, "Aesthetic", quoted by Will Durant] +% +"Keep your faith in God, but keep your powder dry." + [Oliver Cromwell] +% +"I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on awaking; I drank + and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning." + [Aleister Crowley, _The Book of Lies_] +% +"If one were to take the bible seriously, one would go mad. + But to take the bible seriously, one must be already mad." + [Aleister Crowley] +% +"There are no atheists in the foxholes." + [William Thomas Cummings, + _Field_Sermon_on_Bataan_ (1942)] +% +"The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is + that someday they might force their beliefs on us." + [Mario Cuomo] +% +"If the theists all shut up, the + gods would be speechless." + [Robert Curry, on HolySmoke] +% +"Virgins give birth all the time! + Yeah. They just don't tip the stork." + [Robert Curry] +% +"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: + Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners... But for + that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me... Jesus + Christ might display His unlimited patience as an example + for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. + Now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, + be honor and glory forever and ever." + [Jeffrey Dahmer, convicted serial killer, in a statement + to the court, Milwaukee, WI, February 17, 1992] +% +"The great danger of these religious charlatans lies in their unremitting + attack on the separation of church and state in an effort to legislate + their theological beliefs. Whether they are motivated from the desire for + personal aggrandizement and greed, or sincere but misplaced superstition, + they pose a very real danger to the liberties of all Americans." + [Joseph L. Daleiden, "The Final Superstition: A Critical + Evaluation of Judeo-Christian Legacy", p.439] +% +"Despite the suppression of thought, as humankind became more sophisticated + in its knowledge of the workings of nature, it was only natural that some + people began to question the efficacy of the priests and their magical + rituals. Indeed, as people became aware of natural causes, they began to + question the very existence of the gods themselves. The priests' answer to + this skepticism was twofold: invoking the power of the state to exterminate + dangerous freethought, and concurrently developing even more complex, + serpentine, theological logic. Many philosophers were not taken in by this + specious reasoning. They demonstrated that, fundamentally, all theology and + metaphysics is pseudolearning, a semantic sleight of hand to give the + appearance that superstitious beliefs have an intellectual, rational + foundation. They further showed that, by definition, God, if he existed, + would be unknowable. Yet theology--bolstered by the semantic alchemy of + metaphysics--attempted to discuss God as if he could be discovered by + reason or experience." + [Joseph L. Daleiden, "The Final Superstition: A Critical + Evaluation of Judeo-Christian Legacy", p.385] +% +"In the final analysis all theology, whether Christian or otherwise, is a + marvelous exercise in logic based on premises that are no more verifiable-- + or reasonable-- than astrology, palmistry, or belief in the Easter Bunny. + Theology pretends to search for truth, but no method could lead a person + farther away from the truth than that intellectual charade. The purpose of + theology is first and foremost to perpetuate the religious status quo. + Religion, in turn, seeks to maintain the social stability necessary for + its own preservation." + [Joseph L. Daleiden, "The Final Superstition: A Critical + Evaluation of Judeo-Christian Legacy", p.386] +% +"One does not need to puzzle long over why religionists hate atheists so + venomously. Atheist stir up the suppressed doubts of believers to the point + of producing anguish. This is the anguish that incited believers to burn + heretics and atheists at the stake in olden times to remove the source of + the unsettling, disturbing doubts that plagued the believers." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Most atheist do waste their lives battling against the unconquerable monster + of religion--a monster impervious to the spears of reason, impenetrable by + the bullets of logic, and insensible to even the thrust of common sense." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"You make money promoting religion; you only spend money promoting atheism." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The positive and negative reinforcements of religion verses atheism + tell quite a story. First of all, most religions promise you Heaven + and promise that your enemies will be punished in Hell. What these + promises amount to is an assurance of justice, one of humankind's + greatest longings. Atheism promises nothing." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Everybody's life is a tragedy but the life of an atheist seems especially + tragic. When the atheist dies he realizes that his whole life was in + vain, that he entered a world that reeked with the stench of religion and + leaves it still holding his nose." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"People like the authority figures and moral absolutes of religion to guide + them so they can know the right path to trod in a very confusing world. + They like to feel that they are walking on the solid rock of infallible + religion rather than on the shifting sands of tentative science and moral + relativity. People also like the warm, loving acceptance by religious + groups, and emotional fulfillment that gives them a closer feeling to God + and their church. And mysticism just by itself seems to fulfill a deep, + primitive emotional need for most humans." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The average person in fulfilling his need to believe, in yielding to + the urge of his herd instinct and in reaping the many advantages religion + offers is following the path of the least resistance and greatest reward." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The religionists apologize that although the Bible was inspired by God, + it was, unfortunately, written by ancient, ignorant, half-civilized people." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Immature and defenseless children are early indoctrinated with religious + ideas by their parents, grandparents, Sunday school teachers, etc. By + adulthood they become convinced that they possess the truth, and spend + the rest of their lives elaborating and defending their religion." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Pragmatists are correct in observing that people fare better in any society + by accepting the society's religion, mores, values; by conforming rather + than by dissenting. People living in a religious community find that they + fit in better, adjust more easily, prosper better, feel more secure and + are happier if they accept the prevailing religion." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The common behavior of believers in proclaiming their beliefs + repetitiously and with emotional intensity is in itself evidence of doubt. + They wish to overwhelm their doubts with decibels and iteration." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"It logically follows that the small sects, which feel the most + alone and least supported in their views, work the hardest for + new converts to dispel their nagging doubts." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"People, upon finding the "truth," spend the remainder of their lives + defending it. Christianity protects itself against the doubting of its + theology by making doubting one of its greatest sins. By contrast, + doubting is the greatest virtue of science." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Liberals who have actually read the Bible rationalize their adherence + to Christianity by saying that the Bible doesn't really mean what it + says. In calling themselves Christians, they are appropriating a + hallowed name and applying it to a made-up religion of their own." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Personal dishonesty seems to be a necessary basis for religion. That + is understandable. Children are indoctrinated with a code of behavior + that is instinctually impossible to follow. So they regularly violate + the code and to avoid punishment cover up the violations by lying. + For them, lying becomes part of their religion." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"From the earliest Christian times, the Church has defended itself against + exposure of its fraudulent nature by persecuting scientist, torturing + dissidents, censoring literature, burning blasphemers, brainstuffing the + laity--in every way possible keeping the populace steeped in ignorance, + terrorized by fear and subjugated to the Church." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Even a religion like Christianity purportedly created to + champion the poor and downtrodden was later taken over by + the rich and powerful for their own benefit." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"It logically follows that if Christianity is true, then reason + if false. If human reason is false, how does one account for + the great marvels created by science based on human reason?" + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven + has certainly made us two gifts not only incompatible, but in direct + contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are + compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Believers are interested in fulfilling emotional and spiritual needs, not + intellectual needs. In some cases one might as well try to use reason an + a dog. For many people God is primarily a warm feeling. How can one argue + with a warm feeling. Arguing with someone who places reason below faith + and biblical authority is blowing against the wind." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"One finds it inexplicable that an all-powerful God would try to make his + will known to the world by revealing himself to such few people. It + was revelation only to those few; to the rest of the world and future + generations it was hearsay--passed by word of mouth for many generations. + Yet such hearsay is the very foundation of Judeo-Christianity." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"One wonders why God would choose a Bible to reveal himself + thousands of years before the invention of the printing + press and at a time when few people could read." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"While God routinely punishes the innocent, he perversely rewards the guilty. + According to one Christian scheme of salvation the worst sinners, no matter + how much raping, robbing, swindling, murdering and mutilating they have done + in their rotten lifetime, can get into Heaven by merely acknowledging God's + son Jesus as their Savior; they can enjoy eternal bliss right along with + good people who have earned it." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The advances of science have not been accepted gracefully. They have + been denounced by the church and resisted by the populace. The leaders + of scientific discovery have been vilified, harassed, persecuted, tortured, + imprisoned and executed. But the weight of evidence and practical results + piled up by science is invincible--something that many of today's + fundamentalists still haven't learned." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"With science unable to give us the answers, religion steps in and fills + the gap of our ignorance with nonsense, fantasies and pretentious lies. + Prophets and priests rush in where scientists fear to tread." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Religionists claim that their truth is absolute and rock solid, while + scientists concede that their truth is tentative and relative." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"God, being accredited as responsible for everything we cannot + explain otherwise, becomes the symbol of our ignorance." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"What could be more negative thinking than belief that sex and procreation, + without which there could be no life on Earth, are dirty and sinful! Our + obsession with sex and morality has produced a sexually sick, sadistic, + perverted, frustrated, aggressive, violence-prone society." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Another benefit of religion is the raising of one's self-esteem--the + feeling that one is superior to soulless lower animals as well as + superior to nonbelievers because one is saved and chosen for eternity." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"It is little wonder that these generally ignorant, seedy, morally shoddy + types (televangelists) achieve amazing success. They are treated as + sacrosanct by a government fearful of offending religion. Not held + financially accountable as are other businessmen, and enjoying religious + exemptions from various taxes and from numerous government regulations, + they easily amass millions of dollars from a gullible public." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The really incredible part of Christian theology is God's demanding after + perpetrating his brutal crimes and injustices on humankind and ordering + his own son murdered--demanding that humankind honor him, worship him, + kneel down to him, and sing his praises day and night forever." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Much of humankind's intellectual and emotional struggle has been + not for truth, but against truth. The advance of science has been + sporadically fought against for thousands of years." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Without doubt you are not sane." + [Tage Danielsson] +% +"The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and + fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are + drifting side by side to our common doom." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"I believe that religion is the belief in future life + and in God. I don't believe in either. I don't believe + in God as I don't believe in Mother Goose." + [Clarence Darrow, speech, Toronto, 1930, + quoted in "Manual of a Perfect Atheist" by Rius] +% +"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know + what many ignorant men are sure of." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"The fact that there is a general belief in + a future life is no evidence of its truth." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"Even many of those who claim to believe in immortality still tell themselves + and others that neither side of the question is susceptible of proof. Just + what can these hopeful ones believe that the word "proof" involves? The + evidence against the persistence of personal consciousness is as strong as + the evidence for gravitation, and much more obvious. It is as convincing + and unassailable as the proof of the destruction of wood or coal by fire. + If it is not certain that death ends personal identity and memory, then + almost nothing that man accepts as true is susceptible as proof." + [Clarence Darrow, "The Myth of Immortality"] +% +"They were allowed to stay there on one condition, and that is + that they didn't eat of the tree of knowledge. That has been + the condition of the Christian church from then until now. + They haven't eaten as yet, as a rule they do not." + [Clarence Seward Darrow, American lawyer (1857-1938)] +% +"To think is to differ." + [Clarence Darrow, + Scopes trial, July 1925] +% +"I say that religion is the belief in future life + and in God. I don't believe in either." + [Clarence Darrow, interview, + N.Y. Times, 19 April 1936] +% +"The origin of the absurd idea of immortal life is easy to discover; + it is kept alive by hope and fear, by childish faith, and by cowardice." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"In spite of all the yearnings of men, no one can produce a single + fact or reason to support the belief in God and in personal immortality." + [Clarence Darrow, The Sign, May 1938] +% +"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach + in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the + private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the + hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the + newspapers... Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always + feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; + tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the + magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the + setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners + and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the + sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to + bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind." + [Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925] +% +"People are such damned idiots, they know a little about biology. They + know, for instance that you can produce a fat hog or a thin hog and + they get to believing that you can produce wise men. A preacher is + just as apt to produce a criminal as anyone else - more so, perhaps. + Children don't like to stay around preacher's houses. They run away." + [Clarence Darrow, quoted in The + Houston Press, Mar. 11, 1931] +% +"If that story [Creation] was necessary to keep me out of + hell and put me in heaven -- necessary for my life -- I + wouldn't believe it because I couldn't believe it." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"On the ordinary view of each species having been + independently created, we gain no scientific explanation..." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if + so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not + believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best + friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"For myself, I do not believe in any revelation. As + for a future life, every man must judge for himself + between conflicting vague probabilities." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as + an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we + should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of cruel and + malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the + belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Deity." + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man"] +% +"I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation... + Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. + The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since + doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to + me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity + & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is + best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows + from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to + avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I may, + however, have been unduly biassed by the pain which it would give some + members of my family, if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion." + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", p.645] +% +"On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and + comparing them to placental mammals: "An unbeliever ...might + exclaim 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work'" + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", p. 178] +% +"..we can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole + systems of universe[s,] to be governed by laws, but the smallest + insect, we wish to be created at once by special act" + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", p. 218] +% +"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would + have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of + their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars." + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", p. 479] +% +"The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by + us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic." + [Charles Darwin, "Life and Letters"] +% +"Now must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a + belief in God on the minds of children, producing so strong and perhaps + an inherited effect on their brains not fully developed, that it would + be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a + monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"For my part I would as soon be descended from a baboon...as from a + savage who delights to torture his enemies...treats his wives like + slaves...and is haunted by the grossest superstitions." + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man"] +% +"If women reaching their sexual peak at age 34 while men reach it + at 18 is not proof that God is a woman, then I don't know what is." + [Peter David] +% +"People who are bitter and hateful about slavery are obviously bitter and + hateful against God and his word, because they reject what God says and + embrace what mere humans say concerning slavery. This humanistic + thinking is what the abolitionists embraced." + [Alabama State Senator Charles Davidson, citing + biblical defenses of slavery, 1996] +% + gullibility + arrogance +Unshakable faith = ------------ + common sense + + [Scott Davies (scottd@cory.EECS.Berkeley.EDU) + on alt.atheism.moderated] +% +"The fact that the ontological argument reeks of logical trickery belies its + philosophical force. It has in fact been taken very seriously by many + philosophers over the years, including briefly by the atheistic Bertrand + Russell. Nevertheless, even theologians have not generally been prepared to + defend it. One problem lies with the treatment of "existence" as if it were + a property of things, like mass or color. Thus the argument obliges one to + compare the concepts of gods-that-really-exist and gods-that-don't-really- + exist. But existence is not the sort of attribute to be placed alongside + normal physical properties. I can meaningfully talk about having five + little coins and six big coins in my pocket, but what does it mean for me + to say that I have five existing coins and six nonexistent coins?" + [Paul Davis, "The Mind of God", on the + "ontological" argument for God's existence] +% +"There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the + existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any + marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat + engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is + obviously impossible." + [Richard Davisson] +% +"Consider the idea of God. We do not know how it arose in the meme pool. + Probably it originated many times by independent 'mutation.' In any case, + it is very old indeed. How does it replicate itself? By the spoken and + written word, aided by great music and great art. Why does it have such + high survival value? Remember that 'survival value' here does not mean + value for a gene in a gene pool, but value for a meme in a meme pool. The + question really means: What is it about the idea of a god that gives it its + stability and penetrance in the cultural environment? The survival value of + the god meme in the meme pool results from its great psychological appeal. + It provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling + questions about existence. It suggests that injustices in this world may be + rectified in the next. The 'everlasting arms' hold out a cushion against + our own inadequacies which, like a doctor's placebo, is none the less + effective for being imaginary. There are some of the reasons why the idea + of God is copied so readily by successive generations of individual brains. + God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or + infective power, in the environment provided by human culture." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"Another meme of the religious meme complex is called faith. It means blind + trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence. The story + of Doubting Thomas is told, not so that we shall admire Thomas, but so that + we can admire the other apostles in comparison. Thomas demanded evidence. + Nothing is more lethal for certain kinds of meme than a tendency to look + for evidence. The other apostles, whose faith was so strong that they did + not need evidence, are held up to us as worthy of imitation. The meme for + blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious + expedient of discouraging rational inquiry." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"Blind faith can justify anything. In a man believes in a different god, or + even if he uses a different ritual for worshipping the same god, blind + faith can decree that he should die - on the cross, at the stake, skewered + on a Crusader's sword, shot in a Beirut street, or blown up in a bar in + Belfast. Memes for blind faith have their own ruthless ways of propagating + themselves. This is true of patriotic and political as well as religious + blind faith." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"I think what attracts me about the Electric Monk is that it's such + an eloquent example of the futility of belief for belief's sake. I + mean there's only any point in believing something if it's true." + [Richard Dawkins, interview with Douglas Adams] +% +"And it's not just faith itself: it's the idea that faith is a virtue and the + less evidence there is, the more virtuous it is. You can actually quote, + well, Tertullian for example: "It is certain because it is impossible." + Sir Thomas Brown, actually seeking for more difficult things to believe, + because things for which there is mere evidence are just too easy, and it's + no test of his faith. In order to have a test of your faith, you must be + asked to believe really daft things like the transubstantiation, you know, + the blood of Christ turning into wine, and stuff... That is so manifestly + absurd that you've got to be a really great believer, in the class of the + Electric Monk, in order to believe it..... You're actually showing off your + believing credentials by the ability to believe something like that... + If it were an easy thing to believe, substantiated by facts, then it + wouldn't be any great achievement." + [Richard Dawkins, interview with Douglas Adams] +% +"The level of awe that you get by contemplating the modern scientific view of + the universe: deep time (by which I mean geological time), deep space, and + what you could call deep complexity, living things..... that level of awe is + just orders of magnitude greater and more awe-inspiring than the sort of + pokey medieval world-view which the church still actually has. I mean, they + sort of pay lip-service to the scientific world-view, but if you listen to + what they say on Thought For The Day [a religious program on BBC Radio] and + things like that, it is medieval. It's a small world, a small universe, with + the sky up there, very little advance since that time. So I yield to nobody + in my awe for the universe and for life, but I also have a deep desire to + understand it, in terms of what makes it work, what makes it tick, and not + to take refuge in spurious non-explanations like "I just believe it + because I believe it," that sort of thing." + [Richard Dawkins, interview with Douglas Adams] +% +"On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, + meaningless tragedies like the crashing of this bus [full of children + from a Roman Catholic school and for no apparent reason but with wholesale + loss of life] are exactly what we should expect, along with equally + meaningless _good_ [italics in original] fortune. Such a universe would + be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of + any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, + some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, + and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The + universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if + there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing + but blind, pitiless indifference." + [Richard Dawkins, _River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of + Life_, 1995, BasicBooks, New York; ISBN 0-465-01606-5 + Also quoted in "God's Utility Function", pg 85, November, + 1995 _Scientific American_] +% +"Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) arose + out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile + explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to + explain. It postulates the difficult to explain, and leaves it at that. + We cannot prove that there is no God, but we can safely conclude the He + is very, very improbable indeed." + [Richard Dawkins, from the _New Humanist_, the Journal + of the Rationalist Press Association, Vol 107 No 2] +% +"The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living organism, is + false. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the + blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. A true + watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their + interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, + the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which + we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful + form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. + It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at + all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the + blind watchmaker." + [Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_ + (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), p. 5] +% +"The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only + theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the + existence of organized complexity." + [Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_ + (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), p. 317] +% +"In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with + extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and + our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, + our ... nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, + evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity + of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"I have just discovered that without her father's consent this + sweet, trusting, gullible six-year-old is being sent, for weekly + instruction, to a Roman Catholic nun. What chance has she?" + [Richard Dawkins, "Viruses of the Mind"] +% +"The second requirement of a virus-friendly environment --- that it should + obey a program of coded instructions --- is again only quantitatively less + true for brains than for cells or computers. We sometimes obey orders from + one another, but also we sometimes don't. Nevertheless, it is a telling fact + that, the world over, the vast majority of children follow the religion of + their parents rather than any of the other available religions. Instructions + to genuflect, to bow towards Mecca, to nod one's head rhythmically towards + the wall, to shake like a maniac, to ``speak in tongues'' --- the list of + such arbitrary and pointless motor patterns offered by religion alone is + extensive --- are obeyed, if not slavishly, at least with some reasonably + high statistical probability." + [Richard Dawkins, "Viruses of the Mind"] +% +"The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the + simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry." + [Richard Dawkins, "Viruses of the Mind"] +% +"With so many mindbytes to be downloaded, so many mental codons to be + replicated, it is no wonder that child brains are gullible, open to + almost any suggestion, vulnerable to subversion, easy prey to Moonies, + Scientologists and nuns. Like immune-deficient patients, children are + wide open to mental infections that adults might brush off without effort." + [Richard Dawkins, "Viruses of the Mind"] +% +"If you have a faith, it is statistically overwhelmingly likely that it + is the same faith as your parents and grandparents had. No doubt soaring + cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. + But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the + accident of birth. The convictions that you so passionately believe + would have been a completely different, and largely contradictory, set + of convictions, if only you had happened to be born in a different place. + Epidemiology, not evidence." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: + the overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one that their parents + belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best + miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained glass, + the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available + religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to + the matter of heredity. This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could + seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature + of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in *their* religion, + often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who + follow a different one." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Hot on the heels of its magnanimous pardoning of Galileo, the Vatican has now + moved with even more lightning speed to recognise the truth of Darwinism." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Religious people split into three main groups when faced + with science. I shall label them the "know-nothings", + the "know-alls", and the "no-contests." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"It is often said, mainly by the "no-contests", that although there is no + positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against + his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first + sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of + Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same + could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at + the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't *prove* + that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?" + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"I suspect that today if you asked people to justify their belief in God, + the dominant reason would be scientific. Most people, I believe, think + that you need a God to explain the existence of the world, and especially + the existence of life. They are wrong, but our education system is such + that many people don't know it. " + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without + one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"The trouble is that God in this sophisticated, physicist's sense bears no + resemblance to the God of the Bible or any other religion. If a physicist + says God is another name for Planck's constant, or God is a superstring, we + should take it as a picturesque metaphorical way of saying that the nature + of superstrings or the value of Planck's constant is a profound mystery. + It has obviously not the smallest connection with a being capable of + forgiving sins, a being who might listen to prayers, who cares about + whether or not the Sabbath begins at 5pm or 6pm, whether you wear a veil + or have a bit of arm showing; and no connection whatever with a being + capable of imposing a death penalty on His son to expiate the sins of + the world before and after he was born. " + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need + to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, + even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) + arose out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers + no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates + what we are trying to explain." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Thus the creationist's favourite question "What is the use of half an + eye?" Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. + Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye..." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Certainly I see the scientific view of the world as incompatible with + religion, but that is not what is interesting about it. It is also + incompatible with magic, but that also is not worth stressing. What is + interesting about the scientific world view is that it is true, + inspiring, remarkable and that it unites a whole lot of phenomena + under a single heading." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Religions do make claims about the universe--the same kinds of + claims that scientists make, except they're usually false." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more + permanently damaging to children than threatening them + with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell?" + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"I am against religion because it teaches us to + be satisfied with not understanding the world." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep + problems: Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man?" + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"They express a preference for 'natural' methods of population + limitation, and a natural method is exactly what they are going + to get. It is called starvation." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"There is no spirit-driven life force, no throbbing, heaving, + pullulating, protoplasmic, mystic jelly. Life is just bytes + and bytes and bytes of digital information." + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they + get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not." + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that + things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply + callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose." + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"If there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, + the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a + sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? ... Is he manuvering + to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?" + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should + expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil + and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference." + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be + no doctors, but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, + no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all + the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice + the difference? Even bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar- + guided whaling vessels *work*! The achievements of theologians don't do + anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What makes anyone think + that "theology" is a subject at all?" + [Richard Dawkins, "The Emptiness of Theology", + Op-Ed article in Free Inquiry, Spring 1998] +% +"Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, + to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against + fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight + to heaven. What a weapon! Religious faith deserves a chapter to itself in + the annals of war technology, on an even footing with the longbow, the + warhorse, the tank, and the hydrogen bomb." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +Telegraph: "For God to create the universe he would have to be hyper- + intelligent. But intelligence only evolves over time. Is that + about the strength of it?" + +Dawkins: "It's worse than that, the argument for God starts by assuming + what it is attempting to explain -- intelligence, complexity, it + comes to the same thing -- and so it explains nothing. God is a + non-explanation. Whereas evolution by natural selection /is/ an + explanation. It really does start simply and become complex." + + [Sunday Telegraph (UK) interview with Richard Dawkins, Sept. 26, 1999] +% +"Evolution should be one of the first things you learn + at school... and what do they [children] get instead? + Sacred hearts and incense. Shallow, empty religion." + [Sunday Telegraph (UK) interview with + Richard Dawkins, Sept. 26, 1999] +% +"Then there are those who really do believe, but take very good care to + separate their religion off in a separate part of their mind. They don't + let clashing thoughts ever literally clash. Either they do it by only + thinking about religion on Sunday, or they somehow manage to keep their + religious thoughts separate from their scientific ones. Those are the + ones I find least easy to understand. And then, of course, there are + those who just aren't very bright." + [Richard Dawkins, "A Trick of Light: + Richard Dawkins on Science and Religion"] +% +"The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the raising of Lazarus, even the Old + Testament miracles, all are freely used for religious propaganda, and they + are very effective with an audience of unsophisticates and children. Every + one of these miracles amounts to a violation of the normal running of the + natural world. Theologians should make a choice. You can claim your own + magisterium, separate from science's but still deserving of respect. But in + that case, you must renounce miracles. Or you can keep your Lourdes and your + miracles and enjoy their huge recruiting potential among the uneducated. But + then you must kiss goodbye to separate magisteria and your high-minded + aspiration to converge with science..." + [Richard Dawkins, "Snake Oil and Holy Water," + in Forbes magazine, Oct. 4, 1999] +% +"Convergence? Only when it suits. To an honest judge, the alleged marriage + between religion and science is a shallow, empty, spin-doctored sham." + [Richard Dawkins, "Snake Oil and Holy Water," + in Forbes magazine, Oct. 4, 1999] +% +"Testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this + world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"To fill a world with religion... is like littering the streets + with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"I don't need religious bumfucks anymore, anymore..." + [Dayglo Abortions] +% +All religions make me wanna throw up +All religions make me sick +All religions make me wanna throw up +All religions suck + +The all claim that they have the truth +That'll set you free +Just give 'em all your money and they'll set you free +Free for a fee + +They all claim that they have "the Answer" +When they don't even know the Question +They're just a bunch of liars +They just want your money +They just want your consciousness + +All religions suck +All religions make me wanna throw up +All religions suck +All religions make me wanna BLEAH! + +They really make me sick +They really make me sick +They really make me ILL! + + ["Religious Vomit", Dead Kennedys (from "In God We + Trust, Inc.", Alternative Tentacles VIRUS 5), 1981] +% + + MORAL MAJORITY + +You call yourselves the Moral Majority +We call ourselves the people of the real world +Trying to rub us out, but we're going to survive +God must be dead, if you're alive + +You say, "God loves you. Come and buy the Good News" +Then you buy the president and swimming pools +If Jesus don't save 'till we're lining your pockets +God must be dead, if you're alive + +Circus-tent con men and Southern belle bunnies +Milk your emotions then they steal your money +It's the new dark ages with the fascists toting bibles +Cheap nostalgia for the Salem Witch Trials + +Stodgy ayatollahs in their double-knit ties +Burn lots of books so they can feed you their lies +Masturbating with a flag and a bible +God must be dead if you're alive + +Blow it out your ass, Jerry Falwell +Blow it out your ass, Jessie Helms +Blow it out your ass, Ronald Regan +What's wrong with a mind of my own? + +You don't want abortions you want battered children +You want to ban the pill as if that solves the problem +Now you wanna force us to pray in school +God must be dead if you're such a fool + +You're planning for a war with or without Iran +Building a police state with the Klu Klux Klan +Pissed at your neighbour? Don't bother to nag +Pick up the phone and turn in a fag + +Blow it out your ass, Terry Dolan +Blow it out your ass, Phyllis Schlafly +Ram it up your cunt, Anita +'Cause God must be dead +If you're alive +God must be dead +If you're alive + + ["Religious Vomit", Dead Kennedys/Jello Biafra (from "In + God We Trust, Inc.", Alternative Tentacles VIRUS 5), 1981] +% +"God told me to skin you alive" + [Dead Kennedys, "I Kill Children" from + "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables"] +% +"You've got a Methodist Coloring Book + And you color really well + But don't color outside the lines + Or God will send you to hell" + [Dead Milkmen, "Methodist Coloring Book"] +% +"...this monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, + promiscuity, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, + pornotherapy, pollution, poisoning and proliferation of crimes of all types." + [Judge Braswell Dean, in Time Magazine, March 1981] +% +"The virgin mother story was easily acceptable to the Roman people, because + they were already psychologically conditioned to the same established myth + of the vestal virgin Rhea Silva and her godly son Romulus." + [Dr. Wally F. Dean, "The Mania of Religion", 1995, p. 103] +% +"The use of the astrological zodiac in the Bible has been well established, + and without much question, the twelve zodiacal gods have come down to us as + the twelve apostles. The shepherd's crook used by the Egyptians' Osiris was + used for the bishops' and popes' crozier. They transformed his ankh, the + phallic sign of life, into the Christian cross, and they copied the high- + pointed headdress of Osiris as their prototype for Saint Peter's papal tiara. + There could only be four gospels written. The reason there are only four + biblical gospels was because Saint Jerome believed in the four cardinal gods + of the zodiac. But who was father of the four "cardinal" gods of the zodiac? + Yes, indeed! It was the divine Egyptian son Horus, whose birthday was on the + 25th of December long before there was a biblical Jesus." + [Dr. Wally F. Dean, "The Mania of Religion", 1995, p. 106] +% +"Bruno Bauer, a biblical student and professor at a Berlin University, openly + wrote in 1840 that Jesus was a creation of several Roman aristocrats. Ernest + Renan, a former Jesuit student, put forth the same view in his book The Life + of Jesus. Meanwhile, others who have studied and researched the Jesus story + emphatically disavow the historical reality of the biblical Jesus." + [Dr. Wally F. Dean, "The Mania of Religion", 1995, p. 119] +% +"The Bible is a mimicking conglomeration of ancient myths and legends, + and if I weren't positively sure of that, I wouldn't have written this book + and embarrassed myself again. My purpose is to try to spare the human + species from the tyranny and mania of religions. When people all around + the world finally become aware of what religion is--it will cure the most + devastating illness man has been forced to endure." + [Dr. Wally F. Dean, "The Mania of Religion", 1995, p. 307] +% +"...And whereas it has also come to the knowledge of the said Congregation + that the Pythagorean doctrine -- which is false and altogether opposed to + the Holy Scripture -- of the motion of the Earth and the immobility of the + Sun, which is also taught by Nicolaus Copernicus in De Revolutionibus + orbium coelestium, and by Diego de Zuiga on Job, is now being spread + abroad and accepted by many... Therefore, in order that this opinion may + not insinuate itself any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the + Holy Congregation has decreed that the said Nicolaus Copernicus, De + Revolutionibus orbium, and Diego de Zuiga, On Job, be suspended until they + are corrected. + [Decree of the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Index + condemning "De Revolutionibus", March 5, 1616] +% +"The Catholic Church... upheld feudalism, then monarchism, warning + of growing evils and possible revolutions. In the same manner, + and under the same reservations, she now upholds capitalism; but, + above all things and forever, she upholds the Catholic Church." + [Daniel DeLeon, The Vatican in Politics, 1891] +% +"The capitalist class is interested in keeping the workingmen + divided among themselves. Hence it foments race and religious + animosities that come down from the past." + [Daniel DeLeon, Two Pages from Roman History, 1903] +% +"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." + [Democritus] +% +"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes + to be true he generally believes to be true." + [Demosthenes, Third Olynthiac, sct. 19 (349 BCE)] +% +"There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation + of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches and the like. All these + are the work of human hands aided by money. But prudent minds have as a + natural gift one safegaurd which is the common possession of all, especially + to the dealings of democracies with dictatorships. What is this safeguard? + Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep + this, you need fear no harm." + [Demosthenes, 2nd Phillipic Oration] +% +"If you want to *reason* about faith, and offer a reasoned (and reason- + responsive) defense of faith as an extra category of belief worthy of + special consideration, I'm eager to play. I certainly grant the existence + of the phenomenon of faith; what I want to see is a reasoned ground for + taking faith seriously as a *way of getting to the truth*, and not, say, + just as a way people comfort themselves and each other (a worthy function + that I do take seriously). But you must not expect me to go along with + your defence of faith as a path to truth if at any point you appeal to the + very dispensation you are supposedly trying to justify. Before you appeal + to faith when reason has you backed into a corner, think about whether you + really want to abandon reason when reason is on your side." + [Daniel C. Dennett "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"] +% +"I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all + than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism, of all the species: Protestantism, + Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as countless + smaller infections. Is there a conflict between science and religion here? + There most certainly is." + [Daniel C. Dennett, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"] +% +"In the beginning, there were no reasons; there were only causes. + Nothing had a purpose, nothing has so much as a function; there + was no teleology in the world at all." + [Daniel C. Dennett, _Consciousness Explained_ (Boston: + Little, Brown and Company, 1991), p. 173] +% +"The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind + is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order + to make it a better habitat for memes. The avenues for entry and departure + are modified to suit local conditions, and strengthened by various artificial + devices that enhance fidelity and prolixity of replication: native Chinese + minds differ dramatically from native French minds, and literate minds differ + from illiterate minds. What memes provide in return to the organisms in which + they reside is an incalculable store of advantages --- with some Trojan + horses thrown in for good measure..." + [Daniel Dennett, "Consciousness Explained"] +% +"... there could be talking bunny rabbits, spiders who write English messages + in their webs, and for that matter, melancholy choo-choo trains. There could + be, I suppose, but there aren't--so my theory doesn't have to explain them." + [Daniel Dennett] +% +"...but I also can't prove that mushrooms could + not be intergalactic spaceships spying on us." + [Daniel Dennett] +% +Girl of sixteen, whole life ahead of her +Slashed her wrists, bored with life +Didn't succeed, thank the Lord +For small mercies + +Fighting back the tears, mother reads the note again +candles burn in her mind +She takes the blame, it's always the same +She goes down on her knees and prays + +I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours +But I think that God's got a sick sense of humor +And when I die I expect to find Him laughing + +Girl of eighteen, fell in love with everything +Found new life in Jesus Christ +Hit by a car, ended up +On a life support machine + +Summer's day, as she passed away +Birds were singing in the summer sky +Then came the rain, and once again +A tear fell from her mother's eye + +I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours +But I think that God's got a sick sense of humor +And when I die I expect to find Him laughing + + [Depeche Mode, "Blasphemous Rumours" + from "Some Great Reward", Mute CDSTUMM19] +% +"The time has come for atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and humanists to + come out of the closet and to openly confront the religious hegemony in + America that has created a political correctness so powerful that even + the most courageous are afraid to violate it openly." + [Alan M. Dershowitz, F.I. Mag. Summer 1999] +% +"The seeker after truth must, once in the course of his life, doubt everything, + as far as is possible. What is doubtful should even be considered as false. + This doubt should not, meanwhile, be applied to ordinary life." + [Descartes, 1-3rd Principles of Human Knowledge] +% +"Perhaps the greatest lesson [Huxley] learned from reading Carlyle + was that real religion, that emotive feeling for Truth and Beauty, + could flourish in the absence of an idolatrous theology." + [Adrian Desmond, "Huxley", p.79] +% +"Untouched people; not necessarily noble savages, but apparently happy + ones. They lived in a land of plenty, ready to share their bananas + and guavas and coconuts. They were to be envied for their 'primitive + simplicity and kind-heartedness'. Where was that 'malady of thought' + afflicting industrial England? [Huxley] realized that 'civilization + as we call it would be rather a curse than a blessing to them'. Huxley + knew the fate in store for them, slamming the 'mistaken goodness of + the "Stigginses" of Exeter Hall, who would send missionaries to these + men to tell them that they will all infallibly be damned'." + [Adrian Desmond, "Huxley", p. 120, on Huxley + encountering natives on a remote island] +% +"Science was tearing through the 'fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs' + to behold a new cosmos, in which our Earth is merely an 'eccentric + speck'-- a world of evolution 'and unchanging causation'. It invited + new ways of thinking. It demanded a new rationale for belief. With + science's truths the only accessible ones, 'blind faith' was no + longer admirable but 'the one unpardonable sin'." + [Adrian Desmond, "Huxley", p. 345] +% +"A man got up [after one of Huxley's 'sermons'] and said 'they + had never heard anything like that in Norwich before'. Never + 'did Science seem so vast and mere creeds so little'." + [Adrian Desmond, "Huxley", p. 366] +% +When Yahweh your god has settled you in the land you're about + to occupy, and driven out many infidels before you...you're to + cut them down and exterminate them. You're to make no compromise + with them or show them any mercy. + [Deut. 7:1 (KJV)] +% +"Already the spirit of our schooling is permeated with the feeling that + every subject, every topic, every fact, every professed truth must be + submitted to a certain publicity and impartiality. All proffered + samples of learning must go to the same assay-room and be subjected to + common tests. It is the essence of all dogmatic faiths to hold that + any such "show-down" is sacrilegious and perverse. The characteristic + of religion, from their point of view, is that it is intellectually + secret, not public; peculiarly revealed, not generally known; + authoritatively declared, not communicated and tested in ordinary + ways...It is pertinent to point out that, as long as religion is + conceived as it is now by the great majority of professed religionists, + there is something self-contradictory in speaking of education in + religion in the same sense in which we speak of education in topics + where the method of free inquiry has made its way. The "religious" + would be the last to be willing that either the history or the + content of religion should be taught in this spirit; while those + to whom the scientific standpoint is not merely a technical device, + but is the embodiment of the integrity of mind, must protest against + its being taught in any other spirit. + [John Dewey, "Democracy in the Schools", 1908] +% +"It (modern philosophy) certainly exacts a surrender of all + supernaturalism and fixed dogma and rigid institutionalism with + which Christianity has been historically associated." + [John Dewey] +% +"Intellectually, religious emotions are not creative + but conservative. They attach themselves readily to + the current view of the world and consecrate it." + [John Dewey] +% +"Styles of sculpture, music, and dance used to vary greatly from village to + village within New Guinea. Some villagers along the Sepik River and in the + Asmat swamps produced carvings that are now world-famous because of their + quality. But New Guinea villagers have been increasing coerced or seduced + into abandoning their artistic traditions. When I visited an isolated + triblet of 578 people at Bomai in 1965, the missionary controlling the only + store had just manipulated the people into burning all their art. + Centuries of unique cultural development ("heathen artifacts," as the + missionary put it) had thus been destroyed in one morning." + [Jared Diamond, _The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future + of the Human Animal_, 1992, Harper Collins, New York, page 231] +% +"...the official religions and patriotic fervor of many states make their + troops willing to fight suicidally. The latter willingness is one so strongly + programmed into us citizens of modern states, by our schools and churches and + governments, that we forget what a radical break it makes with previous human + history. .... Naturally, what makes patriotic and religious fanatics such + dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their + willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to + annihilate or crush their infidel enemy. Fanaticism in war, of the type that + drove recorded Christian and Islamic conquests, was probably unknown on Earth + until chiefdoms and especially states emerged within the last 6,000 years." + [Jared Diamond, "Guns, Germs and Steel: The + Fate of Human Societies", pp 281-282] +% +"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". + [Philip K. Dick] +% +"Missionaries are perfect nuisances and + leave every place worse than they found it." + [Charles Dickens] +% +"I believe the spreading of Catholicism to be the most horrible + means of political and social degredation left in the world." + [Charles Dickens] +% +"To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an + absurdity by something contrary to nature." + [Diderot] +% +"I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness + of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out." + [Denis Diderot] +% +"It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, + but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all." + [Denis Diderot] +% +"What has not been examined impartially has not been well + examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step toward truth." + [Denis Diderot, "Pensees philosophiques"] +% +"The Judaical and Christian theology show us a partial god who chooses or + rejects, who loves or hates, according to his caprice; in short, a tyrant + who plays with his creatures; who punishes in this world the whole human + species for the crimes of a single man; who predestines the greater number + of mortals to be his enemies, to the end that he may punish them to all + eternity, for having received from him the liberty of declaring against him." + [Denis Diderot, Footnote to d'Holbach's "The System of Nature"] +% +"When God, from whom I have my reason, demands of me to sacrifice it, he + becomes a mere juggler that snatches from me what he pretended to give." + [Denis Diderot, "A Philosophical Conversation," 1777] +% +"The true religion, interesting the whole human race at all times and + in all situations, ought to be eternal, universal, and self-evident; + whereas the religions pretended to be revealed having none of these + characteristics, are consequently demonstrated to be false." + [Attributed to Diderot, possibly written by translator + Julian Hibbert in "Thoughts On Religion", 1770] +% +"The myths about Hades and the gods, though they + are pure invention, help to make men virtuous." + [Diodorus Siculus, about 20 B.C.] +% +"When I look upon seamen, men of physical science, and philosophers, + man is the wisest of all beings. When I look upon priests, prophets, + and interpreters of dreams, nothing is so contemptible as man." + [Diogenes (412-323 B.C.E.)] +% +"Where knowledge ends, religion begins." + [Benjamin Disraeli] +% +"The inability or unwillingness to hate makes a person worthless. + If we do not hate detestable things, the quality of our character + is suspect. The Bible commands that we hate." + [H. A. (Buster) Dobbs, Editor of Firm Foundation magazine + and Church of Christ preacher, from the June 1994 issue.] +% +"Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable + doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a + process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted + only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, + owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms + that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There + are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical + examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about + evolutionary mechanisms." + [Theodosius Dobzhansky "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the + Light of Evolution", American Biology Teacher vol.35 (March 1973) + reprinted in EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATIONISM, J. Peter Zetterberg ed., + ORYX Press, Phoenix AZ 1983] +% +"If you truly turned yourself over to competent psychological help, + they can lead you from your misguided attempts to butt into other + people's lives using Jesus as your excuse for such rude behavior." + [James Doemer] +% +"When the preacher asks us to have faith, he asks for obedience, obedience + without question. We must accept unthinkingly whatever he tells us is so. + When Shia and Sunni are asked to murder on the fields of battle, both + following leaders who tell them they are then assured a place in Heaven, + they obey. If the dead could return to set things straight, to tell us + that "faith" is nothing more than nonsense institutionalized, the hate + and murder of all "religious" conflicts would cease. There would be no + crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, and holy wars. There would be no Shia + and Sunni, no Lutherans and Catholics, no religious sects of any kind, + because there would be no "religions." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"The impression is given that a special kind of morality is affirmed by + accepting the vagaries of religion without evidence. But is it moral to + accept uncritically every superstition, delusion, or prejudice our pulpiteers + espouse? Is not the faith that we are told is holy, the trust in Divinity + that we are told is our duty, the certitude that a complete rejection of + reason is moral behavior - all of this - nothing more than abject credulity, + a complete surrender of our unique, personal sovereign identity? When "false" + or "true" become irrelevant and a blanket assent regardless of the nature of + that which we are asked to believe is considered sane behavior, do we not + resign ourselves to slavery? When acceptance is on the basis of infallible + authority and not on the basis of personal, reasoned conviction, have we + not relinquished something very precious - our natural, temperamental + individuality? Is not the mind of one who accepts blindly, precisely the + mind of a production-line robot, the mind of one who goes through life + oblivious of meaning and values, bereft of the hope of injecting sense into + the profusion of nonsense that threatens to engulf us? Is this the faith we + are told is good?" + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"It has been said that faith dies the death of a thousand qualifications. + Faith inevitably meets the same fate when it is continually attenuated + with rambling, nondescript, and pretentious definitions. The liberating + truth, of course, is that the readiness with which the term faith evokes + sobering qualifications and erratic definitions betrays the superficial + manner in which it is used by religionists." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Faith will survive all superstitions, compelling men to think in terms of + their own destiny and the responsibility they themselves have in forging + that destiny. No one explains how declarations that are manufactured out of + whole cloth, that have absolutely no predictive content and therefore no + demonstrable connection with our lives as we live them day by day, are + supposed to serve as a guide for planning our future. What such declarations + do is to condition every nervous system that takes them seriously that it is + perfectly sane to ignore the world in which we live, and to live instead in + a world of pure fantasy. The man who is willing to accept the doctrine of + Christian faith is one who is willing to relinquish all hope of knowing the + truth. He accepts all, doubts never, vegetates. He is a slave, a hollow shell + into which others can pour all manner of stupidities. Having a conscience, + being honest, are empty phrases for him, as he has relinquished his own right + to think and is acting only because others are acting through him. He refuses + to be honest with himself, no longer talks things over with himself, no longer + meditates, contemplates; he only absorbs like a sponge, without discrimination. + If he has convictions, they are metamorphized and petrified lies, and not even + his own lies but those of colleagues, priests, and politicians who want to use + him. If to accept blindly, without the play of reason, is faith, it follows + then that what the world needs is not more faith, but more people who think + with their own heads and not with the heads of others." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Faith in the sense that religionists use the term, it turns out, is + equivalent to the loss of confidence of the individuals of the human + species to achieve their goals on their own. This seems to be borne + out by the adherence to religion among the poor, the spread of religion + in times of depression and conflict, and the greater success of all + religions to proselytize among deprived populations wherever they may be. + It may also explain the lack of initiative clearly evident among the + fanatically religious who see little point in struggling for a better + world when they are only nonentities in a vast system of omnipotent + forces and obscure agencies beyond their abilities to understand or + control. Men who are liberated from all such folderol are able to work + with serenity and unshakable confidence in their own abilities to achieve." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Faith, as the theologians and other mystics use the term, is the capacity to + accept as "true" declarations that have no predictive content. It is their + way of asking us to believe something for no other reason than because they + say it is so. In quoting the Council of Trent, "He who is gifted with + heavenly knowledge of faith is free from an inquisitive curiosity." Walter + Lippmann in 'A Preface to Morals' adds: "These words are rasping to our + modern ears, but there is no occasion to doubt that the men who uttered them + had made a shrewd appraisal of average human nature." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Reason and faith are completely irreconcilable pathways to knowledge. The two + cannot exist side by side. Reason underlies the methodology of the scientist. + Without it he would be ineffectual. Faith is the "being" of the "religionist." + Without it he could not exist. The scientist accepts nothing on faith. Faith + to him is a synonym for belief. In Hebrews 11:1 we read: "Faith is the + substance of things desired, the evidence of things unseen." The "religionist" + is ever alert to prevent reason from undermining his precepts. Reason is his + (and God's) worst enemy. Reason is our means of processing what we learn of + the world through our proverbial five senses. Faith does no processing; + whatever sense (or nonsense) is accepted as is, without rational consideration. + Those facts which reason allows us to accept must display consistency and + predictability. There are no criteria to restrict that which we will accept + on faith, as section 61 of this book shows. Those content to accept on faith + are those who accept without thinking, without the rational demonstrations + that establish the truth (predictive content) of what we believe. Faith is + the road to myth and error, the way to add to man's already overflowing + storehouse of "things he _knows_ but that are not so." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Transactional psychologists have verified what most of us have known + intuitively all along: that the stronger are a person's motives for certain + interpretations of the data confronting him, the more likely are the chances + that those will be the interpretations he will come up with, even though they + be radically wrong. Said Andre Gide in 'Pretexts,' "Most often people seek in + life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating + themselves.... It seems as if the mind enjoys nothing more than sinking + deeper into error." The person with the self-sealing system that Oppenheimer + describes (section 18) cannot be convinced at all. He has become uncannily + proficient at transmuting all experiential verification to conform to that + which he wants to believe. He now has adequate defenses against countervailing + evidence to discount almost anything that would prove detrimental to his + cherished beliefs, to revamp information that threatens long-established + convictions. Religious faith (which is just such a closed system), if strong + enough, will protect a person from the arguments appearing in a book such as + this, just as the faith of people who want to believe that their destinies + lie in the stars is enough to protect them from the declarations of 186 noted + scientists who feel it important to convince them that they are wrong. + Bertrand Russell was talking about this kind of "religious" faith when, in + 'Human Society in Ethics and Politics', he tells us that he believes that all + faiths do harm. He defines faith as the belief in anything for which no + evidence exists. If there is evidence, faith is not required. We do not need + faith to believe that vinegar is bitter or that water is wet. We use the term + faith only when emotion dominates reason. Faith, for Mencken, was a kind of + clearing house for all the various conspiracies religionists contrive in order + to deny or distort the facts that our senses present to us to make up what we + call our existence. Faith, he was sure, is the force that foments the + concerted attacks against what can be called a rational moral philosophy." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"But there is a kind of faith, as we all well know, that is an essential + ingredient in the lives of all human beings. This faith is of a different + sort, not faith in (or in the existence of) a pathologically jealous supreme + being who would have us all wasting our valuable time in endless, meaningless + rituals "glorifying his name." Nor is it faith in a mythological hell in + which we will all fry for eternity who do not genuflect to this demeaning + concept of the utter dependence of the human species. Alan Watts says in + 'The Book,' "Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual + suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision + of the world. Faith is, above all, openness - an act of trust in the unknown." + What we need is faith in the boundless reach of an open mind. Having an open + mind does not mean that we do not have firm convictions, but that we are not + afraid of new ideas. Persons with firm convictions, well founded, need new + ideas from time to time, against which they can constantly test their + convictions in a changing world, perhaps to alter them or perhaps to make + their convictions even more firm. If we are confident of the truth and + validity of our convictions, whatever they may be, we have nothing to fear. + We shall not serve our convictions, whatever they may be, by self-deception. + Convictions that can be defended only by disregarding facts, lying to + oneself and others, are not worth keeping." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Man needs faith in his own potential, faith in his ability, within limits, to + plan his own life. He must have faith that nature is subject to laws, that the + earth will continue to turn on its axis, and the sun will continue for a few + billion more years to warm the earth, and that there will be rain to make the + plants grow and thus to maintain life on this planet. The very world itself is + a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to believe that there exists a world + beyond our own skins. Our faith is not to deny the unknown, to avoid it, or to + pretend that the unknown is really known. Our faith is above all resolute + belief in ourselves as sovereign individuals. We must understand that beyond + ourselves there is no baleful influence bent on frustrating our hopes and + plans - even those plagued constantly with difficulties. Nature, we must + understand, is not deliberately malign nor deliberately benign; it is simply + indifferent. With Amado Nervo (who gets the last word in this essay), we must + see ourselves as the architect of our own destinies." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"The Reverend Robert H. Schuller, second to none in the multiformity of his + televised effusions, gives us more than three hundred definitions of the word + faith. He could go on forever. In his 'Tough-Minded Faith for Tender-Hearted + People' [muddleminded faith for simpleminded people] Schuller makes it plain + that "faith" can be dictum, psychological judgment, scientific proposition, + or mystic symbolism. It can be whatever puritanical perception, frivolous + fancy, arbitrary assumption, or capricious conviction. It can be both horse + and vehicle, north and south, sinister and dexter, verso and recto, larboard + and starboard. There are no restrictions. Faith has so many meanings to + Schuller that it is meaningless. Meaning everything, it means nothing - as is + usually the case when religionists use the term faith." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"I am a theist," means, "I know that God exists." "I am an atheist" + means, "I do not know that God exists." Appending the Greek prefix "a" + could in no way be construed as meaning, I know that God does not exist." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"In the course of its learning and assimilating the culture in which it will + grow up, the child's nervous system gets programmed in a particular way with + respect to the mysterious relation of symbols and things which will create + its later life. When this programming reaches a certain point, the behavior + of the child becomes patterned in ways that are difficult ever to change. + Other ways of behaving not parallel to these patterns are rejected, sometimes + subtly, subconsciously, at other times deliberately, violently. The child's + total reaction, physiological as well as linguistic, to the world in which + he grows up may be independently flexible or it may be as submissively rigid + as it usually is for those molded in an orthodox, totalitarian religion." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Rigidly conforming children have a way of growing up to be rigidly conforming + adults. They are not educated; they are formed. They are not trained to think, + but to defend. They are not asked to reflect, but to memorize." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"The attraction of "religion" for many of its adherents is that its + comforts help enable them to face the suffering, injustice, morality and + meaninglessness of human life on this earth. But it is these comforts that + often dissuade men from doing something about the ills humanity experiences. + Too many of us become so encapsulated in our own comfortable world that we + become blind to the adversities that beset our fellow man. We live in our + own luxury, insulated from ugliness and doubt." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"When those living in the United States speak of the incompatibility of + science and religion, it is almost invariably the Christian religion that + has claimed their attention. No other religion in history has marshaled + its forces so energetically to oppose and suppress astronomy, physics and + the biological sciences. For many sects of Christianity, psychology and + anthropology have been added as religion's principal adversaries." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"If there is a Hell with fire and brimstone, one must conclude that + it was constructed solely for the special delectation of God, that + he enjoys watching human beings (or is it their souls?) fry." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Not a lack of belief, but adherence to false knowledge is the + enemy of progress. And certain that we have found everything + worth searching for, we see no point in further search and inquiry. + Believing what is unworthy of belief, believing falsehood as if it + were incontrovertible truth, and sure that we know everything we + will ever need to know, we are worse than ignorant." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"To create a world in which reason is suspect, religious faith is + a virtue, and doubt is regarded as sin, is to sanctify ignorance." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Religions which expect men to march in synchronized step and + to chant stereotyped doctrines cease to serve free man in an + open society. There can be no such thing as an open society + peopled by a preponderance of closed minds." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"The presence or absence of a God or the religions that postulate gods does + not change what should and what should not be considered morality. Human + kindness will always be a good thing, God or no God. Attributing morality + to the propensities of some kind of Deity is nothing more than quibbling. + Here we have an "it is so because it is so," kind of pseudoreasoning." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Until religionists can give up their use of the word "truth" to apply to + whatever it suits their fancies to so label, to declarations that can in + no way be verified by experience and therefore with no restrictions on + their proliferation, there will be no reconciliation of science and religion." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Are we courting you? Maybe we are, but what's wrong with + that? You are the glue that holds America together." + [Bob Dole, to a rally of the Christian Coalition] +% +"For many years I have exhorted you in vain, with gentleness, preaching, + praying and weeping. But according to the proverb of my country, + 'where blessing can accomplish nothing, blows may avail.' We shall + rouse against you princes and prelates who, alas, will arm nations and + kingdoms against this land...and thus blows will avail where blessings + and gentleness have been powerless." + [St. Dominic, to the heretical Albiginses, Encyclopedia Brittanica] +% +"I'm firmly convinced Michael Carneal is a Christian. + He's a sinner, yes, but not an atheist." + [Rev. Paul Donner, of the St. Paul Lutheran Church, + Paducah, Ky., describing accused mass murderer + Michael Carneal, 14, in contrast to early reports] +% +"In all of the colonies there was a law that Quakers and other heretics + should be banished and, if they returned, could be executed; but only + Massachusetts hung any Quakers - four of them, one a woman. They cut off + the ears of others, branded some with hot irons, and beat them with + iron rods and tarred ropes. The worst the Pilgrims ever did was put them + in the stocks or imprison them for a while." + ["The Mayflower Compact" by Frank R. Donovan, + Gosset & Dunlap, New York, 1968] +% +"Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to + fifteen years with time off for good behavior?" + [NY State Senator James Donovan, speaking + in support of capital punishment] +% +"You've got to put in your pew time and come by + your disdain for religion honestly, like us." + [Doonsbury cartoon] +% +"The race of men, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity." + [Carl Van Doren, "Why I Am an Unbeliever"] +% +"Religion is a disease. It is born of fear; it compensates through + hate in the guise of authority, revelation. Religion, enthroned + in a powerful social organization, can become incredibly sadistic. + No religion has been more cruel than the Christian." + [Dr. George A. Dorsey] +% +"Religion is not insanity but it is born of the stuff which makes + for insanity. ...all religions perform the function of delusion." + [George Dorsey] +% +"I can find no room in my cosmos for a deity save as a waste + product of human weakness, the excrement of the imagination." + [George Norman Douglas, "South Wind" (1917)] +% +"The First Amendment commands government to have no interest in theology or + ritual; it admonishes the government to be interested in allowing religious + freedom to flourish -- whether the result is to produce Catholics, Jews, or + Protestants, or to turn the people toward the path of Buddha, or to end in + a predominantly Moslem nation, or to produce in the long run atheists or + agnostics. On matters of this kind, government must remain neutral. This + freedom plainly includes freedom from religion with the right to believe, + speak, write, publish and advocate antireligious programs." + [Justice William O. Douglas, dissent in McGowan v. Maryland] +% +"It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will + determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate + discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor + must preside at our assemblies." + [William O. Douglas, Address, Authors' Guild, Dec. 3, 1952] +% +"I prayed for twenty years but received + no answer until I prayed with my legs." + [Frederick Douglass, escaped slave] +% +"I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere + covering for the most horrid crimes-- a justifier of the most appalling + barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter + under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of + slaveholders find the strongest protection. Where I to be again reduced + to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being + the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall + me...I...hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, + partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land." + [Frederick Douglass, "After the Escape"] +% +"Once, in a heated controversy over the wisdom of giving the + Bible to slaves, he asserted that it would be 'infinitely + better to send them a pocket compass and a pistol.'" + [Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass] +% +"I bet you don't want anything about the Bible taught in school." +"If they teach Greek and Roman mythology, they should also teach + Middle Eastern mythology." + [Morton Downey, controversial TV talk-show host, to + Rob Sherman, spokesman for American Atheists, on the show] +% +"How many times has the end of the world been predicted? The + same number of times, the prediction has proved false." + [Hugh Downs, "The End Is (Not) Nigh; Apocalypse + Later", ABC News, (abcnews.com), August 26, 1998] +% +"Evolution does not require the nonexistance of God, it merely allows + for it. That alone is enough to evoke condemnation from those who + fear the nonexistance of God more than they fear God Himself." + [Keith Doyle, talk.origins posting] +% +"So, the Xian fundies want to slap the 10 commandments on the + wall. I guess our school kids have a real problem with + committing adultery and carving idols during school hours." + ["Dr. Monkeyspank" ] +% +"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] +% +"If thinking freely for yourself is a sure ticket to hell, + then the conversations in heaven must be awfully boring." + [San Francisco's infamous Dr. Weirde] +% +"Do not put your trust in such trinkets of deceit!" + [Dracula, on the crucifix] +% +"How can the Church be received as a trustworthy guide in the + invisible, which falls into so many errors in the visible?" + [John W. Draper (1811-1882), U.S. chemist] +% +"Science has never sought to ally herself with civil power. + She has never subjected anyone to mental torment, physical torment, + least of all death, for the purpose of promoting her ideas." + [John W. Draper (1811-1882) U.S. chemist] +% +"The Christian party asserted that all knowledge is to be found in the + Scriptures and in the traditions of the Church; that, in the written + revelation, God had not only given a criterion of truth, but had furnished + us all that he intended us to know. The Scriptures, therefore, contain the + sum, the end of all knowledge. The clergy, with the emperor at their back, + would endure no intellectual competition......The Church thus set herself + forth as the depository and arbiter of knowledge; she was ever ready to resort + to the civil power to compel obedience to her decisions. She thus took a + course which determined her whole future career: she became a stumbling-block + in the intellectual advancement of Europe for more than a thousand years." + [John William Draper, "History of the Conflict + between Science and Religion", Chapter II] +% +"Life is no more assuring than love + (It's time to take the time) + There are no answers from voices above + (It's time to take the time) + You're fighting the weight of the world + And no one can save you this time + Close your eyes + You can find all that you need in your mind" + ["Take the Time", Dream Theater] +% +"If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a + bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by + circumstances. All forms of dogmatic religion should go. The world + did without them in the past and can do so again. I cite the great + civilizations of China and India." + [Theodore Dreiser, press interview, March 1941] +% +"He who will not reason, is a bigot; + He who cannot, is a fool; + And he who dares not, is a slave." + [William Drummond] +% +"There was no deathbed conversion," Druyan says. "No appeals to God, + no hope for an afterlife, no pretending that he and I, who had been + inseparably for twenty years, were not saying goodbye forever." + +"Didn't he want to believe?" she was asked. + + "Carl never wanted to believe," she replies fiercely. "He wanted to KNOW." + [Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife, from Newsweek magazine] +% +"I sit surrounded by cartons of mail from people all over the planet who + mourn Carl's loss. Many of them credit him with their awakenings. Some + of them say that Carl's example has inspired them to work for science + and reason against the forces of superstition and fundamentalism. These + thoughts comfort me and lift me up out of my heartache. They allow me + to feel, without resorting to the supernatural, that Carl lives." + ["Billions and Billions: Thoughts On Life and Death at + the Brink of the Millennium", the last book by Carl Sagan; + Epilogue by his wife, Ann Druyan, February 14, 1997] +% +"Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed + conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven + or an afterlife. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely + what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be + forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was + unflinching. As we looked deeply into each other's eyes, it was with a + shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever." + ["Billions and Billions: Thoughts On Life and Death + at the Brink of the Millennium", the last book by + Carl Sagan; Epilogue by his wife, Ann Druyan] +% +"Every reasonable person knows that there are good people who believe in gods + and good people who don't believe in gods. Like most Atheists, I do not rape, + murder, or steal, I know right from wrong and don't need to follow a set of + superstitious beliefs to live a moral life. The idea that only a religious + person can be a good person is utterly ridiculous. In fact, perhaps it is + the Atheists who are the truly good people; we try to do what is right not + for the selfish reason of fear of some afterlife punishment but because we + know it is the right thing to do." + [Peter Dubral, Highland Park, NJ, from The Greater + Philadelphia Story, Newsletter of The Freethought + Society of Greater Philadelphia] +% +"I have too much respect for the idea of God to + make it responsible for such an absurd world." + [Georges Duhamel] +% +"All absolute power demoralizes its possessor. To that all history bears + witness. And if it be a spiritual power which rules men's consciences, + the danger is only so much greater, for the possession of such a power + exercises a specially treacherous fascination, while it is peculiarly + conducive to self-deceit, because the lust of dominion, when it has + become a passion, is only too easily in this case excused under the + plea of zeal for the salvation of others." + [Professor J. H. von Dullinger -- who was subsequently + excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church (1871)] +% +"If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which + he has inflicted upon men, He would kill himself." + [Alexander Dumas] +% +"Skeptics Everywhere. + Have you noticed that no matter how sick the Pope gets, they never even + consider taking him to Lourdes? + The Ten Commandments make Prohibition look like a stroke of genius." + [Tom Dunker, in Horseshit #1, a 1965 hippie-type magazine] +% +"Just as Philo, learned in Greek speculation, had felt a need to rephrase + Judaism in forms acceptable to the logic-loving Greeks, so John, having + lived for two generations in a Hellenistic environment, sought to give a + Greek philosophical tinge to the mystic Jewish doctrine that the Wisdom + of God was a living being, and to the Christian doctrine that Jesus was + the Messiah. Consciously or not, he continued Paul's work of detaching + Christianity from Judaism. Christ was no longer presented as a Jew, living + more or less under the Jewish Law; he was make to address the Jews as + "you," and to speak of their Law as "yours"; he was not a Messiah sent + "to save the lost sheep of Israel," he was the coeternal Son of God; not + merely the future judge of mankind, but the primeval creator of the + universe. In this perspective the Jewish life of the man Jesus could + be put into the background, faded almost as in Gnostic heresy; and the + god Christ was assimilated to the religious and philosophical traditions + of the Hellenistic mind. Now the pagan world-- even the anti-Semitic + world--could accept him as its own." + [Will and Ariel Durant, _The Story of Civilization_] +% +"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind + dying, came to a tranmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the + Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, + became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries + passed down into the impressive mystery of the Mass. Other pagan cultures + contributed to the syncretist result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine + trinity, the Last Judgement, and a personal immortality of reward and + punishment; from Egypt the adoration of the Mother and Child, and the mystic + theosophy that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian + creed; there, too, Christian moanasticism would find itsw exemplars and its + source. From Phrygia came the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria the + resurrection drama of Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps the cult of Dionysus, the + dying and saving god. From Persia came millennarianism, the "ages of the + world," the "final conflagration," the dualism of Satan and God, of Darkness + and Light; already in the Forth Gospel Christ is the "Light shining in the + darkness, and the darkness has never put it out." The Mithraic ritual so + closely resemled the eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian fathers + charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead frail minds. + Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world." + [Will and Ariel Durant, _The Story of Civilization_] +% +"With the judgment of the angels and the sentence of the saints, we + anathematize, execrate, curse and cast out Baruch de Spinoza, the whole + of the sacred community assenting, in presence of the sacred books with + the six hundred and thirteen precepts written therein, pronouncing + against him the malediction wherewith Elisha cursed the children, and + all the maledictions written in the Book of the Law. /.../ Let him be + accursed by day, and accursed by night; let him be accursed in his lying + down, and accursed in his rising up; accursed in going out and accursed + in coming in. May the Lord never more pardon or acknowledge him; may the + wrath and displeasure of the Lord burn henceforth against this man, load + him with all the curses written in the Book of the Law, and blot out his + name from under the sky." + [Jewish community of Amsterdam, excommunication of Spinoza, + 27 July 1656, quoted by Will Durant in _The Story of Philosophy_; + also George Seldes, _The Great Quotations_, 1983] +% +"The truth is that people will always demand a religion phrased in + imagery and haloed with the supernatural. They don't want science; + they are in mortal terror of it, for the one sermon of science is + that all life eats other life and that all life must die. The + masses will never accept science until it gives them an earthly + paradise. As long as there is poverty, there will be gods." + [Will Durant, "The Mansions of Philosophy", 1929] +% +"Got no religion. Tried a bunch of different religions. The churches + are divided. Can't make up their minds and neither can I." + [Bob Dylan] +% +"We've satisfied our endless needs, + And justified our bloody deeds, + In the name of Destiny, + And in the Name of god" + [Eagles,"The Last Resort"] +% +"God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be + tortured for eternity in hell. That sir, is not free will. It would be akin + to a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave + me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we + call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When god + says the same we call him "loving" and build churches in his honor." + [William C. Easttom II, skeptic@icon.net] +% +"So behold here the triumph God's wisdom has won. + Behold here the damage that can't be undone. + Stagnation is good, and we're good to the core, + while faith rots us like salt rots the land + + If your god helps the helpless, may he help you all well. + I'm bound for the outside to find my own hell. + If defiance means death, I would die before stand + like a sheep to be thrown to God's hand." + [Julia Ecklar, "The Hand of God" + from the album _Divine Intervention_] +% +"Fear prophets ... and those prepared to die for the + truth, for as a rule they make many others die with + them, often before them, at times instead of them." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, + the human race spends centuries deciphering the message." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a + harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt + to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer + any difference between developing the habit of pretending to + believe and developing the habit of believing." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"When we traded the results of our fantasies, it seemed to us--and + rightly-- that we had proceeded by unwarranted associations, by + shortcuts so extraordinary that, if anyone had accused us of + really believing them, we would have been ashamed." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"All of us were slowly losing that intellectual light that allows you always + to tell the similar from the identical, the metaphorical from the real." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"I'm not saying that all religion is a pack of lies... + I'm just saying that all religion is indistinguishable from a pack of lies." + [Ralph Edington, ralph@edington.com] +% +"Christian Science repudiates the evidences of the senses and rests upon the + supremacy of God. Christian healing . . . places no faith in hygiene or + drugs; it reposes all faith in mind, in spiritual power divinely directed." + [Mary Baker Eddy, on Christian Science "healing"] +% +"My mind is incapable of conceiving such a thing as a soul. I may be + in error, and man may have a soul; but I simply do not believe it." + [Thomas Edison, "Do We Live Again?"] +% +"All Bibles are man-made." + [Thomas Edison] +% +"So far as religion of the day is concerned, it + is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk." + [Thomas Edison] +% +"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories + of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God." + [Thomas Alva Edison, "Columbian Magazine"] +% +"I do not believe that any type of religion should ever be + introduced into the public schools of the United States." + [Thomas Edison, "Do We Live Again?"] +% +"Because the primary purpose of the Creationism Act is to endorse a particular + religious belief, the Act furthers religion in violation of the Establishment + Clause. ...The pre-eminent purpose of the Louisiana Legislature was clearly to + advance the religious viewpoint that a supernatural being created humankind. + ...The Act violates the Establishment Clause because it seeks to employ the + symbolic and financial support of government to achieve a religious purpose." + [US Supreme Court, Edwards v. Aguillard, 1987] +% +"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or + some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked, + his wrath towards you burns like fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to + have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his + eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended + him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is + nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. + It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last + night, that you was [sic] suffered to awake again in this world, after you + closed your eyes to sleep." + ["Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," preached July 8, 1741. + In Ola Elizabeth Winslow, ed., Jonathon Edwards: Basic writings + (New York: New American Library, 1966) p. 159.] +% +"I am totally convinced...that all the metaphysical claims of traditional + religions are untenable; and I am equally convinced that, although here + and there religious institutions may have done some good, for the most + part they have caused a great deal of harm and mischief. in the short + run, the dislocations and the sense of loss that accompany the decline + of religious belief and of the authoritarian and repressive morality + associated with it are likely to produce some distress and confusion. In + the long run, however, the decline of religion will be of incalculable + benefit to the human race." + [Paul Edwards, N.Y.C., 1985] +% +"...a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only + in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable + harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of + religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, + that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such + vast power in the hands of priests.... The further the spiritual evolution + of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine + religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and + blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge." + [Albert Einstein, address at the Princeton Theological + Seminary, May 19, 1939, published in _Out of My Later + Years_, New York: Philosophical Library, 1950.] +% +"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the + fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. + Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as + good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery-- + even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the + existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest + reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms + are accessible to our minds -- it is this knowledge and this emotion that + constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a + deeply religious man." + [Albert Einstein,_The World as I See It_] +% +"The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant + growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a + symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of + reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul + without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning." + [Albert Einstein, letter of 5 February 1921] +% +"If people are good only because they fear punishment, + and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth + and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe," a part + limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and + feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical + delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for + us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few + persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this + prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living + creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend + only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a + feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that + has nothing to do with mysticism." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied + to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the + authority imperil the foundation of sound judgement and action." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos." + [Albert Einstein, published after his death in 1955 in + the London Observer, 5 April 1964, on his problems + with quantum mechanics and not, as popularly + misinterpreted, an expression of religious belief.] +% +"The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, + usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to + organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them." + [Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud, 30 July 1932] +% +"You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds + without a religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the + religiosity of the naive man. For the latter, God is a being from whose + care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of + a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one + stands, so to speak, in a personal relation, however deeply it may be + tinged with awe. + + But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation... + There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair. His + religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony + of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, + compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings + is an utterly insignificant reflection... It is beyond question closely + akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages." + [Albert Einstein, Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934] +% +"I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a + Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity + to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit + priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist." + [Albert Einstein to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945, + responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused + Einstein to convert from atheism. Article by Michael + R. Gilmore in Skeptic magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1997] +% +"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a + childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the + crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to + a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination + received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the + weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being." + [Albert Einstein to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949, + from article by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic + magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1997] +% +"The idea of a personal God is an anthropological + concept which I am unable to take seriously." + [Albert Einstein, letter to + Hoffman and Dukas, 1946] +% +"If this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human + action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also + His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their + deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment + and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. + How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?" + [Albert Einstein, "Out of My Later Years"] +% +"The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring + as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself + reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility + of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling + that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme + that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the + step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes + demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this + neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. For this reason, + people of our type see in morality a purely human matter, albeit the most + important in the human sphere." + [Albert Einstein, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by + Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, pp 69-70] +% +"[My] deep religiosity... found an abrupt ending at the age of + twelve, through the reading of popular scientific books." + [Albert Einstein, as quoted in Einstein, + History, and Other Passions, p. 172] +% +"It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, + which [I] lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the + chains of the 'merely personal,' from an existence which is + dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings." + [Albert Einstein, as quoted in Einstein, + History, and Other Passions, p. 172] +% +"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion + which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any + religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism...." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"I do not believe in the God of theology + who rewards good and punishes evil." + [Albert Einstein, Personal memoir of + William Miller, editor, Life, May 2, 1955] +% +"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which + differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people + are even incapable of forming such opinion." + [Albert Einstein, from "Aphorisms for + Leo Baeck; Opinions of Albert Einstein"] +% +"I still believe in God, but God no longer believes in me" + [Andrew Eldritch, singer of the Sisters of Mercy] +% +"Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of awesome mystical power. We know this + because they manage to be invisible and pink at the same time. Like all + religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic + and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they + are invisible because we can't see them." + [Steve Eley] +% +"And the alcoholic bastard waved his finger at me + His voice was filled with evangelical glee + Sipping down his gin and tonics + While preaching about the evils of narcotics + And the evils of sex, and the wages of sin + While he mentally fondles his next of kin..." + [Danny Elfman, "Insanity"] +% +"Man makes himself, and he only makes himself completely in proportion as + he desacrilizes himself and the world. The sacred is the prime obstacle + to his freedom. He will become himself only when he is totally demysticized. + He will not be truly free until he has killed the last god." + [Mircea Eliade] +% +"There would be no perceptible influence on the morals + of the race if Hell were quenched and Heaven burned." + [Charles W. Eliot, in Elbert + Hubbard's Scrapbook, p. 126] +% +"Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion." + [T. S. Eliot, Milton, 1947] +% +"The Church had a devastating impact upon society. as the church assumed + leadership, activity in the fields of medicine, technology, science, + education, history, and commerce all but collapsed. Europe entered the + dark ages. Although the church amassed a great deal of wealth during + these centuries, most of what defines civilization disappeared." + [Hellen Ellerbe, "The Dark Side Of + Christianity" (Morningstar, 1995)] +% +"For that again, is what all manner of religion + essentially is: childish dependency." + [Albert Ellis] +% +"In a sense, the religious person must have no real views of his own and + it is presumptuous of him, in fact, to have any. In regard to sex-love + affairs, to marriage and family relations, to business, to politics, and + to virtually everything else that is important in his life, he must try + to discover what his god and his clergy would like him to do; and he + must primarily do their bidding." + [Albert Ellis, Ph.D] +% +"Religious fanaticism has clearly produced, and in all probability will + continue to produce, enormous amounts of bickering, fighting, violence, + bloodshed, homicide, feuds, wars, and genocide. For all its peace-inviting + potential, therefore, arrant (not to mention arrogant) religiosity has + led to immense individual and social harm by fomenting an incredible + amount of anti-human anti-humane aggression." + [Albert Ellis] +% +"And it is in his own image, let us remember, that Man creates God." + [H. Havelock Ellis, "Impressions and Comments"] +% +"The whole religious complexion of the modern world is + due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum." + [Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) English scientist and writer] +% +"A religion can no more afford to degrade + its Devil than to degrade its God." + [H. Havelock Ellis, + "Impressions and Comments"] +% +"A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest." + [Havelock Ellis] +% +"In an early class, one of the students asked me if I believed in God. I + replied, 'I don't think so.' And then proceeded to wail on the theme, using + material from this column of some weeks ago, in which I observed the + perpetuation of insanity on this planet through the mediums of Arabs-vs-Jews, + Catholics-vs-Protestants, Southern Baptists-vs-Everyone. I said I felt if + 'God created man in his *own* image, in the image of God created he them,' + (Genesis 2:27, King James's italics, not mine) then *we* were God. And when + Man (*my* cap, not King James's) in his most creative, his most loving, his + most gentle and most human, then he is most God-like. + The student said he would pray for my immortal soul. He also asked for my + address, so he could send me some literature on the subject of God. I + thanked him politely and told him I'd gotten all the literature I could + handle on the subject from a certain Thomas Aquinas." + [Harlan Ellison, from "The Glass Teat", Article #29] +% +"When belief in a god dies, the god dies." + [Harlan Ellison, "Deathbird Stories"] +% +"Neither Heaven nor Hell, and surely not a + spaceship, will be found in the tail of a comet." + [Harlan Ellison] +% +"Jesus is not going to come down from the mountain to save + your lily-white hide or your black ass. Save yourselves." + [Harlan Ellison] +% +"Do you believe + God makes you breath? + How did he lose + Six million Jews? + [Emerson, Lake, & Palmer] +% +"As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so + are their creeds a disease of the intellect." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance" (1841)] +% +"Heaven always bears some proportion to earth. The god of the cannibal will + be a cannibal, of the crusades a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Conduct of Life"] +% +"Other world! There is no other world! + Here or nowhere is the whole fact." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised + to save a man from the vexation of thinking." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"How wearisome the grammarian, the phrenologist, the political + or religious fanatic or indeed any possessed mortal + whose balance is lost by the exaggeration of a single topic. + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, _Essays_] +% +"The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority + measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits + suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, + that it legislates, tyrannizes over a village of God's empire but it + is not the immutable universal law. Every influx of atheism, of + skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and + removing a diseased religion and making way for truth." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"The religions of the world are the + ejaculations of a few imaginative men." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"The Bishop is elected by the Dean and Prebends of the cathedral. The Queen + sends these gentlemen a _conge d'elire_, or leave to elect; but also sends + them the name of the person whom they are to elect. They go into the + cathedral, chant and pray, and beseech the Holy Ghost to assist them in + their choice; and, after these invocations, invariably find that the + dictates of the Holy Ghost agree with the recommendations of the Queen." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, _English Traits_ (1848)] +% +"Who is he that shall control me? Why may not I act and speak and + write and think with entire freedom? What am I to the universe, or, + the unvierse, what is it to me? Who hath forged the chains of wrong + and right, of Opinion and Custom? And must I wear them?" + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, in "Emerson: The Mind on Fire" p. 51] +% +"Religionists are clinging to little, positive, verbal, formal + versions of the moral law... while the laws of the Law, the great + circling truths whose only adequate symbol is the material laws, the + astronomy etc. are all unobserved, and sneered at when spoken of." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, in "Emerson: The Mind on Fire" p. 151] +% +"To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature"] +% +"Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal + palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it be + goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. + Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world... + I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large + societies and dead institutions." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"] +% +"7. Certain crimes are committed more immediately against God himself; + others, against the state; and a third kind against certain persons. The + chief crime in the first class, cognizable by temporal courts, is + blasphemy, under which may be included atheism. This crime consists in + denying or vilifying the Deity, by speech or writing. All who curse God + or any of the persons of the blessed Trinity, are to suffer death, even + for a single act; and those who deny him (sic), if they persist in their + denial. The denial of a providence, or of the authority of the holy + Scriptures, is punishable capitally for the third offence." + [1771 edition of Encyclopedia Brittanica, + under Law: Tit. 33 "Of crimes"] +% +"What is more, it appears to be generally realized that some of + the world's foremost philosophers, scientists, and artists have + been avowed atheists and that the increase in atheism has gone + hand in hand with the spread of education." + [Encyclopedia of Philosophy] +% +"Belief is not a matter of choice, and therefore + cannot be used as a measure of virtue." + [M. J. Engh, "Rainbow Man", pg. 43] +% +"Lemme get this straight, you have "faith" in the existence of the most + powerful being you can imagine, who's your best bud and who you can ask + to do favors, and further you have "faith" that when you die you don't + actually cease to exist and become worm food, but your magical buddy + invites you to come live with him in the most wonderful place you can + imagine, and *we* are the ones for whom truth has become "whatever works + for you" or "whatever makes you feel good"??? LMAO!" + [Bob Enweiven] +% +"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; + Or he can, but does not want to; + Or he cannot and does not want to. + If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. + If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. + But, if God both can and wants to abolish evil, + Then how come evil in the world?" + [Epicurus, 350-?270 BC] +% +"There is nothing to fear from gods, + There is nothing to feel in death, + Good can be attained, + Evil can be endured" + [The Four Herbs of Epicurus, 341-270 BC] +% +"Thus that which is the most awful of evils, death, + is nothing to us, since when we exist there is no + death, and when there is death we do not exist." + [Epicurus] +% +"To sum up (or I shall be pursuing the infinite), it is quite clear + that the Christian religion has a kind of kinship with folly in some + form, though it has none at all with wisdom. If you want proofs of this, + first consider the fact that the very young and the very old, women and + simpletons, are the people who take the greatest delight in sacred and + holy things, and are therefore always found nearest the altars, led there + doubtless solely by their natural instinct. Secondly, you can see how + the first great founders of the faith were great lovers of simplicity and + bitter enemies of learning. Finally, the biggest fools of all appear to + be those who have once been wholly possessed by zeal for Christian + piety. They squander their possessions, ignore insults, submit to being + cheated, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shun pleasure, + sustain themselves on fasting, vigils, tears, toil and humilations, scorn + life and desire only death - in short, they seem to be dead to any normal + feelings, as if their spirit dwelt elsewhere than in their body. What else + can that be but madness? And so we should not be surprised if the apostles + were thought to be drunk on new wine, and Festus judged Paul to be mad." + [Erasmus, 'Praise of Folly'] +% +"Byron's friend Thomas Moore wrote to a friend in 1818 warning + him not to speak of religion or morality, 'the mania on these + subjects being so universal and congenital that he who thinks + of curing it is as mad as his patients.'" + [Carolly Erickson, "Our Tempestuous Days", pg. 224] +% +"After all, religion is an adolescent social device; it takes a serious + and grown-up concern -- spirituality -- and by its very nature reduces + it to both an adolescent sense of eternity and an adolescent moral + scheme in which absolutely everything is cast in stark contrasts, + in which whatever doubt and mystery can't be bleached out of human + experience is codified into ritual and myth." + [Steve Erikson's column "Unspun" in Salon] +% +"Millions long for immortality who don't + know what to do on a Sunday afternoon." + [Susan Ertz] +% +"Churches should look to their members and friends only for the + financing of their undertakings, and no church should engage in + any undertaking, no matter how laudable it may be, that its + members and friends are unable or unwilling to finance." + [Senator Sam Ervin] +% +"When religion controls government, political liberty dies;and + when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes." + [Sen. Sam Ervin] +% +"If I believed in a god, which I do not, I would like to + communicate with him on the same intellectual level. + Therefore, I would have to teach him a few things." + [Aaron Erwin] +% +"Religion stills a thinking mind." + [Greg Erwin] +% +"If I didn't know better, I would think that you were just + making definitions up in an ad hoc manner to avoid coming + to a conclusion which contradicted your a priori wishes." + [Greg Erwin] +% +All religious vows, codes, and commitments are null & void +herein. Please refrain from contaminating the ideosphere +with harmful memes through prayer, reverence, holy books, +proselytizing, prophesying, faith, speaking in tongues or +spirituality. Fight the menace of second-hand faith! + Humanity sincerely thanks you! + [Greg Erwin, _The Nullifidian_] +% +"You are digging for the answers, Until your fingers bleed, + To satisfy the hunger, To satiate the need. + They feed you on the guilt, To keep you humble and low, + Some man and myth they made up, A thousand years ago." + [Melissa Etheridge, "Silent Legacy" + song on the "Yes, I Am" album] +% +"We decree and order that from now on, AND FOR ALL TIME, Christians shall not + eat or drink with Jews; nor admit them to feasts, nor cohabit with them, nor + bathe with them. Christians shall not allow Jews to hold civil honors over + Christians, or to exercise public office in the State. Jews cannot be + merchants, Tax Collectors, or agents in the buying and selling of the produce + and goods of Christians, nor their Procurators, Computers or Lawyers in + matrimonial matters, nor Obstetricians; nor can they have association or + partnership with Christians. No Christian can leave or bequeath anything in + his last Will and testament to Jews or their congregations. Jews are + prohibited from erecting new synogogues. They are obliged to pay annually a + tenth part of their goods and holdings. Against them Christians can testify, + but the testimony of Jews against Christians in no case is of any value. All + and every single Jew, of whatever sex and age, must everywhere wear the + distinct dress and known marks by which they can be evidently distinguished + from Christians. They cannot live among Christians, but in a certain street, + separated and segregated from Christians, and outside which they cannot under + any pretext have houses" + [Pope Eugenius IV, A.D. 1442, Bull. Rom. Pont., V.67] +% +"He was a wise man who originated the idea of gods." + [Euripedes (484-406 B.C.)] +% +"O mortal man, think mortal thoughts!" + [Euripides, Alcestis, l. 799] +% +"Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves + with unsubstantial dreams and lies, while random + careless change and chance alone control the world?" + [Euripides, Athenian Dramatist, 484-406 BC, "Hecuba"] +% +"Slavery... That thing of evil, by its nature evil, forcing + submission from a man what no man can yield to." + [Euripides, "Hecuba," 425 B.C. He was the first writer + to condemn slavery, writing this almost 500 years before + Paul wrote: "Slaves, obey your masters." The Bible + nowhere condemns slavery, but in many places condones it.] +% +"I have repeated whatever may rebound to the glory, and + suppresed all that could tend to the disgrace, of our religion." + [Eusebius, early Church Father, in _Praeparatio + Evangelica_, chapter 31, book 12] +% +"On some occasions the bodies of the martyrs who had been devoured by beasts, + upon the beasts being strangled, were found alive in their stomachs." + [Eusebius (4th century), Bishop & Christian ecclesiastical historian] +% +"That it is necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a medicine + for those who need such an approach. [As said in Plato's Laws + 663e by the Athenian:] 'And even the lawmaker who is of little + use, if even this is not as he considered it, and as just now the + application of logic held it, if he dared lie to young men for a + good reason, then can't he lie? For falsehood is even more useful + than the above, and sometimes even more able to bring it about that + everyone willingly keeps to all justice.' [then by Clinias:] 'Truth + is beautiful, stranger, and steadfast. But to persuade people of it + is not easy.' "You would find many things of this sort being used + even in the Hebrew scriptures, such as concerning God being jealous + or falling asleep or getting angry or being subject to some other + human passions, for the benefit of those who need such an approach." + [Eusebius, from the Praeparatio Evangelica 12.31, + listing the ideas Plato supposedly got from Moses] +% +"The North American church is out of touch with global realities." + [Evangelical Foreign Mission Association, affiliated + with the Baptist Church, on the current state of + mission outreaches by American christian churches] +% +"Don't you understand mister, you are royalty and God + has chosen you to be the priest of your home?" + [Tony Evans, co-editor of "Seven Promises of a + Promise Keeper", in The Progressive, August 1996] +% +"The demise of our community and culture is the fault of + sissified men who have been overly influenced by women." + [Tony Evans, co-editor of "Seven Promises of a + Promise Keeper", in The Progressive, August 1996] +% +"I am not suggesting you *ask* for your role back, I'm urging you to + *take* it back...there can be no compromise here. If you're going + to lead, you must lead." + [Tony Evans, co-editor, in "Seven Promises of a Promise + Keeper", "Spiritual Purity" chapter, p. 79-80] +% +"God is a perfect example of the kind of aberration that can result from + an untrained intellect combining with an unrestrained imagination." + [Simon Ewins] +% +"Christianity does not preach the gospels to offer man a guide to salvation. + It uses the gospels as a weapon in the ideological conquest of man." + [Simon Ewins] +% +"She had the dubious distinction of being known as America's most outspoken + atheist," NBC's Tom Brokaw said (9/30/96) in introducing a jokey segment + on Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who has been missing for the past year. It's + impossible to imagine Brokaw making light of the disappearance of someone + who has the "dubious distinction" of being a leader of America's Catholics + or Jews--but atheists are assumed to be fair game for ridicule or attack. + That must be why NBC quoted a "conservative Christian commentator" as saying + of O'Hair: "If she is indeed dead, then she's burning in the fires of hell." + Plenty of fundamentalist Christians believe that all Catholics burn in hell, + but we doubt we'll see NBC quoting any of them the next time a pope dies." + [_Extra! Update_, a periodical from Fairness and Accuracy + in Reporting (FAIR), December 1996 issue, page 2. FAIR is + a New York NY-based media watchdog organization.] +% +"(19)Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when + she played the whore in the land of Egypt (20) and lusted after her + paramours whose members were like those of donkeys and whose emissions + was like that of stallions" + [Ezekiel 23] +% +"When the Pope gets sick, how come they + never think of sending him to Lourdes?" + [Fact magazine, circa late-60s] +% +"We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging + science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake." + [Catherine Fahringer] +% +"You can go off and delude yourself all you want, but when you start + threatening nonbelievers, when you start damaging the education systems, + when you start considering the evil and horror bestowed upon humankind + by your religious beliefs in the past and you refuse to accept any + responsibility for them, that's when things get a bit scary in the real + world of which you and I are a part." + [Dan Fake] +% +"We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism... + we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying + our nation today...our battle is with Satan himself." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"The ACLU is to Christians what the + American Nazi party is to Jews." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell] +% +"Our goal has been achieved. The Religious Right is solidly in place, + and religious conservatives in America are now in for the duration." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"We've literally been inundated since the election (with evangelicals) + saying please, please, please crank up the Moral Majority again." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"I feel most ministers who claim they've heard God's voice are + eating too much pizza before they go to bed at night, and it's + really an intestinal disorder, not a revelation." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell] +% +"I hope I live to see the day, when, as in the early days of our country, + we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over + again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" + [Rev. Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, (1979)] +% +"I listen to feminists and all these radical gals -- most of them are failures. + They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some + Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women + just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists + need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And + they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're + sexist. They hate men -- that's their problem." + [Reverend Jerry Falwell] +% +"Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan in America." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To + oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red + Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"If you're not a born-again Christian, + you're a failure as a human being." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"I believe that the people of Israel are the chosen people of God." + [Jerry Falwell, interview on Cable News Network, 21 Nov 1982] +% +"The idea that religion and politics don't mix + was invented by the Devil to keep Christians + from running their own country." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell] +% +"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is + God's punishment for the society that *tolerates* homosexuals." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell, 1993] +% +"You say what's going to happen on this earth when the Rapture occurs? + You'll be riding along in an automobile; you'll be the driver, perhaps; + you're a Christian; there'll be several people in the automobile with + you, maybe someone who is not a Christian. When the trumpet sounds, you + and the other born-again Christians in that automobile will be instantly + caught away, you'll disappear, leaving behind only your clothing and + physical things that cannot inherit eternal life. That unsaved person or + persons in the automobile will suddenly be startled to find that the car + is moving along without a driver, and suddenly somewhere crashes. Those + saved people in the car have disappeared. Other cars on the highway + driven by believers will suddenly be out of control. Stark pandemonium + will occur on that highway and on every highway in the world where + Christians are caught away from the world." + [Jerry Falwell, from Wills, Garry, "Under God, Religion and + American Politics", Simon & Schuster, 1990, pg. 147, + originally excerpted from "Ronald Reagan and the Prophecy of + Armageddon" by Joe Cuomo, National Public Radio] +% +"He is purple -- the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a + triangle -- the gay-pride symbol.... As a Christian I feel that role + modeling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell "outing" Tinky Winky the Teletubby, + Feb. 1999 edition of the National Liberty Journal] +% +"The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this. And, I know that I'll hear + from them for this. But, throwing God or successfully with the help of the + federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the + schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God + will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, + we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, + and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to + make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, + all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in + their face and say 'you helped this happen'." + [Jerry Falwell, on the 700 Club, 9-13-2001] +% +"I do not believe the Republicans or the Democrats have the solution to + America's moral and spiritual dilemma. Only a pervasive and national + spiritual awakening can prevent us entering the post-Christian era as + we go simultaneously into the 21st century. I believe America is in + imminent peril. We are rotting from within." + [Jerry Falwell, "Rebuilding America's Walls," 7/6/1997] +% +"America is living by a standard of relative morality. Young people who do + not know what is right will follow their animal nature. If young people + do not believe in absolute truth and absolute morality, they will + fornicate, rob and indulge their selfish pleasures. Absolute truth and + absolute morality are the basis of the Declaration of Independence. + These are self-evident truths and inalienable rights." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"If America is not suffering the irrevocable judgment of God because she + has broken her covenant with God, then I believe she is dangerously close." + [Jerry Falwell, "America Made a Deal with God," 7/6/1997] +% +"Since the Antichrist will not be revealed before Jesus comes, I believe + conditions are falling in place, i.e., one-world government, so he can + rule the world after Jesus comes. But we're moving toward a one-world + government through the United Nations, through the world court and a + growing world opinion. The problem is that the one-world opinion is + taking the side of the Palestinians, not the side of Israel. + [Jerry Falwell, "What is Next in the End-Time Drama," 9/9/2001] +% +"Religion is more like response to a fiend + than it is like obedience to an expert." + [Austin Farrer] +% +"Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his + martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?" + [Jules Feiffer] +% +"What good is a beautiful church that serves the + spiritual needs to someone sleeping on a steam grate?" + [James Felder] +% +"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" + ["Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas] +% +"In the church of a small town in the state of S. Paulo, Brazil, the statue + of Virgin Mary started to weep regularly. The news spread like fire and soon + pilgrims from everywhere crowded the place, hoping for miracles. Researchers + from the nearby university of Campinas took samples of the tears and compared + them to the available water sources in the neighborhood. They turned out to + have the same chemical composition as the water from a drawn well behind the + church. Then the researchers sealed the statue inside a glass dome and the + tears stopped for many days. When the weeping began anew, they noticed the + seal had been broken. Their report stated clearly that the so-called miracle + was a fraud, possibly to attract pilgrims to the region. The media asked a + woman what she thought of the report and she replied: "I don't care for + reports. The Virgin wept. It's my faith that counts". + [Leo Fernandes] +% +"We who are unbelievers have so much to lose. The fire in the belly for + freedom of conscience can be quelled when threatened, and the lips can be + forced to mouth words. But the mind of the unbeliever, once opened to the + fact that nothing supernatural exists either to worship or to fear, cannot + be stilled without paying a great price. It is all too evident that life + is a struggle for power by some human beings over others, and history has + shown time and again that the most effective weapon for grabbing that + power is religion. Will history show ours to be proof of the maxim that + free societies don't last?" + [Sandra Feroe, "A Thanksgiving Ideal" Nov. 21, 1998] +% +"When the masses become better informed about science, they will feel + less need for help from supernatural Higher Powers. The need for + religion will end when Man becomes sensible enough to govern himself. + We will not, therefore, lose our time praying to an imaginary god + for things which our own exertions alone can procure." + [Francisco Ferrer y Guardia, Spanish atheist educator + accused by Catholic clergy of leading a riot in Barcelona + and executed without a trial. From "The Origin and + Ideals of the Modern School", published posthumously] +% +"Let no more gods or exploiters be served. + Let us learn rather to love one another." + [Francisco Ferrer] +% +"[My] purpose...is is to transform theologians into anthropologists, + lovers of God into lovers of man, candidates for the next world into + students of this world ... I negate the fantastic hypocrisy of theology + and religion only in order to affirm the true nature of man." + [Ludwig Feuerbach] +% +"Man first unconsciously and involuntarily creates + God in his own image, and after this God (Religion) + consciously and voluntarily creates man in his own image" + [Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach, + "The Essence Of Christianity" 1841] +% +"Only he is a truly ethical, a truly human being, who has the + courage to see through his own religious feelings and needs." + [Ludwig Feuerbach] +% +"Faith is essentially intolerant... essentially because necessarily + bound up with faith is the illusion that one's cause is also God's cause." + [Ludwig Feuerbach] +% +"God is the explanation for the unexplainable which explains nothing + because it explains everything without distinction -- he is the night of + theory, nonetheless making everything clear to the mind by removing any + measure of darkness and extinguishing the light of discriminating + comprehension -- the not-knowing which solves all doubts by repudiating + them, which knows everything because it knows nothing in particular and + because all things which impress reason are nothing to religion, lose their + identity and are nil in God's eye. The night is the mother of religion." + [Feuerbach, "Das Wesen des Christenthums" (19th century, Germany)] +% +"You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. + I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers + which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and + different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not + absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything + about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here... I don't + have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being + lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really + is as far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me." + [Richard P. Feynman, "Genius, the life and science"] +% +"It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which + comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress + which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this + freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; + and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations." + [Richard Feynman, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?"] +% +"God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain + those things that you do not understand. Now, when you finally discover + how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; + you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So + therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured + that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't + believe the laws will explain, such as consiousness, or why you only live + to a certain length of time--life and death--stuff like that. God is + always associated with those things that you do not understand. Therefore + I don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they + have been figured out." + [Richard Feynman] +% +"[When a young person loses faith in his religion because he begins + to study science and its methodology] it isn't that [through the + obtaining of real knowledge that] he knows it all, but he suddenly + realizes that he doesn't know it all." + [Richard P. Feynman, "The Meaning of It All," p. 36] +% +"Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in + uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive + that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to + watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate." + [Richard P. Feynman, "The Meaning of It All," p. 39] +% +"It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty + that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some + direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so + many times before in various periods in the history of man." + [Richard Feynman, "The Meaning of It All", p. 34] +% +"The greatest achievement ever made in the cause of human progress is the + total and final separation of church and state. If we have nothing else to + boast of, we could lay claim with justice that the first among the nations + we of this country made it an article of organic law that the relations + between man and his maker were a private concern, into which other men + have no right to intrude. To measure the stride thus made for the + Emancipation of the race, we have only to look back over the centuries + that have gone before us, and recall the dreadful persecutions in the + name of religion that have filled the world." + [David Dudley Field (1805-1894) in describing 'American + Progress in Jurisprudence,' as quoted in Anson Phelps + Stokes, Church And State In The United States Vol I, p. 37] +% +"The Theologian is an owl, sitting on an old dead branch in the tree of + human knowledge, and hooting the same old hoots that have been hooted for + hundreds and thousands of years, but he has never given a hoot for progress." + [Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Atheism is the world of reality, it is reason, it is freedom. + Atheism is human concern, and intellectual honesty to a degree that + the religious mind cannot begin to understand. And yet it is more + than this. Atheism is not an old religion, it is not a new and coming + religion, in fact it is not, and never has been, a religion at all. + The definition of Atheism is magnificent in its simplicity: Atheism + is merely the bed-rock of sanity in a world of madness." + [Atheism: An Affirmative View, by Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Atheism has one doctrine: To Question + Atheism has one dogma: To Doubt + The Atheist Bible has but one word: THINK." + [Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Nothing changes history like the Christian Historian" + [Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Those who believe in hell can never know + truth, for they are blinded by fear." + [Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Prayers never bring anything... They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, + the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy - but to the enlightened it is + the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas" + [W. C. Fields] +% +"I'm looking for loopholes." + [W. C. Fields, when + caught reading the Bible] +% +"To me, these biblical stories are just so many fish stories, and + I'm not specifically referring to Jonah and the whale. I need + indisputable proof of anything I'm asked to believe. Someone has + to come up with the whys and wherefores." + [W. C. Fields, from "W. C. Fields + & Me" by Carlotta Monti] +% +"Wouldn't it be terrible if I quoted some reliable + statistics which prove that more people are driven + insane through religious hysteria than by drinking." + [W. C. Fields] +% +"A world where most men prefer sex with little children to sex with + grown women, mostly allegedly Christian parents secretly engage in bloody + Satanic rituals and every third person has suffered anal, genital and other + harassments by demonic dwarfs from outer space makes as much sense - and + just as little sense - as a world where the universe is ruled by the ghost + of a crucified Jew and George Bush had rational reasons (which no one can now + remember) for bombing Iraq again two days before leaving the White House." + [Prof. T. F. X. Finnegan, Trinity College, Dublin] +% +"What kind of a god would crucify his own son?" + [Firesign Theatre] +% +"It remains one of the most baffling yet affecting phenomena in modern + religious life: A beam of light or a spot of dirt in an otherwise ordinary + place is perceived as the image of the Virgin Mary, and suddenly thousands + of pilgrims descend on the site, turning it into a makeshift shrine. ...In + previous years, it has been a vision in the sky, a glint off a car bumper, + a face in a tortilla, a tear on an icon. ...But while church leaders are + often loath to debunk a visionary experience, not wanting to damage the + faith of thousands, they are also leery of letting such events get out of + hand. If someone who claims to have communicated with the divine begins + spreading teachings that are contrary to church dogma, bishops have not + hesitated to step in." + [David Firestone, Newsday, Press Democrat, 23 December 1990] +% +I see them on the corner +Big black Bible in hand +Shoutin' at the people to hear the word of the Lord, + and it's this: +"You're just a filthy sinner-man! +You can't save yourself, but -- Jesus can! +And then you too can be an angel with a sword -- + Smite the unrighteous! +Make Jesus your goal, +Sell him your soul, +Go throw your mind down the nearest hole." + +CHORUS: + +And the Lord Christ Jesus will +Save you from the Devil and Sin, +The Lord Marx Lenin will +Save you from the Chairman of the Board, +The Lord Smack Needle will +Save you from the pains of life -- +But who will come and save you from your Lord? + + [Leslie Fish, "Trinity"] +% +"In 1550 he (Las Casas) took part in a great controversy with Juan de + Sepulveda, one of the most celebrated scholars of that time. Sepulveda + wrote a book in which he maintained the right of the pope and the king + of Spain to make war upon the heathen people of the New World and bring + them forcibly into the fold of Christ.... In maintaining his ground + that persuasion is the only lawful method for making men Christians, + extreme nicety of statement was required, for the least slip might bring + him within the purview of the Inquisition. Men were burning at the + stake for heresy while this discussion was going on, and the controversy + more than once came terribly near home." + [Discovery of America, Chapter XI: + Las Casas, John Fiske, 1892] +% +"God made his only son die on the cross to avenge his own anger + against a man and woman four thousand years dead. Besides, the + garbage disposal was sending radio signals through his head + and it seemed like a really good idea at the time." + [Charles Fiterman] +% +"We warn the North that every one of the leading abolitionists is + agitating the negro slavery question merely as a means to attain + their ulterior ends... a surrender to Socialism and Communism + -- to no private property, no church, no law; to free love, free + lands, free women and free children." + [George Fitzhugh, 1857] +% +"Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the + clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, + "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no + gardener." So, they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener.... + So they set up a barbed wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol it with + bloodhounds... But no shrieks even suggest that some intruder intruder has + received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. + The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. + "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric + shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes + secretly to look after the garden which he loves." At last the Skeptic + despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what + you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an + imaginary gardener or even no gardener at all?" + [Anthony Flew] +% +"Christian biblical theology must recognise that its articulation + of anti-Judaism in the New Testament ... generated the unspeakable + sufferings of the Holocaust." + [Dr. E. Florenza (Prof. of New Testament Studies) & Dr. D. Tracy + (Prof. of Philosophical Theology), "The Holocaust as Interruption" + (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, Ltd., 1984).] +% +"The Bible has done more harm than any other book in the world." + [William Floyd, "Christianity Cross-Examined"] +% +"Religion...can exercise a severe crippling and inhibiting effect + upon the human mind, by fostering irrational anxiety and guilt, + and by hampering the free play of the intellect". + [Dr J C Flugel] +% +"The Santa myth is one of the most effective means ever + devised for intimidating children, eroding their self- + esteem, twisting their behavior, warping their values, + and slowing their development of critical thinking skills." + [Tom Flynn, _The Trouble with Christmas_] +% +"Most humans feel what Paul Kurtz has called the "transcendent temptation," + the emotional drive to festoon the universe with large-scale meaning.... + Secular humanists suspect there is something more gloriously human about + *resisting* the religious impulse; about accepting the cold truth, even if + that truth is only that the universe is as indifferent to us as we are to + it; about facing the existential vacuum in all its horrible majesty; and + constructing a life of compassion and exuberance on its brink without + relying on the dubious shelter of faith." + [Tom Flynn, "The Difference a Word Makes", Free Inquiry] +% +"I had resources so I was able to get help. ....To all you 'born + again' Christians out there, I recommend some lithium; it helps." + [Larry Flynt on his conversion experience, + on the Larry King Show, 1/10/97] +% +"Oh, we could probably learn to like one another, and we probably + have some things in common. But you have to be honest about what + you do. And the Reverend Falwell isn't being honest. He's in + the business of selling religion." + [Larry Flynt, on Larry King Live, 1/10/97, in a debate with + Rev. Jerry Falwell, and asked if he could ever like Falwell] +% +"It's no wonder Christian Coalition members repeat their organization's + mission like a mantra. Understanding morality not informed by a faith + in Jesus Christ must confound true believers at least as much as values + not guided primarily by common sense perplex the rest of the population." + [Alex Foege, "The Empire God Built: Inside + Pat Robertson's Media Machine", pg 143] +% +"The secret they [the courts] do not seem to understand + is that there is no separation of church and state in + the Constitution or in any of our founding documents." + [Janet Folger, Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, + in Coral Ridge On-line Newsletter, February, 1999] +% +"It will yet be the proud boast of women that + they never contributed a line to the Bible." + [George W. Foote] +% +"There are two things in the world that can never + get together- religion & common sense." + [George W. Foote, from "Flowers of + Freethought, 2 vols. 1893-94] +% +"The only terror in death is the apprehension of what lies beyond + it, and that emotion is impossible to a sincere disbeliever." + [G. W. Foote, "Infidel Death Beds"] +% +"The man who worships a tyrant in heaven naturally + submits his neck to the yoke of tyrants on earth." + [George W. Foote, "Flowers of Freethought"] +% +My School Prayer + +Now I lay me down to learn +Which to read and which to burn +Pray the Lord my soul to turn +Over to the school board. + +Free to worship as I please, +Long as it pleases the authorities. +Hear me praying on my knees +My School Prayer. + +"Once again, boys and girls, I'll remind you that this activity +is not mandatory, and those of you who don't believe in a +Judeo-Christian God as defined by Congress should feel free to +sit quietly with your fingers in your ears like the atheistic +heathen you are. Agnostics may want to plug just one ear." + +May my every sneeze be blessed. +May I pass my urine test. +May my mind be underest- +imated and ignored, Lord + +Keep my classroom safe and clean. +Sanctify my M-16. +Every morning, eight-fifteen, +It's My School Prayer. + +God bless California, Arizona, +North Dakota, Texas, Maine, +New Hampshire, +Ohio and New York, of course. + +The forty-eight contiguous, +And the two ambiguous. +The greatest country God ever saved from the pagans. + +And while we're at it, dear Lord, bless the Reagans. + +God is good, and God is great. +So we'd hate to separate +Church and state or ourselves from pat- +riarchy and theocracy. + +Peace on earth, Thy kingdom come +Into my curriculum. +Make my head a hollow drum. + +Strike me dumb +Except to mumble +My School Prayer. + +[The Foremen,"My School Prayer", + from the "What's Left?" album] +% +"Bring me a creationist who doesn't lie, deceive, distort and + distract then I will show you a whole lot of thin air!" + [Clayton Forno] +% +"Saying the second law of thermodynamics means evolution can't happen + is like saying the theory of gravity means birds can't fly." + [Clayton Forno] +% +"The exoteric, state-organised section of the Christian Church persecuted + and stamped out the esoteric section, destroying every trace of its + literature... in striving to eradicate... gnosis from human history." + [Dion Fortune, "The Mystical Qabalah"] +% +"A religion without a goddess is half-way to atheism." + [Dion Fortune] +% +"Q. Where does Jodie Foster stand in the debate between science and faith?" + +"I absolutely believe what Ellie believes - that there is no direct + evidence, so how could you ask me to believe in God when there's + absolutely no evidence that I can see? I do believe in the beauty and + the awe-inspiring mystery of the science that's out there that we + haven't discovered yet, that there are scientific explanations for + phenomena that we call mystical because we just don't know any better." + [Jodie Foster, interview with Dan McLeod, "Foster Makes Contact + With Sagan" published in Vancouver's Georgia Strait July 10, 1997 + issue, on her role as Dr. Eleanor Arroway in the film "Contact"] +% +"Whatever sympathy I feel towards religions, whatever admiration for + some of their adherents, whatever historical or biological necessity I + see in them, whatever metaphorical truth, I cannot accept them as + credible explanations of reality; and they are incredible to me in + proportion to the degree that they require my belief in positive human + attributes and intervenient powers in their divinities." + [John Fowles, _The Aristos_] +% +"The process of creating new scripture by constructive abuse of + the old reaches its climax in the letters ascribed to Paul." + [Robin Lane Fox, Historian; Fellow, New College, Oxford] +% +"The atheist bashes all religions whilst the theist bashes + all but his own, upon which he lavishes great care in case + it should come in contact with reality." + [Gully Foyle] +% +"The absurdity of a religious practice may be clearly demonstrated + without lessening the numbers of people who indulge in it." + [Anatole France] +% +"If 50 million people believe a foolish + thing, it is still a foolish thing" + [Anatole France] +% + (God explaining the doctrine of free will.) "In order not to impair + human liberty, I will be ignorant of what I know, I will thicken upon + my eyes the veils I have pierced, and in my blind clear-sightedness + I will let myself be surprised by what I have foreseen." + [Anatole France] +% +"Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin." + [Anatole France] +% +"The impotence of God is infinite." + [Anatole France] +% +"We thank God for having created this world, and praise Him for having made + another, quite different one, where the wrongs of this one are corrected." + [Anatole France] +% + "Les dieux ont coutume de ressembler à ceux qui les adorent." +("the gods have the custom of resembling those that worship them") + [Anatole France] +% +"Mystery is essential to the impostor. Above everything else, the charlatan + must avoid straightforward reasoning and simplicity of expression: too clear + and direct a light would quickly destroy the spell he exerts, through eloquent + ambiguity, over his victims. In all ages, the voice of the humbug has + exercised a peculiar fascination -- it is his chief weapon. But though he + has to speak and write continuously, his announcements are best couched in + indefinite phrases, opaque and susceptible of many interpretations, like the + words of Subtle, the alchemist in Ben Jonson's play of that name." + [Grete de Francesco (translated from the German + by Miriam Beard -- Yale University Press, 1939)] +% +"One of the sponsors of the creche was asked about his interest in viewing + it while it stood on Scarsdale's Boniface Circle during the christmas + season. To my surprise as the questioner, it turned out the he never bothered + to go look at the creche at all, let alone to admire or draw inspiration from + it. But on reflection, it should not have been so surprising. The creche was + not there for him to see or to appreciate for its intrinsic spiritual value + in his religious universe. it was there for others, who professed other + religions or none, so that the clout of his religious group should be made + manifest- above all to any in the sharply divided village who would have + preferred that it not be there." + [_Faith And Freedom, Religious Liberty In America_, + Marvin E. Frankel, retired Federal Judge, p. 61] +% +"Certainly the affirmative pursuit of one's convictions about the ultimate + mystery of the universe and man's relation to it is placed beyond the + reach of law. Government may not interfere with organized or individual + expressions of belief or disbelief. Propagation of belief -- or even of + disbelief -- in the supernatural is protected, whether in church or + chapel, mosque or synagogue, tabernacle or meeting-house." + [Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court justice, majority decision, + Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, 1940] +% +"In modern Europe, as in ancient Greece, it would seem that even inanimate + objects have sometimes been punished for their misdeeds. After the revocation + of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, the Protestant chapel at La Rochelle was + condemned to be demolished, but the bell, perhaps out of regard for its value, + was spared. However, to expiate the crime of having rung heretics to prayers, + it was sentenced to be first whipped, and then buried and disinterred, by way + of symbolizing its new birth at passing into Catholic hands. Thereafter it + was catechized, and obliged to recant and promise that it would never again + relapse into sin. Having made this ample and honourable amends, the bell was + reconciled, baptized, and given, or rather sold, to the parish of St. + Bartholomew. But when the governor sent in the bill for the bell to the + parish authorities, they declined to settle it, alleging that the bell, as + a recent convert to Catholicism, desired to take advantage of the law lately + passed by the king, which allowed all new converts a delay of three years in + paying their debts. + [Sir James G. Frazer, _Folklore In The Old Testament_] +% +"Some of the old laws of Israel are clearly savage taboos of + a familiar type thinly disguised as commands of the deity." + [Sir James G. Frazer] +% +"Not only is there nothing to be gained by believing an untruth, + but there is everything to lose when we sacrifice the indispensable + tool of reason on the altar of superstition." + [Freedom From Religion Foundation] +% +"...the Bible, a book that glorifies behavior you abhor." + [Freedom From Religion Foundation] +% +"The modern world is essentially non-religious. This may seem a strange + statement given the rise of a militant Catholic church and militant + Muslim, American Protestant, and Judaic groups. But if one examines + the acts, as opposed to the rhetoric, of these movements, one finds + their primary purpose is to reassert dominance over women and subordinate + groups, e.g., Muslim socialists, American blacks, Israeli Arabs." + [Marilyn French, "Will Secularism Survive?" + article in _Free Inquiry_ magazine] +% +"The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, + the more widespread is the decline of religious belief." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"When a man has once brought himself to accept uncritically all the + absurdities that religious doctrines put before him and even to + overlook the contradictions between them, we need not be greatly + surprised at the weakness of his intellect" + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion", 1927] +% +"Civilization has little to fear from educated people and brain-workers. + In them the replacement of religious motives for civilized behaviours by + other, secular motives, would proceed unobtrusively..." + [Sigmund Freud, 1927] +% +"Religious ideas have sprung from the same need as all the other + achievements of culture: from the necessity for defending itself + against the crushing supremacy of nature." + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion" 1927, p.34] +% +"While the different religions wrangle with one another as to which of them + is in possession of the truth, in our view the truth of religion may be + altogether disregarded. Religion is an attempt to get control over the + sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which + we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological + necessities. But it cannot achieve its end. Its doctrines carry with them + the stamp of the times in which they originated, the ignorant childhood days + of the human race. Its consolations deserve no trust. Experience teaches + us that the world is not a nursery. The ethical commands, to which religion + seeks to lend its weight, require some other foundations instead, for human + society cannot do without them, and it is dangerous to link up obedience to + them with religious belief. If one attempts to assign to religion its place + in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a + parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through + on his way from childhood to maturity." + [Sigmund Freud, "Moses and Monotheism", 1932] +% +"A great deal is already gained with the first step: the humanization + of nature. Impersonal forces and destinies cannot be approached... + if everywhere in nature there are Beings around us of a kind that we + know in our own society.... we can apply the same methods against these + violent supermen outside that we employ in our own society; we can try + to adjure them, to appease them, to bribe them, and, by so influencing + them, we may rob them of a part of their power + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion", 1927] +% +"No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to + suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere." + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion", 1927] +% +"Demons do not exist any more than gods do, being + only the products of the psychic activity of man." + [Sigmund Freud, New York Times Magazine, 6 May 1956] +% +"It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world + and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order + in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking + fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"Religion would then be the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity; + like the obsessisional neurosis of children...If this view is right, + it is to be supposed that a turning away from religion is bound to + occur with the fatal inevitability of a process of growth." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, + and the contradiction religion offers to both is only too palpable." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from + the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires." + [Sigmund Freud, "New Introductory + Lectures on Psychoanalysis"] +% +"When a man is freed of religion, he has a better + chance to live a normal and wholesome life." + [Sigmund Freud, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"The gods retain their threefold task: they must exorcize the terrors + of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of fate, particularly + as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings + and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them." + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion", 1927] +% +"The greater the number of men to whom the treasures of knowledge become + accessible, the more widespread is the falling-away from religious + belief -- at first only from its obsolete and objectionable trappings, + but later from its fundamental postulates as well." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"The different religions have never overlooked the part played by the + sense of guilt in civilization. What is more, they come forward with a + claim...to save mankind form this sense of guilt, which they call sin." + [Sigmund Freud, "Civilization and its Discontents"] +% +"They'll do anything, so long as there's no chance the neighbors will + find out about it. Neighbors have been responsible for more straight + living than all the great religions of the world combined." + [Esther Friesner, "Here Be Demons", pg. 143] +% +"Go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend + Do it in the name of heaven - you can justify it in the end." + [From One Tin Soldier] +% +"Man is forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. + He acts against God's command... From the standpoint of the Church, + which represents authority, this is essentially sin. From the + standpoint of man, however, this is the beginning of human freedom." + [Erich Fromm (1900-1980)] +% +"Once a doctrine, however irrational, has gained power in + a society, millions of people will believe it rather than + feel ostracized and isolated." + [Erich Fromm, "An Analysis of Some + Types of Religious Experience"] +% +"I turned to speak to God/About the world's despair;/But to + make bad matters worse/I found God wasn't there." + [Robert Frost (1874-1963)] +% +"Now, I'm a minister, but if I have to remove the Bible, + remove the cross from the wall, remove the Ten Commandments + to get that government money, I'll do it." + [Rev. Larry Fryer, from NY Times 03/24/2001] +% +"A world filled with wonder + a cold fathomless sky + a man's life so meager he can but wonder why + he cries out to heaven, its truth to reveal + the answer only silence for God isn't real + + Go ask the starving millions under Stalin's cruel reign + go ask the child with cancer who eases her pain + and go to your churches if that's how you feel + but don't ask me to follow for God isn't real + + He forms in his image a weak and foolish man + speaks to him in symbols that few understand + for a life of devotion the death blow he deals + we owe him only hatred but God isn't real + + Go tell the executioner of the power he can't defy + go tell his shackled victim of the mercy on high + and go to your churches go beg, pray and kneel + but don't ask me to follow for God isn't real + No - no matter how he should be - God isn't real. + [Robbie Fulks, "God Isn't Real" from his + album- Let's Kill Saturday Night (1998)] +% +"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the + Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example." + [Rev. R. Furman, D. D., Baptist, of South Carolina] +% +"He asked: "Why did God create mosquitos"? + I answered: "To watch man chasing them, as it + seems God likes to watch Nintendo games". + [Hussein Gaafar] +% +"...a noble practice which does honor to women." + [Sheik Gad Al Haq Ali Gad Al Haq, explaining + Mohammed's law for removing part or all of a + girl's clitoris to reduce her sexual appetite] +% +"Do not allow the Church or State to govern + your thought or dictate your judgment." + [Matilda Joslyn Gage, "Woman, + Church and State", 1893] +% +"Throughout this protracted & disgraceful assault on + American womanhood the clergy baptized each new insult and + act of injustice in the name of the Christian religion..." + [Matilda Joslyn Gage] +% +"Those who are enslaved to their sects are not merely devoid of + all sound knowledge, but they will never even stop to learn." + [Galen] +% +"I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, + reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use." + [Galileo] +% +"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is + not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." + [Galileo Galilei] +% +"They know that it is human nature to take up causes whereby a man may + oppress his neighbor, no matter how unjustly. ... Hence they have had + no trouble in finding men who would preach the damnability and heresy + of the new doctrine from the very pulpit..." + [Galileo Galilei, 1615] +% +"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the + universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, + is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, + and at the least an error of faith." + [Catholic Church's decision against Galileo Galilei] +% +"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin + not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations." + [Galileo Galilei, "The Authority of Scripture in Philosophical + Controversies", which was condemned by the Inquisition] +% +"It vexes me when they would constrain science by the + authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider + themselves bound to answer reason and experiment." + [Galileo Galilei, "The Authority of + Scripture in Philosophical Controversies"] +% +"It is surely harmful to souls to make it + a heresy to believe what is proved." + [Galileo Galilei, "The Authority of + Scripture in Philosophical Controversies"] +% +"Having been admonished by this Holy Office [the Inquisition] entirely to + abandon the false opinion that the Sun was the center of the universe and + immovable, and that the Earth was not the center of the same and that it + moved... I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and + detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error + and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church." + [Galileo Galilei, Recantation, 22 June 1633] +% +"...nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or + which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called into + question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages." + [Galileo Galilei, quoted in "Blind Watchers of the Sky", p. 101] +% +"Organized Christianity has probably done more to retard the ideals + that were its founder's than any other agency in the world." + [Richard Le Gallienne] +% +"I could prove God statistically." + [George Gallup] +% +"Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, + an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads." + [John Galt, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_] +% +"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, + Your christians are so unlike your christ" + [Mahatma Gandhi] +% +"The most fatal blow to progress is slavery of the intellect. The + most sacred right of humanity is the right to think, and next to the + right to think is the right to express that thought without fear." + [Helen H. Gardner, _Men, Women and Gods_] +% +"I do not know the needs of a god or of another world.... I do + know that women make shirts for seventy cents a dozen in this one. + [Helen H. Gardener, "Men, Women and Gods," 1885] +% +"Every injustice that has ever been fastened upon women + in a Christian country has been "authorized by the Bible" + and riveted and perpetuated by the pulpit." + [Helen H. Gardner] +% +"But why are Paul's commands not followed to-day? Why are not the words, + sister, mother, daughter, wife, only names for degradation and dishonor? + Because men have grown more honorable than their religion, and the strong + arm of the law, supported by the stronger arm of public sentiment, demands + greater justice than St. Paul ever dreamed of. Because men are growing grand + enough to recongize the fact that right is not masculine only, and that + justice knows no sex. And because the church no longer makes the laws. + Saints have been retired from the legal profession. I can't recall the name + of a single one who is practicing law now. Have any of you ever met a saint + at the bar? Women are indebted to-day for their emancipation from a position + of hopeless degradation, not to their religion nor to Jehovah, but to the + justice and honor of the men who have defied his commands. That she does not + crouch to-day where St. Paul tried to bind her, she owes to the men who are + grand and brave enough to ignore St. Paul, and rise superior to his God." + [Helen H. Gardener] +% +"One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible + from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at + least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts + are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, + but when He's good, nobody can touch Him." + [John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983] +% +"Let me confess at once that I find something profoundly impious, almost + blasphemous, about setting limits of any sort on the power of God to bring + things about in any manner he chooses. If God creates a world of particles + and waves, dancing in obedience to mathematical and physical laws, who are + we to say that he cannot make use of those laws to cover the surface of a + small planet with living creatures? A god whose creation is so imperfect + that he must be continually adjusting it to make it work properly seems to + me a god of relatively low order, hardly worthy of any worship." + [Martin Gardner, _The Ambidextrous Universe_ pg.136] +% +"How many conservatives, who talk constantly about restoring America's + Christian heritage, have you heard mention that Washington, John Adams, + Franklin, Jefferson, and most of the other founding fathers, as well as + Lincoln, were not Christians? It was Washington who insisted that no + reference to God appear in the Constitution. "The government of the United + States," he declared, "is not in any sense founded on the Christian + religion." Jefferson produced a life of Jesus (still in print) from which + he removed all the miracles to let the heart of Jesus' teachings shine + forth. Not one of the first seven presidents professed the Christian faith." + [Martin Gardner, Foreword to "Steve Allen + on the Bible, Religion, & Morality"] +% +"The divorce between church and state ought to be absolute. It ought + to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no church property + anywhere, in any state, or in any nation, should be exempt from taxation, + for if you exempt the church property of any church organization, to that + extent you impose tax upon the whole community." + [US Pres. James A. Garfield, + speech to Congress, June 22, 1874] +% +"Man created God, not God, man" + [Guiseppi Garibaldi] +% +"The priest is the personification of falsehood." + [Guiseppi Garibaldi] +% +"Dear friends, -- Man has created God, not God man. Yours ever, Garibaldi." + [Guiseppi Garibaldi, entire text of letter] +% +"For life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost. The individual + suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face + with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it over with a curtain + of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his + "ideas" are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his + existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality." + [Jose Ortega Y Gasset] +% +"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very + efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning." + [Bill Gates] +% +"To make the Greeks into the fathers of true civilization- the fathers, + in a word, of the first Enlightenment- was to subvert the foundations + of Christian histiography by treating man's past as a secular, not + sacred, record. The primacy of Greece meant the primacy of philosophy, + and the primacy of philosophy made nonsense of the claim that religion + was man's central concern." + [Peter Gay, "The Enlightenment - The Rise of Modern Paganism"] +% +"Eve was framed." + [Annie Laurie Gaylor] +% +"Nothing fails like prayer." + [Annie Laurie Gaylor] +% +"Superstitions typically involve seeing order where in fact there + is none, and denial amounts to rejecting evidence of regularities, + sometimes even ones that are staring us in the face." + [Murray Gell-Mann, "Quark and the Jaguar"] +% +"I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now + to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe." + [Murray Gell-Mann, "Quark and the Jaguar"] +% +"The persistence of erroneous beliefs exacerbates the widespread anachronistic + failure to recognize the urgent problems that face humanity on this planet." + [Murray Gell-Mann, "Quark and the Jaguar"] +% +"Many...freely confess that they believe what it makes them feel good to + believe. Evidence doesn't play much of a role. They are alleviating + their fear of randomness by identifying regularities that are not there." + [Murray Gell-Mann] +% +"...the only "right" a sodomite has in a + Chrisian Theocracy is the right to die." + [Dan Gentry, of Christian Research] +% +"No theory is too false, no fable too absurd, no superstition too degrading + for acceptance when it has become embedded in common belief. Men will + submit themselves to torture and to death, mothers will immolate (burn) + their children at the bidding of beliefs they thus accept." + [Henry George (1839-1897)] +% +"Against human stupidity, even the gods fight in vain." + [German Proverb] +% +"My thoughts will not cater to priest or dictator; + No person can deny, + Die Gedanken Sind Frei!" + [16th century German peasant song] +% +"It ain't necessary so, + It ain't necessarily so-- + De t'ings dat yo' li'ble + To read in de Bible-- + It ain't necessarily so. + + Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale, + Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale-- + Fo' he made his home in + Dat fish's abdomen-- + Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale. + + Methus'lah live nine hundred years, + Methus'lah live nine hundred years-- + But who calls dat livin' + When no gal'll give in + To no man what's nine hundred years? + + I'm preachin' dis sermon to show + It ain't nessa, ain't nessa, + Ain't necessarily so!" + [Ira Gershwin, part of his lyrics to the + song "It Ain't Necessarily So" (1935)] +% +"All in all, I can't say I believe in god. If, in fact, I ever find + out that he does indeed exist, I think I'll stay away from him, + because if he's responsible for half the things he gets credit for, + he's got to be one mean son of a bitch." + [Peter Gether, _A Cat Abroad_, pp. 89-90] +% +"As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear + without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of + Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. + The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; + the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of + military spirit were buried in the cloister. A large portion of public and + private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and + devotion, and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of + both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, + Zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition kindled the + flame of theological factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and + always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to + synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny, and the + persecuted sects became the secret enemies of the country." + [Edward Gibbons, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman + Empire", 1781. The Roman Empire fell about 100 + years after it was converted to Christianity.] +% +"The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world + were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher + as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful." + [Edward Gibbons, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", 1781] +% +"Of the three Popes, John the Twenty-third was the first victim; he fled and + was brought back a prisoner; the most scandalous charges were suppressed; the + Vicar of Christ was only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and incest." + [Gibbons, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_] +% +"A state of skepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the + practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are + forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision." + [Edward Gibbons, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_] +% +"To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new + propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind." + [Charlotte P. Gilman] +% +"The Roman Catholic motto is ourselves alone for fellow Roman Catholics. + We must defeat all heretics (non-Roman Catholics) at the ballot box. The + holy father states that negative tactics are fatal. The demands of the + holy father (the pope) are that the public services should be 100% Roman + Catholic soon. Care must be taken that no suspicion may be raised when + Roman Catholics are secretly given more government jobs than Protestants, + Jews, and other heretics." + [Australian Archbishop Gilroy, 1940] +% +"The Catholic Church must be the biggest corporation in the U.S. + We have a branch in almost every neighborhood. Our assets and + real estate holdings must exceed those of Standard Oil, A.T.&T, + and U.S. Steel combined. And our roster of dues-paying members + must be second only to the tax rolls of the U.S. Government." + [Father Richard Ginder, prominent Catholic priest, + in _Our Sunday Visitor_, May 22, 1960 issue] +% +"The activities engaged in by the Christian Coalition...were a vital + part of why we had a revolution at the polls on November 8, 1994." + [Newt Gingrich] +% +"God's will is directly proportional to public opinion." + [David Paul Gladden] +% +"The notion of religious liberty is that you cannot be forced + to participate in a religious ceremony that's not of your + choosing simply because you're out-voted." + [Ira Glasser, Exec. Dir.of ACLU, 1995] +% +"Just last week I saw two homosexual men at the supermarket. The + supermarket! In broad daylight! That's what you get when you + worship the creation instead of the creator." + [Rev. Terry Glidden, Washington Post, Oct. 5, 1999] +% +"...historically it is clear that the heart and + soul of anti-Semitism rested in Christianity" + [Glock & Stark, "Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism", + 1966, page xvi, 5-year study by Survey Research + Department of University of California] +% +Christianity, n. + A superbly-designed religion; I wouldn't dream of owning a slave who + wasn't a Christian. + [The Godling's Glossary] +% +"God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and + unshakeable faith, that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save German." + [Hermann Goering, from Louis L. Snyder, "Hitler's + Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich's Most + Notorious Henchmen", Berkley Books, 1990] +% +"The unnatural, that too is natural." + [Goethe] +% +"The happy do not believe in miracles." + [Goethe] +% +"This occupation with ideas of immortality is for people of + rank, and especially for ladies who have nothing to do. But + a man of real worth who has something to do here, and must + toil and struggle to produce day by day, leaves the future + world to itself, and is active and useful in this." + [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe] +% +"The real, the deepest, the sole theme of the world and + of history, to which all other themes are subordinate, + remains the conflict of belief and unbelief." + [Goethe] +% +"Nature and Mind! - Terms Christian ears resist! + For talk like this we burn the atheist! + Such words are full of danger and despite; + Nature means Sin, and Mind the Devil! + The two breed Doubt, misshapen evil. + Their ill-begot hermaphrodite." + [Goethe, "Faust", + Philip Wayne, Penguin Books] +% +"Here, too, it would be best you heard + One only and staked all upon your master's word. + Yes, stick to words at any rate; + There never was a surer gate + Into the temple, Certainty." + [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Faust" + Mephisto, angel of the devil, to Faust] +% +"There is nothing more odious than the majority. It consist of a + few powerful men who lead the way; of accommodating rascals and + submissive weaklings; and of a mass of men who trot after them + without in the least knowing their own minds." + [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe] +% +"Vaccination is a direct violation of the everlasting covenant that + God made with Noah after the flood.... Vaccination never saved + human life. It does not prevent smallpox." + [_The Golden Age_, (predecessor to _Awake!_), + Feb. 4, 1931 (Jehovah's Witnesses)] +% +"Religion is a superstition that originated in man's mental ability + to solve natural phenomena. The Church is an organized institution + that has always been a stumbling block to progress." + [Emma Goldman, "What I Believe"] +% +"I'm thankful I didn't believe in God, because it + would have been another thing for me to conquer." + [Kim Goldman is quoted, in reference to + her brother Ron Goldman's murder] +% +"However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. + There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious + beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than + Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. + But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf + should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing + throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. + They are trying to force government leaders into following their position + 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a + particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of + money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political + preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be + a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do + they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the + right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as + a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who + thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll + call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every + step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all + Americans in the name of "conservatism." + [Senator Barry Goldwater] +% +"I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell's ass." + [Sen. 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 U.S. Supreme Court] +% +"Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless + the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no + place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known + without trying to make their views the only alternatives." + [Barry Goldwater, 1981 speech] +% +"By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United + States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the + rest of the world with religious wars" + [Barry Goldwater, 1981] +% +"If there is a God, atheism must strike Him + as less of an insult than religion." + [Edmond and Jules de Goncourt] +% +"I talk to my only friend Jesus our LORD! I know JESUS understands my + terrible desires and ect. I have tords little boys! And the main reason + I murdered them little BOYS, is because our society is so AGAINST the + fact of CHILDREN-DOING-SEX together or with anybody! I believe children + should be ABLE to do sex! And I can ARGUE that all the way to the U.S. + Supreme Court! SEX is a great GIFT that Jesus gave us all!!!!" + [Freddy Goode, serial killer, in a letter to one of his lawyers] +% +"'God works in many ways his wonders to perform.' But He's not a + skillful mechanic. A man drives over a cliff and 'by a miracle' + he only breaks his back. It would be more divine if he were a + better driver and stayed on the road." + [Paul Goodman] +% +"i don't think evolution should be taught as a fact but as a theory that + some people believe in. i don't really know about this though, i haven't + thought about it really but there's no way it should be taught as the truth." + [Mark Goodwin, on talk.origins, 10/17/1994] +% +"What we have here is religious bigotry, and it represents the same insidious + type of exclusion that I experienced growing up black in Dixie." + [Morgan State prof. Stefan Goodwin, on religious convocation + ceremonies, Washington Post, August 17, 1994] +% +"Atheism keeps an open mind and does not flinch from rejecting the + old, whenever it is a hurdle on the road towards a common humility." + [GORA, Indian atheist] +% +"I believe in serving God and trying to understand and obey God's will for + our lives. Cynics may wave the idea away, saying God is a myth, useful in + providing comfort to the ignorant and in keeping them obedient. I know in my + heart - beyond all arguing and beyond any doubt - that the cynics are wrong." + [Vice Pres. Al Gore's commencement address at Harvard, 1994] +% +"Paradise is one of the crass fictions invented by + the high priests and fathers of the church..." + [Maxim Gorki, "Culture of the People"] +% +"Can God deliver a religion addict?" + [Marjoe Gortner, Ex-Evangelist] +% +"Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple + and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and + because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be + more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our + entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing + honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment + to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any + general understanding of science as an enterprise?" + [Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer"] +% +"The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science + collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke + miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into + the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to + abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all + fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, + misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the + ideas of their opponents." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186] +% +"In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that + it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that + apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not + merit equal time in physics classrooms." + [Stephen J. Gould] +% +"When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow + their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown." + [Stephen Jay Gould] +% +"Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview-- + nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, + more destructive of openness to novelty." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only + common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal + after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, + and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject + at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"Our creationist detractors charge that evolution is an unproved and + unprovable charade-- a secular religion masquerading as science. They + claim, above all, that evolution generates no predictions, never + exposes itself to test, and therefore stands as dogma rather than + disprovable science. This claim is nonsense. We make and test risky + predictions all the time; our success is not dogma, but a highly + probable indication of evolution's basic truth." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"No rational order of divine intelligence unites species. The natural + ties are genealogical along contingent pathways of history." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy + that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the + earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and + tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, + has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for + a 'higher' answer---but none exists." + [Stephen Jay Gould, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"The fundamentalists, by 'knowing' the answers before they start + (examining evolution), and then forcing nature into the straitjacket + of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of + science---or of any honest intellectual inquiry." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Bully for Brontosaurus," 1990, quoted in + "2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to + Doubt", by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"Skepticism's bad rap arises from the impression that, however necessary the + activity, it can only be regarded as a negative removal of false claims. + Not so... Proper debunking is done in the interest of an alternate model of + explanation, not as a nihilistic exercise. The alternate model is rationality + itself, tied to moral decency--the most powerful joint instrument for good + that our planet has ever known." + [Stephen Jay Gould, from Michael Shermer, "Why People + Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition & + Other Confusions of Our Time, p. xii)] +% +"As in 1925, creationists are not battling for religion. They have been + disowned by leading church men of all persuasions, for they debase religion + even more than they misconstrue science. They are a motley collection to + be sure, but their core of practical support lies with the evangelical + right, and creationism is a mere stalking horse or subsidiary issue in a + political program...The enemy is not fundamentalism; it is intolerance. + In this case, the intolerance is perverse since it masquerades under the + 'liberal' rhetoric of 'equal time'." + [Stephen J Gould] +% +"God is not all that exists. God is all that does not exist." + [Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915) French + novelist, critic, philosopher] +% +"Religions revolve madly around sexual questions." + [Remy de Gourmont] +% +"I think when a person has been found guilty of rape + he should be castrated. That would stop him pretty quick." + [Billy Graham, 1974] +% +"Let us realize that priests are not revealers of truth but only keepers + of traditions, and that the purpose of both the scribes and their later + translators was not to reveal the truth but to lay the basis of a + theistic religion, based on the supernatural and the terrifying." + [Lloyd Graham, "Deceptions and Myths of the Bible"] +% +"Nobody ever told us you had to be religious." + [Nancy Grambo, whose son Buzz Grambo was + kicked out of the BSA Southern Maryland + Troop 427, for his lack of religious belief] +% +"Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church + and the private schools, supported entirely by private + contributions. Keep the church and state forever separated." + [Ulysses S. Grant, speech to the Army of + the Tennessee, Des Moines,Iowa, 1875] +% +"I would suggest the taxation of all property + equally whether church or corporation." + [Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)] +% +"I would like to call your attention to ... an evil that, if allowed + to continue, will probably lead to great trouble.... It is the + accumulation of vast amounts of untaxed church property." + [Ulysses S. Grant] +% +"The fires of truth usually require much time to burn their way through + those incrustations of moral and religious error which often environ + the human mind as the products of a false education. But when they + once enter, the work of convincement is complete." + [Kersey Graves] +% +"Christs soldiers fight best on their knees" + [Brig. General Green, ACMTC] +% +"There is no other book between whose covers life is so cheap." + [Ruth Hurmence Green, "The Born Again + Skeptic's Guide to the Bible"] +% +"There was a time when religion ruled the + world. It was known as The Dark Ages." + [Ruth Hurmence Green] +% +"It is the position of some theists that their right to + freedom OF religion is abridged when they are not allowed + to violate the Rationalists right to freedom FROM religion." + [James T. Green, jgreen@trumpet.calpoly.edu] +% +"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought." + [Graham Greene, 1981] +% +"Faith is the antithesis of proof." + [NY State Supreme Court Justice + Edward J. Greenfield, 1995] +% +"This is not an attack on the First Amendment rights of people who + believe in faith healing. We just don't believe the First Amendment + allows them to inflict their views upon their children and let them + die from such things as infections, when one quick trip to a doctor + would cure the problem. Children should not have to die to uphold + the religious beliefs of their parents." + [Scott Greenwood, Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD)] +% +"When you arrive in a city, summon the bishops, clergy and people, + and preach a solemn sermon on faith; then select certain men of + good repute to help you in trying the heretics and suspects denounced + before your tribunal. All who on examination are found guilty or + suspected of heresy must promise to absolutely obey the commands of + the Church. If they refuse, you must prosecute them." + [Pope Gregory I, order to the Dominicans + on their duties in the Inquisition, 1231] +% +"I don't care anything about the separation of church and state" + [Rev. Ron Griffin, pres. of Detroit Urban League, on Gov. + Engler's plan to use churches to deliver state services. + Oct 18, 1995, Detroit Free Press, article by Dawson Bell] +% +"In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like + Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm." + [Che Guevara] +% +"Never wage war on religion, nor upon seemingly holy institutions, + for this thing has too great a force upon the minds of fools." + [Francesco Guicciardini, "Ricordi Politici"] +% +"When the temptation to masturbate is strong, yell "Stop!" + to those thoughts as loudly as you can in your mind. Then + recite a portion of the Bible or sing a hymn." + [Mormon _Guide to Self-Control_] +% +"It has often been repeated that the abolition of slavery among modern people + is entirely due to Christians. That, I think, is saying too much. Slavery + existed for a long period in the heart of Christian society, without its + being particularly astonished or irritated. A multitude of causes, and a + great development in other ideas and principles of civilization, were + necessary for the abolition of this iniquity of all iniquities." + [Francois-Pierre-Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874), French historian + and statesman, in "European Civilization," vol. I., p.110] +% +"What does every religion lay claim to? The governance of human passions + and of human will. Every religion is a curb, a power, a government. It + comes in the name of divine law to subdue human nature. Therefore human + liberty is its especial antagonist, which it is its object to vanquish. + To this purpose are its mission and hope directed." + [Francois-Pierre-Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874), + French historian and statesman] +% +"I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed + because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do." + [D. Dale Gulledge] +% +"School vouchers as proposed by Reagan and Bush do not represent free market + competition. The reason is fairly simple. The source of the money is not + the consumers. The vouchers are paid for by tax dollars. School vouchers + are an attempt to breach the separation of church and state by allowing + individuals who are not constrained by the prohibition against Congress + passing laws respecting religion to spend tax dollars for the benefit of + the religion of their choice. + + I have no objection to parents sending their children to the school of + their choice. The problem with public funding of schools is that it is an + inherently collectivist system. The restraints that have been placed on + what public schools must teach and what they are prohibited from teaching + protect us to a limited extend from the full magnitude of the damage that + they have the potential to do if used as a propaganda tool. + + I have never granted that anyone else rightfully has the freedom to choose + how my money will be spent. The only difference between that and slavery is + that the masters do not have the authority to beat, sell, or kill me if I + choose not to work. Send your children to schools that brainwash them any + way that you wish. But do not insist on paying for it with money taken + from me by taxation." + [D. Dale Gulledge (ddg@cci.com)] +% +"It is probably safe to say that since the late 1960s, nearly every + major religious group in the country has tried to get some offending + TV material altered or banned. So has every racial minority group and + almost every important national-ethnic group." + [Max Gunther, in _TV Guide_ article, February 9, 1974] +% +"A rational thought a day keeps religion away" + [Matt Guttentag] +% +"We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don't + stand up to experimentation, Buddha's own words must be rejected." + [Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, _Time_ April 11, 1988] +% +"I believe that at every level of society--familial, tribal, national and + international--the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth + of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe + in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good + human qualities. I try to treat whoever I meet as an old friend. This gives + me a genuine feeling of happiness. It is the practice of compassion." + [Tenzin Gyatso, The XIVth Dalai Lama] +% +"As soon as you are willing to discard observational data because it conflicts + with religion, you are giving up any hope of ever really understanding the + universe. As soon as you pick religion as the touchstone of reality, then we + have to start discussing how one can demonstrate the correctness of one + religion over another when different *religions* disagree." + --Wilson Heydt (whheydt@PacBell.COM) + + "The answer is simple: kill the heretics. History shows us that + this is the actual solution that competing religions apply -- trial + by combat or trial by ordeal. God is the final arbiter. What a sad + waste of human potential it has proven to be." + [Paul Hager (hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu)] +% +"Humans can find a pattern in just about anything, and we must find such + a pattern if we are to comprehend things. Mightn't people be mistaking + this order imposed by the human mind for order caused by God?" + [J J Hahn (hahn0009@gold.tc.umn.edu) on alt.atheism] +% +"Religion is still parasitic in the interstices of our knowledge which + have not yet been filled. Like bed-bugs in the cracks of walls and + furniture, miracles lurk in the lacunae of science. The scientist + plasters up these cracks in our knowledge; the more militant Rationalist + swats the bugs in the open. Both have their proper sphere and they + should realize that they are allies." + [John Haldane, "Science and Life: Essays of a Rationalist"] +% +"Scientific education and religious education are incompatible. The clergy + have ceased to interfere with education at the advanced state, with which + I am directly concerned, but they have still got control of that of + children. This means that the children have to learn about Adam and Noah + instead of about Evolution; about David who killed Goliath, instead of Koch + who killed cholera; about Christ's ascent into heaven instead of + Montgolfier's and Wright's. Worse than that, they are taught that it is + a virtue to accept statements without adequate evidence, which leaves them + a prey to quacks of every kind in later life, and makes it very difficult + for them to accept the methods of thought which are successful in science." + [J. B. S. Haldane] +% +"My practise as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an + experiment I assume that no god, angel, or devil is going to interfere with + its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have + achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually + dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world. And I + should be a coward if I did not state my theoretical views in public." + [J. B. S. Haldane, cited by L. Beverly Halstead in his article + "Evolution -- the Fossils Say Yes!" in _Science and Creationism_, + edited by Ashley Montagu [Oxford U. Press, 1984] page 241)] +% +"The influences that have lifted the race to a higher moral level are + education, freedom, leisure, the humanizing tendency of a better-supplied + and more interesting life. In a word, science and liberalism- the two + forces, fundamentally skeptical, that we have seen continuously at work + in human progress- have accomplished the very things for which religion + claims the credit." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Outline of Bunk"] +% +"After all, the principle objection which a thinking man has to + religion is that religion is not true -- and is not even sane." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"The fear of gods and devils is never anything but a pitiable + degradation of the human mind." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"This question is put to Christians who believe that the Bible unerringly + describes God and reports the commands and the characteristics of God. If + there is a God, it is natural that we should wish to be quite correct in + our understanding of that God's nature. So, we ask: Can and does God lie? + + Looking this point up in the mazes of Holy Writ, we discover confusion. In + Numbers xxiii, 19, we are told: "God is not a man, that he should lie." + This is put even mere strongly in Hebrews vi, 18, where we read: "It was + impossible for God to lie." + + But do these citations settle the matter? Ah, no, we are upset in, our + calculations the moment we turn to 2 Thessalonians ii, 11, where we read: + "For this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should + believe a lie." And in I Kings xxii, 23, God is thus reported: "Now, + therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all + these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee." + + Can God lie? Can the Bible lie? Anyway, there is a mistake + somewhere. The big mistake is in entertaining the idea of a God." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"When we read that some minor scientist (usually a skilled technical worker + but not a thinker in science) has "found God" somewhere, we are not excited. + We know this is only a form of words, meaning only that the scientific worker, + turning away from science, has rediscovered the stale old assumption of + theology, "There is a God." We find invariably (as we should expect) that + there is no satisfactory definition or description or identification or + location or proof of a God. "God" is merely a word, whether it is used by a + preacher or a mystic in a laboratory." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"The fact that millions of people still believe in a hell of eternal punishment + for sinners and unbelievers is a drastic reminder of the need for persistent, + progressive education of the masses. We have as yet only begun to realize the + possibilities of progress. But science, rationalism and humanism have pointed + the way, they have taken the first great steps, and we must keep right + ahead on the highway of modernism." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Don't take our word for it. Read the Bible itself. Read the + statements of preachers. And you will understand that God is the + most desperate character, the worst villain in all fiction." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Commonly, those who have professed the strongest motives of love of a + God have demonstrated the deepest hatred toward human joy and liberty." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Theism tells men that they are the slaves of a God. Atheism + assures men that they are the investigators and users of nature." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Belief in gods and belief in ghosts is identical. God is taken + as a more respectable word than ghost, but it means no more." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Religion, throughout the greater part of its history, has been a form of + "holy" terrorism. It still aims its terrors at men, but modern realism + and the spread of popular enlightenment has progressively robbed those + terrors of their old-fashioned effectiveness. Wherever men take religion + very seriously -- wherever there is devout belief -- there is also the + inseparable feeling of fear." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Christian theology has taught men that they should submit with + unintelligent resignation to the worst real evils of life and waste + their time in consideration of imaginary evils in "the life to come." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Priests and preachers have tricked, terrified and exploited + mankind. They have lied for glory of God." They have collected + immense financial tribute for "the glory of God." Whatever may be + said about the character of individuals among the clergy, the + character of the profession as a whole has been distinctly and + drastically anti-human. And of course the most sincere among the + clergy have been the most dangerous, for they have been willing to + go to the most extreme lengths of intolerance for "the glory of God." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Perhaps religion might be dismissed as unimportant if it were + merely theoretical. If it were merely theoretical. It is difficult, + however, if not impossible to separate theory and practice. + Religion, to be sure, is full of inconsistencies between theory and + practice; but there is and has always been sternly and largely a + disposition of religion to enforce its theory in the conduct of + life; religion has meant not simply dogmatism in abstract thinking + but intolerance in legal and social action. Religion interferes + with life and, being false, it necessarily interferes very much to + the detriment of the sound human interests of life." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"For centuries men have fought in the most unusual and devious + ways to prove the existence of a God. But evidently a God, if there + were a God, has been hiding out. He has never been discovered or + proved. One would think a God, if any, should have revealed himself + unmistakably. Isn't this non-appearance of a God (the non- + appearance of a God in the shape of a single bit of evidence for + his existence) a pretty, strong, sufficient proof of non-existence?" + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"A God of love, a God of wrath, a God of jealousy, a God of + bigotry, a God of vulgar tirades, a God of cheating and lying -- + yes, the Christian God is given all of these characteristics, and + isn't it a wretched mess to be offered to men in this twentieth + century? The beginning of wisdom, the beginning of humanism, the + beginning of progress is the rejection of this absurd, + extravagantly impossible myth of a God." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Look at the God idea from any angle, and it is foolish, it doesn't make sense, + but extravagantly proposes more mysteries than it assumes to explain. For + instance, is it sensible that a real God would leave mankind in such confusion + and debate about his character and his laws? + + There have been many alleged revelations of God. There have, indeed, been many + Gods as there have been many Bibles. And in different ages and different lands + an endless game of guessing and disputing has gone on. Men have argued blindly + about God. They still argue -- just as blindly. + + And if there is a God, we must conclude that he has willfully left men in the + dark. He has not wanted men to know about him. Assuming his existence, then + it would follow that he would have perfect ability to give a complete and + universal explanation of himself, so that all men could see and know without + further uncertainty. A real God could exhibit himself clearly to all men and + have all men following his will to the last letter without a doubt or a slip. + + But when we examine even cursorily the many contradictory revelations of God, + the many theories and arguments, the many and diverse principles of piety, we + perceive that all this talk about God his been merely the natural floundering + of human ignorance. + + There has been no reality in the God idea which men could discover and agree + upon. The spectacle has been exactly what we should expect when men deal with + theories of something which does not exist. + + Hidden Gods -- no Gods -- all we see is man's poor guesswork." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"... the Bible was a collection of books written at different times by + different men -- a strange mixture of diverse human documents -- and a + tissue of irreconcilable notions. Inspired? The Bible is not even + intelligent. It is not even good craftsmanship, but is full of + absurdities and contradictions." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"A sober, devout man will interpret "God's will" soberly and + devoutly. A fanatic, with bloodshot mind, will interpret "God's + will" fanatically. Men of extreme, illogical views will interpret + "God's will" in eccentric fashion. Kindly, charitable, generous men + will interpret "God's will" according to their character." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Remember that millions of Christians still base their belief in a God + upon the words of the Bible, which is a collection of the most + flabbergasting fictions ever imagined -- by men, too, who had lawless + but very poor and crude imagination. Ingersoll and numerous other + critics have shot the Christian holy book full of holes. It is worthless + and proves nothing concerning the existence of a God. The idea of a God + is worthless and unprovable." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Talk of God leads by a direct road to the conclusion of + atheism. The only sensible attitude is to dismiss the idea of God + -- to get it out of the way of more important ideas. The wide + dissemination of this intelligent atheistic attitude is one of the + leading features of any program of popular education which is + completely worthy of the name." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"With its fears and superstitions and prejudices, religion + poisons the mind of any one who believes in it -- and even the best + man, under the influence of religion, cannot reason wholesomely. + Atheism, on the contrary, opens the mind to the clean winds of + truth and establishes a fresh-air sanity." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Nobody has ever taken notable pains to locate the legendary heaven; but + probably that is because nobody ever thought seriously of going to a heaven." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"A few weeks ago a hurricane struck the little religious community of Bethany, + Okla. A number of pious citizens of the little town were killed. Houses were + destroyed -- homes in which prayer and devotion reigned. A church was + demolished. + + Only a few miles away is the large, wicked city of Oklahoma City -- at least + we can certainly assume that, from the religious viewpoint, many sinners live + in Oklahoma City. Assuming also (which is a great deal riskier assumption) + that there is a God, why should he perpetrate this grim and sardonic joke? + The sinners in the big city were left untouched. The godly folk in the little + nearby village were punished by the evidences of God's wrath. How do the + religious people interpret this calamity? Often and often they explain such + calamities as flood, fire and storm by saying that God is angry at the sinful + people and is warning them or destroying them for their sins. Was the + hurricane in Bethany a sign of the love of God for his faithful worshipers? + + And God missed an even better chance, if there were a God who wished to punish + rebels against his majesty and inscrutability. Just a few hundred miles north + and east of Bethany, Okla., is Girard -- the home of The American Freeman: and + The Debunker and The Joseph McCabe Magazine and the Little Blue Books -- the + center of American free thought where an enormous stream of atheistic + literature and. godless modern knowledge pours forth to enlighten the masses. + If there were a God directing hurricanes and he wanted to really "get" an + uncompromising foe, whom he has no chance of persuading in the ordinary way, + it would have been a devastating stroke for him to send his howling punitive + blasts through the town of Girard. It would be a more remarkable suggestion + of the avenging act of a God if only the Haldeman-Julius plant were destroyed + and the rest of the town left unhurt -- and, as good neighbors, we shouldn't + wish the Christian and respectable, people of Girard nor those who are + respectable and not so Christian nor those who are Christian and not exactly + respectable to suffer from our proximity and our propaganda of atheism. + + Is God a joker? No -- let us whisper it -- the joke is that there is no God. + Hurricanes come upon the just and the unjust, the pious and the impious." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"To be true to the mythical conception of a God is to be false + to the interests of mankind." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Credulity is not a crime for the individual -- but it is clearly a crime as + regards the race. Just look at the actual consequences of credulity. For + years men believed in the foul superstition of witchcraft and many poor + people suffered for this foolish belief. There was a general belief in angels + and demons, flying familiarly, yet skittishly through the air, and that belief + caused untold distress and pain and tragedy. The most holy Catholic church + (and, after it, the various Protestant sects) enforced the dogma that heresy + was terribly sinful and punishable by death. Imagine -- but all you need do + is to recount -- the suffering entailed by that belief. + + When one surveys the causes and consequences of credulity, it is apparent + that this easy believer in the impossible, this readiness toward false and + fanatical notions, has been indeed a most serious and major crime against + humanity. The social life in any age, it may be said, is about what its extent + of credulity guarantees. In an extremely credulous age, social life will be + cruel and dark and treacherous. in a skeptical age, social life will be more + humane. We assert that the philosophy of humanity -- that the best interests + of the human race -- demand a strong statement and a repeated, enlightening + statement of atheism." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Is God fair? The Christians say that God damns forever anyone who is skeptical + about truth of bunkistic religion as revealed unto the holy haranguers. What + this means is that a God, if any, punishes a man for using his reason. + + If there is a God in existence, reasons should be available for his + existence. Assuming that such a precious thing as a man's eternal future + depends on his belief in a God, then the materials for that belief + should be overwhelming and not at all doubtful. + + Yet here is a man whose reason makes it impossible for him to believe in + a God. He sees no evidence of such an entity. He finds all the arguments + weak and worthless. He doubts and he denies. + + Then is a God fair in visiting upon such a skeptic the penalty for his + inevitable intellectual attitude? The intelligent man refuses to believe + fairy tales. Can a God blame him? If so, then a God is not as fair as an + ordinarily decent man. And fairness, we think, is more important than piety." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Faith," said St. Paul, "is the evidence of things not seen." We should + elaborate this definition by adding that faith is the assertion of things for + which there is not a particle of evidence and of things which are incredible." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"The church has contributed nothing to civilization. It has progressed + somewhat, and it has become a little more decent, in reflection of the + movements of civilization that have taken place outside of the church + and usually in the face of the strong opposition of the church. But the + church has always resisted the process of civilization. It has struggled + to the last ditch, by fair means and foul, to preserve as long as it + could the vestiges of ancient and medieval theology, with all the + puerile moralities and harsh customs and medieval styles of belief." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Why should an atheist pay more taxes so that a church which he + despises should pay no taxes? That's a fair question. How can the + apologists for the church exemption answer it? + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"The churches beg -- and if we don't give them money, why, they + take it anyway, forcibly, by means of this unjust state tax exemption." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"The churches can well afford to pay fair taxation. But + supposing they couldn't. Would not that be a very significant + evidence that the churches were not really wanted?" + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"How can a preacher talk with a straight face about political graft? + He is, himself, profiting by one of the most notorious + political grafts in this country." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Why should the residence of a preacher be untaxed? Useful citizens must pay + taxes on their homes. Yet the Preacher -- actually and notoriously the least + useful member of the community -- lives in a tax-free dwelling." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Would you tax God?" asks a defender of church tax exemption. Well, if there + were a God he should be able to pay his own way and support his own business. + If not, then he should do like other business men and close up shop." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Church tax exemption means that we all drop our money in the collection boxes, + whether we go to church or not and whether we are interested in the church or + not. It is systematic and complete robbery, from which none of us escapes." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"It is an absurd fiction that the churches are useful. They are + nothing more than propaganda centers for superstitious faiths and + doctrines. Church members have a right to believe in and propagate + their various doctrines. But they should pay every item of the + cost, of this propaganda, including fair taxation for all church property." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"There can be no perfect freedom unless the church and state are separated. + But the church and state are not separated in America so long as the state + grants a subsidy to the church in the form of tax exemption." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Is a church too small and too poor to pay taxes? That means + that not enough people want the church seriously enough to pay for + its upkeep. Then, why should such a church exist? Why should + atheists, agnostics and non-churchgoers be forced to maintain such + a useless, unwanted church by granting it tax exemption?" + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Martyrs have been sincere. And so have tyrants. Wise men have + been sincere. And so have fools." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"...it is my measured opinion - after thirty-five years of study - that + religion is all bad, without a single good feature. And, of course, that + means I don't go gunning after "certain religious denominations" but send + my gas bombs into the whole kit and kaboodle. It's part of my philosophy + that the world would be a better place for all of us if we managed to get + rid of the mental disease called religion." + [E. Haldeman-Julius] +% +"The Bible nowhere prohibits war... Although war was raging in the + world in the time of Christ and His Apostles, still they said not + a word of its unlawfulness and immorality." + [Henry Wagner Halleck, "Military Art and Science," 1846] +% +"According to Sumerian traditions, more or less closely echoed by those in + Akkadian, Hebrew, and Greek (Berossos), the great Flood was preceded by + eight to ten long-lived kings (variously: generations of men) who ruled in + five cities, beginning with Eridu on the shores of the great salt-water + lagoon connecting to the Persian Gulf, and reaching as far north as Sippar + in what was later called Akkad. The First seven antediluvians are linked + with seven apkallu's (semidivine sages), beginning with Uanna-Adapa, who + passed into Greek sources as Oannes and into Genesis as Adam" + [William W. Hallo and William Kelly Simpson, "The Ancient Near + East: A History", Harcourt Brace: Orlando, 1998, p. 29] +% +"In the earliest Sumerian version, he appears as Ubar-Tutu, 'friend of the + god Tutu,' or as Ziusudra, 'life of long days.' Later he is simply (and + perhaps erroneously) called after his city, Shuruppak. The earliest Akkadian + sources call him Atar-hasis, 'exceeding wise,' while the later ones, + incorporated in the canonical Gilgamesh epic, refer to him as Uta-napishtam, + 'he has found (everlasting) life.' In the Bible his name is Noah" + [William W. Hallo and William Kelly Simpson, "The Ancient Near + East: A History", Harcourt Brace: Orlando, 1998, p. 32] +% +"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves + you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most + awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." + [Butch Hancock] +% +"Heretics have been hated from the beginning of recorded time; they + have been ostracized, exiled, tortured, maimed and butchered; but it + has generally proved impossible to smother them; and when it has not, + the society that has succeeded has always declined." + [Learned Hand, Address] +% +"We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff + at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me." + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope + He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting." + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we + get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I + guess I should have told him the truth--that most of us go to + Hell and burn eternally--but I didn't want to upset him." + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell + him is 'God is crying.' And if he asks why God is crying, another + cute thing to tell him is 'Probably because of something you did.'" + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"When Gary told me he had found Jesus, I thought, Yahoo! + We're rich! But it turned out to be something different." + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"But only fools like me you see, + Can make a god, who makes a tree." + [E. Y. Harburg, parody + of Joyce Kilmer's poem] +% +"The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over + their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists + from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for out blessings." + [Garrett Hardin, in "Science and Creationism, ed. Ashley Montague] +% +"That which is unchallenged and exercised as habit + rapidly becomes ritual. When this occurs, dissent + becomes an object of surprise, if not resentment." + [B. Carmon Hardy] +% +"I have been looking for god for fifty years and I think + if he had existed I should have discovered him." + [Thomas Hardy] +% +"`Peace upon earth!` was said. We sing it, + And pay a million priests to bring it. + After two thousand years of mass + We`ve got as far as poison gas," + [Thomas Hardy, + 'Christmas:1924'] +% +"We enter church, and we have to say, 'We have erred and strayed from Thy + ways like lost sheep," when what we want to say is, "Why are we made to + err and stray like lost sheep?' Then we have to sing, 'My soul doth magnify + the Lord,' when what we want to sing is 'O that my soul could find some + Lord that it could magnify!'" + [Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), English novelist, poet. Note, Jan. 1907] +% +"The Puritan through Life's sweet garden goes + To pluck the thorn and cast away the rose." + [Kenneth Hare] +% +"Nothing could be more anti-Biblical than letting women vote." + [Editorial, Harper's Magazine, November 1853] +% +"Religion; humanity's greatest folly, greatest curse." + [Kevin Harris] +% +"...Jesus was not as peaceful as commonly believed, and that his actual + teachings did not represent a fundamental break with the tradition of + Jewish military messianism. A strong pro-zealot-bandit and anti-Roman + bias probably pervaded his original ministry. The decisive break with the + Jewish messianic tradition probably came about only after the fall of + Jerusalem, when the original politico-military components in Jesus' + teachings were purged by Jewish Christians living in Rome and other + cities of the empire as an adaptive response to the Roman victory." + [Marvin Harris, anthropologist, _Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches_] +% +"Jesus is just a word I use to swear with" + [Richard Harris] +% +"Perhaps the most important advance in the behavioral sciences in our times + has been the growing recognition that the perceiver is not just a passive + camera taking a picture, but takes an active part in perception. He sees + what experience has conditioned him to see. What perceiver then sees what + is really there? Nobody of course. Each of perceives what our past has + prepared us to perceive. We select and distinguish, we focus on some objects + and relationships and we blur others. We distort objective reality to make + it conform to our needs our, or hopes, or fears, or hates, or envies or + affections. Our eyes and brains do not merely register some objective + portrait of other persons or groups but our very active scene is warped by + what we have been taught to believe, by what we want to believe and by what + we need to believe. It is impossible to reason a man out of something he + has not been reasoned into. When people have acquired their beliefs on an + emotional level they cannot be persuaded out of them on a rational level. + No matter how strong the proof or the logic behind it, people will hold onto + their emotional beliefs and twist the facts to meet their version of reality." + [Sidney J. Harris] +% +"The fact is the Mormon people do not govern themselves. Always the + Mormon leaders have claimed the prerogative to think for, and direct the + Mormon people in all things. As late as June 1945, the General + Authorities' Ward Teachers' Message, as carried by the 'Deseret News' of + May 26, 1945, and the 'Improvement Era' of June 1945, page 354, stated: + + "'When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they + propose a plan-it is God's plan. When they point the way, there + is no other that is safe. When they give direction, it should + mark the end of controversy. God works in no other way.'" + [G. T. Harrison, "Mormons are a Peculiar + People", Vantage Press, 1954, (pp. ix)] +% +"The barbaric religions of primitive worlds hold not a germ of scientific + fact, though they claim to explain all. Yet if one of these savages has + all the logical ground for his beliefs taken away, he doesn't stop + believing. He then calls his mistaken beliefs 'faith' because he knows + they are right. And he knows they are right because he has faith." + [Harry Harrison, Jason dinAlt character, + Deathworld, Berkeley Medallion Edition, 1976] +% + Only the Priests 'Date' Young + (to the tune of "Only the Good + Die Young" by Billy Joel) + +Come out Father +Don't make us wait +You Catholic Priests want boys to date +But sooner or later you'll be charged by the State +For things that you may have done. + +Well they told you that its a sin to be gay +They told you to kneel but only to pray +But they never told you the price that you pay +For sexual repression +Only the Priests date young. + +You got a nice black dress and a party on your ordination +All the wafers you can eat +And free treatment at the Paraclete * +But they don't even permit you to engage in masturbation +Soon the alter boys +They start to look like toys +whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa + +You told the parents all you'd give 'em was an education +You told 'em you'd take care of 'em +But did you even use a condom? +No, No, No, No + + + (* Brothers of the Paraclete is a treatment + center in Arizona for pedophilic priests) + + [Harry the Heretic] +% + +Jesus Hates the Little Children + + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children of the poor. +Skin and bone, covered with flies +Jesus cheers as each one dies +Jesus hates the children of the poor. + +Jesus starves the little children +All the hungry children of the world. +If he really was pure good +He'd make sure they had some food +Jesus starves the children of the world. + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children of Bhagdad. +Even though they're not to blame +They are dying just the same +Jesus hates the children of Bhagdad. + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children born with AIDS. +Even while he's giving breath +He's condemning them to death +Jesus hates the children born with AIDS. + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children raped buy priests. +Sunday schoolers, alter boys +Jesus rewards priests with toys +Jesus hates the children raped by priests. + +Jesus hates the little children +That's why he wants more to abuse +He's opposed to birth control +No abortion is his goal +Jesus wants more children to abuse. + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children of the poor +They've got hunger and disease +In the winter they can freeze +Jesus hates the children of the poor + + [Harry the Heretic] +% + + A Christmas Ditty + +I.... saw Jesus kissing Santa Claus +Underneath a Unicorn last night. +He is the Son of God +Or else he is a fraud +But I thought it very funny +When he fucked the Easter Bunny + +I.... saw Jesus kissing Santa Claus +While Leprechauns and Jackalopes did fight +I thank the Tooth Fairy +That Jehovah didn't see +Jesus kissing Santa Claus + + [Harry the Heretic] +% +"America's problem isn't that we suffer from a + lack of faith, but from a saturation of it." + [James L. Hartley] +% +"The problem is that Americans don't recognized there are other moral forces + outside the world of immaterial gods. Morality can be derived from reason + and rational thought. It can be based on our relationship to each other, + instead of our relationship to a god no one can see. Religion isn't morality. + A lack of faith isn't immorality. When Americans can recognize that, when + we recognize our human power to solve our human problems instead of counting + on a god to fix it, maybe we will gain a better understanding of just what + it means to be moral." + [James L. Hartley] +% +"It was, after all, Christianity itself which tutored the Western mind to + believe that it should know the truth and the truth would make it free. + But now that the student has learned to prize the truth, he has discovered, + with pain both to himself and his teacher, that it can only be gained at + the cost of rejecting the one who first instilled in him the love of it." + [Van A. Harvey] +% +"Mark's declaration that Jesus came from the dispersion (nazareth), meaning + the worldwide community of Jews outside Judaea (equivalent to diaspora), + was misinterpreted by Matthew and Luke to mean that he came from a city + called Nazareth [to fulfill prophesy]. In fact the term nazarite, or + nazoraios, had nothing to do with any city of Nazareth, since no such place + existed until the fifth century CE when one was built by a Christian Emperor + to whom the nonexistence of Jesus' alleged hometown was an embarrassment. + (Although the site of Nazareth was occupied in the first century, there is + no evidence of any village named Nazareth earlier than the fifth century....)" + [William Harwood, _Mythology's Last Gods: + Yahweh and Jesus_ (Prometheus), p. 260] +% +"Businesses may come and go, but religion will last forever, for in no + other endeavor does the consumer blame himself for product failure." + [Harvard Lamphoon, "Doon" (paraphrase)] +% +"I understand prayer quite well. It's a masturbatory exercise that + gives catharsis to the pray-er and a placebo effect to the pray-ee, + but only if the pray-ee knows he's being prayed for." + [John Hattan] +% +"From a religious view, putting the (Ten Commandments) in a courtroom is + idolatry. It constructs a god, not the God of Israel or Jesus Christ, but + a god that is useful to us, because it gives us the illusion that we + really do have this deep agreement, when we don't." + [Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe professor of theological ethics at + Duke Divinity School, in ABC news article "Display This!" 4-30-98] +% +"In another area of human rights, many Christian clergymen advocated + slavery. Historian Larry Hise notes in his book 'Pro-Slavery' that + ministers 'wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published + in America.' He lists 275 men of the cloth who used the Bible to prove + that white people were entitled to own black people as work animals." + [James A. Haught, 'Holy Horrors', 1990] +% +"Obviously, religion has a Jekyll-and-Hyde nature-- with Dr. + Jekyll always in the spotlight, and Mr. Hyde little noticed." + [James A. Haught, "Horrors of History"] +% +"In the year 415, the woman scientist Hypatia, head of the legendary + Alexandria library, was beaten to death by Christian monks who considered + her a pagan. The leader of the monks, Cyril, was canonized a saint." + [James A. Haught, Free Inquiry (Winter 1996/1997)] +% +"The stronger the supernatural beliefs, the worse the inhumanity" + [James A. Haught] +% +"In 1583 at Vienna, a 16 year old girl suffered stomach cramps. A team of + Jesuits exorcised her for eight weeks. The announced that they had expelled + 12,652 demons from her, demons her grandmother had kept as flies in glass + jars. The grandmother was tortured into confessing she was a witch who had + engaged in sex with Satan. Then she was burned at the stake. This was one + of perhaps 1 million such executions during three centuries of witch-hunts." + [James A. Haught, "Holy Horrors," 1990] +% +"A profound irony of the witch-hunts is that they were directed, not by + superstitious savages, but by learned bishops, judges, professors, and + other leaders of society. The centuries of witch obsession demonstrated + the terrible power of supernatural beliefs." + [James A. Haught, "Holy Horrors," 1990] +% +"God not only plays dice. He sometimes + throws the dice where they cannot be seen." + [Stephen Hawking] +% +"What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe + began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would + not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. + This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary." + [Stephen W. Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989] +% +"The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised + if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions + that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person + living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty." + [Stephen Hawking] +% +"One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions + for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have + to act through the laws of physics." + [Stephen Hawking, "Black Holes & Baby Universes"] +% +"So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a + creator. But if the universe is completely self-contained, having + no boundary or edge, it would neither be created nor destroyed... + it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?" + [Stephen Hawking] +% +"My parents, though they had never formally left the ancestral Roman + Catholic church, held no religious beliefs. Though they were no longer + fiercely anti-religious (as I suspect my paternal grandfather was, along + with so many of the scientists of his generation), all positive dogma was + for them a superstition of the past. They never took me to church. And + though as part of my general education I was, soon after I had begun to + read for pleasure, given a child's Bible, it disappeared mysteriously when + I got too interested in it.... + + By the age of fifteen, I had convinced myself that nobody could give a + reasonable explanation of what he meant by the word 'God' and that it was + therefore as meaningless to assert a belief as to assert a disbelief in God. + + Though this, in a general way, has remained my position ever since, I + have always avoided unnecessarily to offend other people holding religious + belief by displaying my lack of such belief, or even stating my lack of + belief, if I was not challenged." + [From _Hayek on Hayek: An Autobiographical Dialogue_, edited by Stephen + Kresge and Leif Wenar (University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 40-41. F. A. + Hayek is considered the foremost defender of capitalism in the 20th century] +% +"That which the heathen had respected the Catholic outraged. The great + Cardinal Ximenez restored the primitive rite and devoted this charming + chapel to its service. How ill a return was made for Moorish tolerance + we see in the infernal treatment they afterwards received from king and + Church. They made them choose between conversion and death. They embraced + Christianity to save their lives. Then the priests said, "Perhaps this + conversion is not genuine! Let us send the heathen away out of our sight." + One million of the best citizens of Spain were thus torn from their homes + and landed starving on the wild African coast. And Te Deums were sung + in the churches for this triumph of Catholic unity. From that hour Spain + has never prospered." + [Castilian Days, The City of + the Visigoths, John Hay, 1903] +% +"If judged only by the results that challenge the laws + of probabilities, then the power of prayer is nil." + [Judith Hayes, U.S. freethinker, author] +% +"If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative + to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as + an alternative to biological reproduction." + [Judith Hayes] +% +"Life can be beautiful, profound, and awe-inspiring, even + without an irate god threatening us with eternal torment." + [Judith Hayes] +% +"The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps + the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. + Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find + penguins and polar bears in Palestine?" + [Judith Hayes] +% +"Religion is a result of primal urges, and I hope that it, like + murder and septic personal hygiene, becomes unfashionable." + [Brian Hayward] +% +"There is no sin. It is an invention to shame people into believing fantasies. + We are the only animals known to desire to act differently (often better) + than we do. This is a glorious quality, and provides optimism that we will + will eventually improve ourselves. We should be proud of it, not ashamed." + [Brian Hayward] +% +"The cannibals burn their enemies and eat them in good-fellowship with + one another: meek Christian divines cast those who differ from them + but a hair's-breadth, body and soul into hell-fire for the glory of + God and the good of his creatures! It is well that the power of such + persons is not co-ordinate with their wills..." + [William Hazlitt, "On the Pleasure of Hating"] +% +"The Hell Law says that Hell is reserved exclusively for them that believe + in it. Further, the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for them that believe + in it on the supposition that they'll go there if they don't." + [HBT, "The Gospel According to Fred" 3:1] +% +"I haven't heard anyone saying that she's blackmailing anyone. I think she + just wants to see if our freedom of religious expression is really protected + or is the court supposed to cater to the whims of the masses who want to + shop and open stores on Sunday or any other religious holiday." + [Tammy Rae Healy] +% +"Religion is the highest vanity." + [Friedrich Hebbel] +% +"Immorality, perversion, infidelity, cannibalism, etc., are + unassailable by church and civic league if you dress them + up in the togas and talliths of the Good Book." + [Ben Hecht (1893-1964), U.S. journalist, author, screenwriter. "A + Child of the Century," bk. 5, "Sex in Hollywood" (1954), commenting + on biblical epics solving "the fornication problem" in Hollywood] +% +"God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow" + [G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy] +% +"A disturbing fact continues to surface in sex abuse research. The first + best predictor of abuse is alcohol or drug addiction in the father. But + the second best predictor is conservative religiosity, accompanied by + parental belief in traditional male-female roles. This means that if you + want to know which children are most likely to be sexually abused by their + father, the second most significant clue is *whether or not the parents + belong to a conservative religious group with traditional role beliefs + and rigid sexual attitudes*. (Brown and Bohn, 1989; Finkelhor, 1986; Fortune, + 1983; Goldstein et al, 1973; Van Leeuwen, 1990). (emphasis in original) + ["Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches", by Carolyn + Holderread Heggen, Herald Press, Scotdale, PA, 1993 p. 73] +% +"As Pastor X slips out of bed + He puts a neat disguise on + That halo round his priestly head + Is merely his horizon." + [Piet Hein, 1966] +% +"What Christian love cannot do is effected by a common hatred." + [Heinrich Heine] +% +"Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ." + [Heine] +% +"In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in + pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the + roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight + comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides." + [Heinrich Heine, Gedanken und Einfalle, Volume 10] +% +"Let's leave heaven to the angels and the sparrows." + [Heinrich Heine] +% +"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H.Sapiens is that the + Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine + adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and + becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous + notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to + found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history." + [Lazarus Long, from "Time Enough For Love" by R. Heinlein] +% +"A religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone + of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the + strong. The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a + religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter + judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith + or choose to live in the bleak certainty of reason- but one cannot have both." + [Robert A. Heinlein, from "Friday"] +% +"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational + basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the + unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and + spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from + fiddling with it." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"] +% +"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"] +% +"Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. + Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long", quoted in + Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do, p. 375] +% +"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent - it says so right here + on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these + attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, + please. Cash and in small bills." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"] +% +"Of all the strange "crimes" that humanity has legislated out of nothing, + "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" + fighting it out for second and third place." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"] +% +"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. + All other "sins" are invented nonsense. + (Hurting yourself is not sinful--just stupid.) + [Robert A. Heinlein] +% +"If you pray hard enough, you can make water run uphill. How + hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!" + [Robert A. Heinlein, "Expanded Universe"] +% +"Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark + cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there." + [Robert A. Heinlein, "JOB: A Comedy of Justice"] +% +"Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a + monotheism can believe anything... just give him time to rationalize it." + [Robert A. Heinlein, "JOB: A Comedy of Justice"] +% +"There is an old, old story about a theologian who was asked to reconcile + the Doctrine of Divine Mercy with the doctrine of infant damnation. 'The + Almighty,' he explained, 'finds it necessary to do things in His official + and public capacity which in His private and personal capacity He deplores." + [Robert A. Heinlein (1907 - 1988) + _Methuselah's Children_ ASF c.1941] +% +"God split himself into a myriad parts that he might have friends." + This may not be true, but it sounds good, and is no sillier than + any other theology." + [Lazarus Long, _Time Enough for Love_ by Robert Heinlein] +% +"Whores perform the same function + as priests, but far more thoroughly" + [Robert Heinlein] +% +"The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status + with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In + most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted + to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a + mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be + seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it + causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any + other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it." + [Lazarus Long, _Time enough for Love_, by Robert Heinlein] +% +"(Religious) Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." + [Jubal Hershaw, from _Stranger in a + Strange Land_, by Robert Heinlein] +% +"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to + its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you may not see, this you are + forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how + holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose + mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a + free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, + not anything--you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." + [Robert Heinlein] +% +"The nice thing about citing god as an authority is + that you can prove anything you set out to prove." + [Robert A. Heinlein, from "If This Goes On-"] +% +"Don't appeal to mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because + he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do + with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy-- live or die-- is strictly + your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe + and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope + for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you + are. So quit sniveling and face up to it-- 'Thou art God!'" + [Robert A. Heinlein Oct. 21, 1960] +% +"I've never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one + true religion by faith - it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe." + [Robert Heinlein, Jubal Harshaw in "Stranger in a Strange Land"] +% +"The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. + The first five are solely for the benefit of the + priests and the powers that be; the second five + are half truths, neither complete nor adequate." + [Robert Heinlein, Ira Johnson in + "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"] +% +"The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting + values that anyone can "prove" anything from it." + [Robert Heinlein, Dr. Jacob Burroughs + in "The Number of the Beast"] +% +"The hell I won't talk that way! Peter, an eternity here without her is not + an eternity of bliss; it is an eternity of boredom and loneliness and grief. + You think this damned gaudy halo means anything to me when I know--yes, + you've convinced me!--that my beloved is burning in the Pit? I didn't ask + much. Just to be allowed to live with her. I was willing to wash dishes + forever if only I could see her smile, hear her voice, touch her hand! She's + been shipped on a technicality and you know it! Snobbish, bad-tempered angels + get to live here without ever doing one lick to deserve it. But my Marga, + who is a real angel if one ever lived, gets turned down and sent to Hell to + everlasting torture on a childish twist in the rules. You can tell the Father + and His sweet-talking Son and that sneaky Ghost that they can take their + gaudy Holy City and shove it! If Margrethe has to be in Hell, that's where + I want to be!" + [Robert Heinlein, Alexander Hergensheimer + in "Job: A Comedy of Justice"] +% +"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate + its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and + will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to + seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, + or driving underground all heretics." + [Robert A. Heinlein, "Postscript to Revolt in 2100"] +% +"He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother + Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were + easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were + slippery, unpredictable changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he + seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word -- such + as "grok" which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were + like trying to lift water with a knife. And this had been a very short word." + [Robert Heinlein, Valentine Michael Smith's musings + on the word "God" in Stranger in a Strange Land] +% +"But I contend that the disgusting behavior of many of their alleged + 'holy men' relieves us of any intellectual obligation to take the + stuff seriously. No amount of sanctimonious rationalization can + make such behavior anything but pathological." + [Robert Heinlein, "Tramp Royale"] +% +"The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other + people; I was saved, they were damned ...Our hymns were loaded with arrogance + -- self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high + opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day." + [Robert A. Heinlein, from Laurence J. Peter, Peter's Quotations: Ideas + for Our Time, also James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"...little children who have begun to live in their mothers' womb + and have there died, or who, having just been born, have passed + away from the world without the sacrament of holy baptism... + must be punished by the eternal torture of undying fire." + [quoted in _Hell, A Christian Doctrine_] +% +"What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought that you + didn't believe in God?" + +"I don't," she sobbed, bursting into tears, "but the God I don't + believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the + mean and stupid God you make him out to be." + [Joseph Heller] +% +"Don't tell me God works in mysterious ways. There's nothing so mysterious + about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all + about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about- a country bumpkin, a + clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much + reverance can you have for a Supreme being who finds it necessary to include + such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? + What in the world was going through that warped, evil, scatalogical mind of + His when He robbed old people of the ability to control their bowel + movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain.... + + Who created the dangers? Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He + gave us pain! Why couldn't He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or + one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of red and blue neon tubes right in + the middle of each person's forehead?.... + + They certainly look beautiful now, writhing in agony or stupified with + morphine, don't they? What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider + the opportunity and power He had to really do a job and then look at the + stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is + almost staggering. It's obvious He never met a payroll. Why,no self-respecting + businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping clerk!" + [Yossarian to Lt. Scheisskopf's wife, + _Catch-22_, 1961, by Joseph Heller] +% +"One sees what one wants to see when there + is in mind a pre-conceived notion." + [Hal Hellman, "Great Feuds in Science," p. 74] +% +"A man who believes that he eats his God we do not call mad; + yet, a many who says he is Jesus Christ, we call mad." + [Claude A. Helvetius (1715-1771)] +% +"It never ceases to amaze me at how many + religions depend upon circumsized penises." + [Dawn Henderson] +% +"Being unable to reason is not a positive character trait outside religion." + [Dewey Henize] +% +"..it is claimed that women owe their advancement to the Bible. + It would be quite true to say that they owe their impoverished + condition to the almanac or to the vernal equinox. Under Bible + influence woman has been burned as a witch, sold in the shambles, + reduced to a drudge and a pauper, and silenced and subjected + before her ecclesiastical and marital law-givers." + [Josephine K. Henry] +% +"Paris vaut une messe. [Paris is worth a mass]" + [Henry of Navare, who gained control of + Paris just by converting to Catholicism + and renouncing his Protestant affiliations] +% +"A blow to the head will confuse a man's thinking, a blow to the foot + has no such effect, this cannot be the result of an immaterial soul." + [Heraclitus, 500 BC] +% +"The universal cosmic process was not created by any god or man; + it forever was, is, and forever will be, an Everliving Fire." + [Heraclitus of Ephesus, 500 BC] +% +"When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is + suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed + in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them." + [Frank Herbert, _Dune_] +% +"Behind every religion lurks a Torquemada." + [Frank Herbert, _God Emperor of Dune_] +% +"It was man, mortal bloody man, who created the myths... + Religion is nothing but wish-fulfilling stories for the masses." + [James Herbert, "Shrine"] +% +"Organized Religion is like Organized Crime; it preys on peoples' + weakness, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost + impossible to eradicate." + [Mike Hermann (hermann@cs.ubc.ca)] +% +"Just as power is the god of the modern liberal, God + remains the authority of the modern conservative." + [Karl Hess, The Death of Politics, Playboy, March 1969] +% +"My father was really a bigot. He was very strict and fanatical. I learned + that my father took a religious oath at the time of the birth of my younger + sister, dedicating me to God and the priesthood, and after that leading + a Joseph married life [celibacy]. He directed my entire youthful education + toward the goal of making me a priest. I had to pray and go to church + endlessly, do penance over the slightest misdeed-- praying as punishment + for any little unkindness to my sister, or something like that." + [Rudolf Hess, to psychologist G. M. Gilbert, in his Nuremberg + cell, from Louis L. Snyder, "Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles + of the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen", Berkley Books, 1990] +% +"I say religion is a mental illness, with + all due respect to the truly sick." + ["Hewes", on IRC] +% +"I haven't rejected god, I've never met him." + [Trevor Hick on alt.atheism] +% +"Hey, doncha think the REAL reason JC hasn't returned is those crosses you + wear? Think. How would JFK feel if you wore little rifles on your lapels?" + [Bill Hicks, comedian] +% +"Great, now there's priests of both sexes I don't listen to." + [Bill Hicks, comedian] +% +THE PREACHER AND THE SLAVE + by Joe Hill, to the tune + of "In The Sweet By And By" + + Long-haired preachers come out every night + Try and tell you what's wrong and what's right + But when asked about something to eat + They will answer in voices so sweet: + + CHORUS: + You will eat, by and by, + In the glorious land above the sky (way up high) + Work and pray, live on hay, + You'll get pie in the sky when you die (that's a lie!) + + Oh the Starvation Army they play + And they sing and they clap and they pray + Till they get all your coin on the drum + Then they tell you when you're on the bum: + + CHORUS + + Holy Rollers and jumpers come out + And they roll and they jump and they shout + Give your money to Jesus, they say + He will cure all diseases today + + CHORUS + + If you fight hard for children and wife + Try to get something good in this life + You're a sinner and bad man, they tell + When you die you will sure go to Hell + + CHORUS + + Working folks of all countries, unite! + Side by side we for freedom will fight! + When this world and its wealth we have gained, + To the grafters we'll sing this refrain: + + LAST CHORUS: + You will eat, by and by, + When you've learned how to cook and to fry (and to fry!) + Chop some wood, it'll do you good, + And you'll eat in the sweet by and by (that's no lie!) +% +"We should do unto others as we would want them to do unto us. If I were + an unborn fetus I would want others to use force to protect me, therefore + using force against abortionists is *justifiable homocide*." + ["Pro-Life" doctor killer Paul Hill] +% +"Death opens her cavernous mouth before you. Thousands upon thousands of + children are consumed by her every day. You have the ability to save some + from being tossed into her gaping mouth. As hundreds are being rushed into + eternity, other questions shrink in comparison to the weighty question, + 'Should we defend born and unborn children with force?' + "_Take defensive action!_" + [Rev. Paul J. Hill, abortion doctor murderer] +% +"Are there any heinous sins being committed today that could again fan the + flames of God's righteous anger to the scorching point? Is there any + need in today's world for men of the stamp of Phinehas? Could the bold + daring of Cozbi and Zimri in parading before Moses as he wept over sin + have any modern parallels? The righteous zeal of Phinehas did not permit + him to stay his hand long enough to even ask Moses or the church leaders + of the wisdom of his action. If any similar zeal be found among + us today, occasion to exercise it will not be lacking." + [Paul J. Hill, _Should We Defend Born And Unborn Children With + Force?_, 1993, Defensive Action, Pensacola, FL, p. 4] +% +"There is no question that deadly force should + be used to protect innocent life." + [Paul Hill, leader of Defensive Action] +% +"When you don't give money, it shows that you have the devil's nature." + [Benny Hinn, Praise-a-thon (TBN), recorded 4/21/91] +% +"I swear before God this holy oath, that I shall give absolute + confidence to the Fuehrer of the German Reich and people." + [Heinrich Himmler] +% +"You Einsatztruppen (task forces) are called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. + But you are soldiers who have to carry out every order unconditionally. You + have a responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that is happening. + I myself hate this bloody business and I have been moved to the depths of my + soul. But I am obeying the highest law by doing my duty. Man must defend + himself against bedbugs and rats-- against vermin." + [Heinrich Himmler, in a speech to the SS guards, from + Louis L. Snyder, "Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles of + the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen", Berkley Books, 1990] +% +"Saints fly only in the eyes of their disciples." + [Hindu proverb] +% +"Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand + it. But if they called everything divine which they do not + understand, why, there would be no end of divine things." + [Hippocrates] +% +"Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain + come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, + griefs, despondency and lamentations." + [Hippocrates] +% +"Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it + is only a manifestation of the patient's belief." + [Hippocrates] +% + The Peddler + +In the zocalo +a one-eyed salesman +offers me a gourd +wrinkled +dried +with the face of God +painted on it +in cochineal & indigo + +God is dead, +I tell him. + +You are right, +he answers, +but it is only one peso. + +I shake the gourd; +the seeds rattle +like thoughts in a dry brain. + +O unfortunate country! + + [George Hitchcock] +% +"Among the innumerable reasons to scorn the creationists' "argument from + design" is that no intelligent, let alone loving, Creator could possibly + have "designed" the male reproductive system in its current form. We, the + paragon of animals, the Mister Monster, have always been acutely aware that + our own boss, this tiny megalomaniacal tyrant, might fail to turn up. + Erections were less wondrous works of the Almighty and more like cops: often + there when you emphatically didn't require them and sometimes absent when + you did. I once knew a woman who recounted a sexual episode with one of the + totally famous studs of our time. "And how was it?" I inquired diffidently. + "Oh," she replied with an air, "a bit like trying to get an oyster into a + parking meter." Or, as Amis puts it elsewhere in "Money," 'They're very + difficult. They're not at all easy. That's why they're called hard-ons.'" + [Christopher Hitchens in Salon Magazine, 5/11/98] +% +"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. + By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work." + [Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936] +% +"There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, + Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and + love of the Fatherland." + [Message, signed Hitler, painted on walls of + concentration camps; Life, August 21, 1939] +% +"Woman's world is her husband, her family, her children and her home. + We do not find it right when she presses into the world of men." + [Adolph Hitler, quoted in Lucy Komisar, The New Feminism] +% +"I have followed [the Church] in giving our party program the character of + unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the + Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was + formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, + or attack on it, has been rejected. The Church has realized that anything + and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how + contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, + so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it." + [Adolf Hitler, from Rauschning, _The Voice of Destruction_, pp. 239-40] +% + "My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as + a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by + a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned + men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer + but as a fighter. + In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage + which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge + to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific + was his fight against the Jewish poison. + Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more + profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to + shed his blood upon the Cross. + As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have + the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... + And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting + rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have + also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work + and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only + for their wages wretchedness and misery. + When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues + and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, + but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our + Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor + people are plundered and exposed." + [Adolf Hitler, speech on April 12, 1922, published in + "My New Order", quoted in Freethought Today April 1990] +% +"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance + with the will of the Almighty Creator." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 46] +% +"What we have to fight for...is the freedom and independence + of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill + the mission assigned to it by the Creator." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 125] +% +"This human world of ours would be inconceivable without + the practical existence of a religious belief." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.152] +% +"And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his + estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, + He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.174] +% +"Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another... while the + enemy of Aryan humanity and all Christendom is laughing up his sleeve." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.309] +% +"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so" + [Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941] +% +"Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual + base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the + stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, p. 171] +% +"I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor + of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed + to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest + and most desirable ideal." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 1] +% +"I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time + to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all + events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the + movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl + Lueger and the Christian Social Party." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 2] +% +"...the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party... was to + assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled + their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or + Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there + really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose + existence and future each man turned to his own heaven." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"Political parties has nothing to do with religious problems, as long + as these are not alien to the nation, undermining the morals and ethics + of the race; just as religion cannot be amalgamated with the scheming + of political parties." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"For the political leader the religious doctrines and institutions + of his people must always remain inviolable; or else has no right to be + in politics, but should become a reformer, if he has what it takes! + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, + the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale + propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological + instincts of the broad masses of its adherents." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"The anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement) + was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have + been ranked among the great minds of our people." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3, + about the leader of the Christian Social movement] +% +"Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, + I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for + granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5] +% +"I had so often sung 'Deutschland u:ber Alles' and shouted 'Heil' at + the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace + to be allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal + judge and proclaim the sincerity of this conviction." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5] +% +"Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first + prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only + arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not + spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5] +% +"I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has + remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian- + Social movement, especially in Lueger's time achieved a certain virtuosity + on this instrument, to which it owed many of its success." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 6] +% +"Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens + along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the + Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, + Chapter 7, reflecting on World War I] +% +"The more abstractly correct and hence powerful this idea will be, the more + impossible remains its complete fulfillment as long as it continues to depend + on human beings... If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be + counted among the greatest men of this earth... In its workings, even the + religion of love is only the weak reflection of the will of its exalted + founder; its significance, however, lies in the direction which it attempted + to give to a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 8] +% +"To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all + other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great + stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 8] +% +"The fight against syphilis demands a fight against prostitution, against + prejudices, old habits, against previous conceptions, general views among + them not least the false prudery of certain circles. The first prerequisite + for even the moral right to combat these things is the facilitation of + earlier marriage for the coming generation. In late marriage alone lies the + compulsion to retain an institution which, twist and turn as you like, + is and remains a disgrace to humanity, an institution which is damned + ill-suited to a being who with his usual modesty likes to regard himself + as the 'image' of God." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10] +% +"Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning + of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse + for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served + up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able + to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the + youth...Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window + displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world + and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10, echoing + the Cultural Warfare rhetoric of the Religious Right] +% +"But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its + end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think + you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10] +% +"While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to + win new followers for their doctrine-- an activity which can boast but very + modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular-- + right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who + either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The + consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not favorable." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10] +% +"The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for + the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. The + various substitutes have not proved so successful from the standpoint of + results that they could be regarded as a useful replacement for previous + religious creeds. But if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace + the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith + is the foundation of all efficacy." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10] +% +"Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious + institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, + and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion + in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival + after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man + for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11] +% +"The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious + education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit + is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years + previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter + made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary + he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary + of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument + for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, + while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for + Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with + atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own nation." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11] +% +"....the personification of the devil as the symbol + of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11, + precisely echoing Martin Luther's teachings] +% +"Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change + than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to + the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less + in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism + which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12] +% +"The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea + in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance + with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it + intolerantly imposes its will against all others." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12] +% +"The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for + compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but + in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12] +% +"All in all, this whole period of winter 1919-20 was a single struggle + to strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement + and raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12] +% +"Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable + stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin + the fight for the 'remaking' of the Reich as they call it." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1] +% +"Of course, even the general designation 'religious' includes various + basic ideas or convictions, for example, the indestructibility of the soul, + the eternity of its existence, the existence of a higher being, etc. But + all these ideas, regardless of how convincing they may be for the individual, + are submitted to the critical examination of this individual and hence + to a fluctuating affirmation or negation until emotional divination or + knowledge assumes the binding force of apodictic faith. This, above all, + is the fighting factor which makes a breach and opens the way for the + recognition of basic religious views." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1] +% +"Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord + commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle + and contributes to the expulsion from paradise." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1] +% +"A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level + of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of + an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not + monstrosities halfway between man and ape." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"It would be more in keeping with the intention of the noblest man in this + world if our two Christian churches, instead of annoying Negroes with + missions which they neither desire nor understand, would kindly, but in + all seriousness, teach our European humanity that where parents are not + healthy it is a deed pleasing to God to take pity on a poor little healthy + orphan child and give him father and mother, than themselves to give birth + to a sick child who will only bring unhappiness and suffering on himself + and the rest of the world." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"That this is possible may not be denied in a world where hundreds and hundreds + of thousands of people voluntarily submit to celibacy, obligated and bound by + nothing except the injunction of the Church. Should the same renunciation + not be possible if this injunction is replaced by the admonition finally to + put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, + and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created?" + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"For the greatest revolutionary changes on this earth would not have been + thinkable if their motive force, instead of fanatical, yes, hysterical + passion, had been merely the bourgeois virtues of law and order." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"It doesn't dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively + a sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling + a born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, + while millions of members of the highest culture-race must remain in entirely + unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator + if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are + allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots + and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but + the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; + it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. + Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; + this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 5] +% +"For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a + doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes + in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of + the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite + superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it + is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of + its dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the + character of a faith." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 5] +% +"The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in + his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially + of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word + be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and + their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the + Lord's creation, the divine will." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 10] +% +"In the ranks of the movement [National Socialist movement], the most + devout Protestant could sit beside the most devout Catholic, without + coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. + The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer + of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect + and esteem one another." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 10] +% +"For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, + every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every + billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, + until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: 'Lord, make us + free!' is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning + plea: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou + hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, + bless our battle!' + [Adolf Hitler's prayer, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 2 Chapter 13] +% +"The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral + purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions + necessary for a really profound revival of religious life" + [Adolph Hitler, in a speech to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933] +% + "ATHEIST HALL CONVERTED + + Berlin Churches Establish Bureau to Win Back Worshippers + + Wireless to the New York Times. + + BERLIN, May 13. - In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi +resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers +League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau +for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win +back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously +belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership. + + The German Freethinkers League, which was swept away by the national +revolution, was the largest of such organizations in Germany. It had +about 500,000 members ..." + [New York Times, May 14, 1993, page 2, on Hitler's outlawing of + atheistic and freethinking groups in Germany in the Spring of + 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree] +% +"I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker." + [Adolf Hitler, Speech, 15 March 1936, Munich, Germany.] +% +"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty + to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will + preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been + built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national + morality, and the family as the basis of national life...." + [Adolf Hitler, Berlin, February 1, 1933] +% +"Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I + never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want + to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out + all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in + the press - in short, we want to burn out the *poison of immorality* which + has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of *liberal excess* + during the past ... (few) years." + [The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 + (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872] +% +"An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some + of these eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them + as quickly as possible." + [Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann"] +% +"Commerce unites; religion divides." + [Alice Tisdale Hobart] +% +"Religions are like pills, which must + be swallowed whole without chewing" + [Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679] +% +"Man is the only animal that contemplates death, and also the + only animal that shows any sign of doubt of its finality." + [William Ernest Hocking] +% +"The Good is that which leads to health, The Right is that which leads to + peace. Purpose is ours to choose, Meaning is the story we choose to join. + We are all members of Darwin's family, all kin from the beginning of life. + If you value anything, value other humans, for they are the only help you + will have in times of trouble. The Godless Universe is vast and wondrous, + and more than enough. We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful + of the night." + [John Hodges, 1999] +% +"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his + own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for + his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause." + [Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author, + _The True Believer_, 1951, section 9] +% +"Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths + are equally potent in readying people for self-sacrifice + if they are accepted as the sole, eternal truth." + [Eric Hoffer, _The True Believer_, 1951, section 57] +% +"The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to + develop the strongest proselytizing impulse. It is doubtful whether + a movement which does not profess some preposterous and patently + irrational dogma can be possessed of that zealous drive which "must + either win men or destroy the world." It is also plausible that those + movements with the greatest inner contradiction between profession and + practice-that is to say with a strong feeling of guilt-are likely to be + the most fervent in imposing their faith on others." + [Eric Hoffer, _The True Believer_, 1951, section 88] +% +"Take man's most fantastic invention, God. Man invents God in the image + of his longing, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to + imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it... [Religion + is] not a matter of God, church, holy cause. etc. These are but + accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or + rather the rejection of the self.... Man alone is a religious animal + because, as Montaigne points out, 'it is a malady confined to man, and + not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves...'" + [Eric Hoffer] +% +"Christianity is one of several Jewish heresies." + [Eric Hoffer] +% +"Mass movements can rise and spread without belief + in a god, but never without belief in a devil." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"(To the true believer) Every difficulty and failure within + the movement is the work of the devil, and every success is + a triumph over his evil plotting." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"This enemy--the indispensable devil of every mass movement--is + omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"It is the true believer's ability to "shut his eyes and stop his ears" + to the facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the + source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened + by danger nor disheartened by obstacle nor baffled by contradictions + because he denies their existence." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer," response to + Martin Luther's faithful shutting-out of + contrary evidence, in Table Talk, Number 1687] +% +"Thus blind faith is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost + faith in ourselves; insatiable desire a substitute for hope; accumulation + a substitute for growth; fervent hustling a substitute for purposeful + action, and pride a substitute for unattainable self-respect." + [Eric Hoffer, N.Y. Times Magazine, Feb. 15, 1959] +% +"They want freedom from "the fearful burden of free choice," freedom + from the arduous responsibility of realizing their ineffectual selves + and shouldering the blame for the blemished product. They do not want + freedom of conscience, but faith--blind, authoritarian faith." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The inability or unwillingness to see things as they + are promote both gullibility and charlatanism." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"A sublime religion inevitably generates a strong feeling of guilt. + There is an unavoidable contrast between loftiness of profession and + imperfection of practice. And, as one would expect, the feeling of + guilt promotes hate and brazenness. Thus it seems that the more + sublime the faith the more virulent the hatred it breeds." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass + movement, we find a new freedom-freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, + murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies + part of the attractiveness of a mass movement." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The devout are always urged to seek the absolute + truth with their hearts and not their minds." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and + arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, + the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a prince disguised in meekness, + who is destined to inherit this earth and the kingdom of heaven, too. He who + is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The missionary zeal seems rather an expression of some deep misgiving, + some pressing feeling of insufficiency at the center. Proselytizing is + more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to + bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a + final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed + the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own + faith by converting others." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"Obedience is not only the first law of God, but also the first tenet of + a revolutionary party and of fervent nationalism. "Not to reason why" is + considered by all mass movements the mark of a strong and generous spirit." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"By elevating dogma above reason, the individual's + intelligence is prevented from becoming self-reliant." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often + a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks + like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our + holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no + doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain + enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who + practice utmost humility, is boundless." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"(For the true believer) To rely on the evidence of the senses and + of reason is heresy and treason. It is startling to realize how much + unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind + faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger." + [Abbie Hoffman] +% +"Whenever religion is involved, terrorists kill more people." + [Dr. Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for + the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence + at St. Andrews University, Scotland] +% +"In some sects members are told to commit violent acts + because the only way they can hasten redemption or + achieve salvation is to eliminate the nonbelievers." + [Dr. Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for + the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence + at St. Andrews University, Scotland] +% +"perhaps as many as ninety percent of the Americans were unchurched in 1790" + [Richard Hofstadter, _Anti-Intellectualism in American + Life_, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, p. 82] +% +"... mid-eighteenth century America had a smaller proportion of church + members than any other nation in Christendom...."in 1800 [only] one + of every fifteen Americans was a church member" + [Richard Hofstadter, _Anti-Intellectualism in American + Life_, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, p. 89] +% +"Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system." + [Baron Paul Henri T. d'Holbach] +% +"When, therefore, he ascribes to his gods the production of some + phenomenon...does he, in fact, do anything more than substitute for + the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been + accustomed to listen with reverential awe? + [Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) "Systeme de la Nature" (1770)] +% +"Nature tells man to consult reason, and to take it for his guide: + religion teaches him that his reason is corrupted, that it is only + a treacherous guide, given by a deceitful God to lead his creatures + astray. Nature tells man to enlighten himself, to search after + truth, to instruct himself in his duties: religion enjoins him + to examine nothing, to remain in ignorance, to fear truth." + [Paul Henry Thiry d'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature" (1770)] +% +"People have suffered and become insane for centuries by the thought of eternal + punishment after death. Wouldn't it be better to depend on blind matter (...) + than by a god who puts out traps for people, invites them to sin, and allows + them to sin and commit crimes he could prevent. Only to finally get the + barbarian pleasure to punish them in an excessive way, of no use for himself, + without them changing their ways and without their example preventing others + from committing crimes." + [Baron d'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature" (1770)] +% +"If we go back to the beginnings of things, we shall always find that ignorance + and fear created the gods; that imagination, rapture and deception embellished + them; that weakness worships them; that custom spares them; and that tyranny + favors them in order to profit from the blindness of men." + [Baron d'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature" (1770)] +% +"If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the + knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them." + [Baron d'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature," p. 49] +% +"The sectaries of a religion, which preaches, in appearance, nothing but + charity, concord, and peace, have proved themselves more ferocious than + cannibals or savages, whenever their divines excited them to destroy + their brethren. There is no crime in which men have not committed under + the idea of pleasing the Divinity or appeasing his wrath." + [Baron D'Holbach, "Good Sense," 1772] +% +"Jesus Christ never commanded toleration as a motive for His disciples, + and toleration is the antithesis of the Christian message." + ["The Southern Baptist Convention and + Freemasonry" by James L. Holly, Page 30] +% +"For narrowness and sectarianism, there is no equal to the Lord Jesus Christ" + ["The Southern Baptist Convention and + Freemasonry" by James L. Holly, Page 40] +% +"What seems so right in the interest of toleration and its + cousins-liberty, equality and fraternity-is actually one of the + subtlest lies of the 'father of lies.'" + ["The Southern Baptist Convention and + Freemasonry" by James L. Holly, Page 40] +% +"Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper + chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes] +% +"On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirm the + worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (U.S. Supreme + Court Justice), letter to Lady Pollock] +% +"I can't help an occasional semi-shudder as I remember that millions of + intelligent men think that I am barred from the face of God unless I + change. But how can one pretend to believe what seems to him childish + and devoid alike of historical and rational foundations?" + [Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., + book review by Holmes for Time] +% +"The Pope put his foot on the neck of kings, but Calvin + and his cohorts crushed the whole human race under their + heels in the name of the Lord of Hosts." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., address to the + Massachusetts Medical Society, May 30, 1860] +% +"Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., 1860] +% +"The man who is always worrying whether or not his soul would + be damned generally has a soul that isn't worth a damn." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes] +% +"(But) in these torments endured by the faithful, Wendell Holmes had no + part. To him it mattered not that Darwin made the Garden of Eden a myth + and Jonah's whale a monster to frighten children... For Holmes the core had + been taken out of Christian theology a generation ago, when the Unitarians + disavowed the doctrine of original sin. Man lost his fear of hell-fire - + and on that day gave back Christian doctrine to the preacher as irrelevant + to life. After that, disbelief in Genesis I was a small thing. Wendall + Holmes had achieved it without the least struggle. He was born to it." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, from "Yankee From + Olympus - Justice Holmes and His Family," + 1945, by Catherine Drinker Bowen] +% +"We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the + record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate + a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in + his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., "The Poet + at the Breakfast Table" (1878)] +% +"You never need think you can turn over any old falsehoods without a + terrible squirming of the horrid little population that dwells under it." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.] +% +"The universe is not hostile, nor yet is + it friendly. It is simply indifferent." + [John H. Holmes, A Sensible + Man's View of Religion, 1933] +% +"The whole Bible was written by slave owners, and for slave owners. There + is no hint of criticism of slavery anywhere in that book. Jesus made no + objection to mistreatment of slaves. He indicated that selling of debtors + into slavery would be continued his forthcoming kingdom of heaven as well + as masters having the right to beat their slaves and put them to torture." + [Merrill Holste, "Slavery and the Bible", article in + the May 1986 issue of American Atheist Magazine] +% +"Atheism deprives superstition of its stand ground, + & compels Theism to reason for its existence." + [George Jacob Holyoake, "Origin + and Nature of Secularism"] +% +"The Questioning Spirit, whose curiosity has for its wholesome object the + verification of truth, is the most effectual instrument of knowledge + available to mankind. A well-directed question is like a pickaxe - it + liberates the gold from the superincumbent quartz. Whole systems of error + sometimes fall to the ground from the force of unanswerable questions. + All error has contradiction in it, which is revealed by a relevant inquiry, + when an artillery of counter assertions might not disclose it. Arguments + may be evaded, but a fair and pertinent question creates no animosity, + and must answered, since silence is a confession of error or of ignorance." + [George Jacob Holyoake, "Introduction" to + _A New Catechism_ by M. M. Mangasarian] +% +"For myself, I flee the Bible as a viper, + and revolt at the touch of a Christian." + [George Jacob Holyoake, from "The History of + the Last trial by Jury for Atheism," 1851] +% +"Our national debt already hangs like a millstone round the poor man's neck, + and our national church and general religious institutions cost us, upon + accredited computation, about 20 millions annually. Worship being thus + expensive, I appeal to your heads and your pocketbooks whether we are not + too poor to have a God? If poor men cost the state as much, they would be + put like officers upon half-pay, and while our distress lasts I think it + would be wise to do the same thing with deity." + [George Jacob Holyoake, from "The History of + the Last trial by Jury for Atheism," 1851] +% +"...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] +% +"...maybe it will encourage people to pray and they will become Christian." + [Rep. Ferry Hooper Jr. (R-Montgomery) on the "Alabama Live" + show, Nov. 20, 1997, exposing the true motive of his bill + requiring all students to participate in a daily moment of + "quiet reflection" at the beginning of each class day] +% +"If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?" + [Art Hoppe] +% +"The causal argument is not merely invalid but self-contradictory: the + conclusion, which says that something (God) does not have a cause, + contradicts the premise, which says that everything must have a cause. If + that premise is true, the conclusion cannot be true; and if the conclusion + is true, the premise cannot be. Many people do not at once see this because + they use the argument to get to God, and then having arrived where they want + to go, they forget all about the argument...if the conclusion contradicts + its own premise, we have the most damming indictment of an argument that we + could possibly have: that it is self-contradictory." + [John Hospers, "An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis," 1967] +% +"...And malt does more than Milton can + To justify God's ways to man" + [A. E. Housman] +% +"This right here is the work of the Lord." + [John Howard, owner of the Laurens, SC + "The Redneck Shop & Ku Klux Klan Museum" + from Nov 14, 1996 ed. of the CNN web page] +% +"A mail order bride: 15 shekels (Hosea 3:2) + A horse from Egypt: 150 shekels (2 Chronicles 1:17) + A chariot from Egypt: 600 shekels (2 Chronicle 1:17) + Raping a virgin: 50 shekels (Deuteronomy 22:28) + Knowing that you can get away with rape: Priceless." + [Yang Hu] +% +"A mystic is a person who is puzzled before the + obvious but who understands the nonexistent." + [Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) + American author, editor, publisher] +% +"Heaven: The Coney Island of the Christian imagination." + [Elbert Hubbard, "The Notebook", 1927] +% +"Men whose lives are doubtful want a + strong government and a hot religion." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"Orthodoxy is a corpse that does not know it is dead." + [Elbert Hubbard, "Epigrams"] +% +"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied + with your opinions and content with your knowledge." + [Elbert Hubbard, "The Philistine"] +% +"A Miracle: an event described by those to whom + it was told by men who did not see it." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"If you can't answer a man's arguments, all + is not lost; you can still call him vile names." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"Formal religion was organized for slaves: it offered + them consolation which earth did not provide." + [Elbert Hubbard, "The Philistine"] +% +"Theology is an attempt to explain a subject by men who do not understand + it. The intent is not to tell the truth but to satisfy the questioner." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"An ounce of performance is worth more than a pound of preachment." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"Falling in love is the beginning of all wisdom, all sympathy, + all compassion, all art, all religion; and in its larger sense + is the one thing in life worth doing." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and + tears out any quicker than the Christmas spirit." + [Kin Hubbard] +% +"The way to make money is to start your own religion." + [L. Ron Hubbard, 1954] +% +"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to + make a million dolars, the best way would be to start his own religion." + [Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, 1949, then just a science + fiction writer. Quoted in the New York Times, July 11, 1984, + from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"In any event, any person from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale should + not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind." + [L. Ron Hubbard] +% +"If you hypothesize that there is a God, but that there is nothing sure + and definite you can point to as a reliable pattern of things that God + does, how does a state of affairs where a God does nothing, functions + in no way, differ from a state of affairs where there is no God? And, + if the situation is that there is a God, and this God does nothing that + humans can surely identify as God-action - in contradistinction from + other action, physical/chemical/biological/psychological/social -- then + how can any human being ever have warrant for affirming God?" + [C. Lee Hubbell, The American Rationalist, Oct '94] +% +"The primary tool of science is skepticism, + whose light shrivels unquestioning faith." + [Mike Huben] +% +"No man has the right to have his own religion." + [Bishop Hughes, "Official Journal + of Bishops", Jan. 26 1852] +% +"Many good souls protest against a destructive criticism of Christianity and + demand a substitute. I do not feel any obligation to substitute a new god + for the old ones. I should gladly let them all go. I do not approve of + cancer, and yet I do not feel that I have no right to attack a quack who + promises a false cure until I have no real cure to propose. As someone + said: he who helps destroy the boll-weevil has done as constructive work + as he who plants the seed." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church", + New York, Freethought Press Assn., 1924] +% +"It is well said that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and I am + confirmed every day in my intense conviction that the church as the church is + the enemy of freedom. While protesting loudly its faith in the Truth with + a capital T, "the truth shall make us free," it fights at every step every + effort to learn the truth and publish it and be guided by it." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church", + New York, Freethought Press Assn., 1924] +% +"John Wesley said that if you give up the witchcraft, you must + give up the Bible. He is right. The choice is easy for me." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church", + New York, Freethought Press Assn., 1924] +% +"According to the Bible, God was ignorant, a ruthless liar and cheat; + he broke his pledges, changed his mind so often that he grew weary of + repenting. He was a murderer of children, ordered his people to slay, + rape, steal, and lie and commit every foul and filthy abomination in + human power. In fact, the more I read the Bible the less I find in it + that is either credible or admirable." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church," 1924] +% +"And this David! He was such a villain as I should never dare use in the + most melodramatic novel. His crimes are peculiarly despicable and versatile, + from his earliest exploits to his later sex-manias, including the foul + treatment of a soldier whose wife he desired, and his habit of warming his + chill frame with a fresh girl every night. He was a traitor, an indefatigable + liar, he drove women children through burning brick kilns or tore them to + pieces with harrows, he sawed them in two and on hid death-bed left + instructions to kill a devoted man whom he had sworn to protect." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church," 1924] +% +"Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your Deity + made you in his own image, I reply that he must have been very ugly." + [Victor Hugo, quoted in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"No deity will save us, we must save ourselves. Promises of immortal + salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful." + [Humanist Manifesto II, Prometheus Books, 1973] +% +"...but I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men + are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most + extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit + of so signal a violation of the laws of nature." + ["An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", David Hume, 10:2:30] +% +"There is not to be found, in all history any miracle attested by a + sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned goodness, education, and + learning as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such + undoubted integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to + deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to + have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; + and at the same time attesting facts, performed in such a public manner, and + in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable." + [David Hume, "Of Miracles", from An Enquiry + Concerning Human Understanding, 1748] +% +"The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but + even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one." + [David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748] +% +"In the infancy of new religions, the wise and learned commonly esteem the + matter too inconsiderable to deserve their attention or regard. And when + afterwards they would willingly detect the cheat, in order to undeceive the + deluded multitude, the season is now past, and the records and witnesses, + which might clear up the matter, have perished beyond recovery." + [David Hume, "Of Miracles"] +% +"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; + those in philosophy only ridiculous." + [David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature (1739)] +% +"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the + testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more + miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." + [David Hume, "Of Miracles", from An Enquiry + Concerning Human Understanding, 1748] +% +"The weakness of the body and that of the mind in infancy are exactly + proportioned; their vigour in manhood, their sympathetic disorder in + sickness, their common gradual decay in old age. The step further + seems unavoidable; their common dissolution in death." + [David Hume (1771-1776) "Of the Immortality of the Soul"] +% +"All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance + and obscurity, is to be skeptical, or at least cautious; and not + to admit of any hypothesis, whatsoever; much less, of any which + is supported by no appearance of probability." + [David Hume] +% +"The many instances of forged miracles, and prophecies, and supernatural + events, which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary evidence, + or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove sufficiently the strong + propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and marvellous, and ought + reasonably to begat a suspicion against all relations of this kind." + [David Hume, "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" 1748] +% +"Men dare not avow, even to their own hearts, the doubts which they + entertain on such subjects. They make a merit of implicit faith; and + disguise to themselves their real infidelity, by the strongest + asseverations and the most positive bigotry." + [David Hume, on doctrinaire religions] +% +"When I hear a man is religious, I conclude that he is a rascal, + although I have known some instances of very good men being religious." + [David Hume, Scottish philosopher + and historian (1711-1776)] +% +"If we take in hand any volume-- of divinity or school metaphysics, for + instance,-- let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning + quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning + concerning matters of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the + flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." + [David Hume, "An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding"] +% +"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." + [David Hume, "An Inquiry + Concerning Human Understanding"] +% +"Nor is it possible to explain distinctly, how the Deity can + be the mediate cause of all the actions of men, without being + the author of sin and moral turpitude." + [David Hume, "An Enquiry Concerning + Human Understanding" 1748] +% +"The believer is happy; the doubter is wise." + [Hungarian proverb] +% +A fools prayer: + +Dear Lord, +Please help us not to be blasphemers. +In Jesus name we pray.... + + [Bill Huston] +% +"The Meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to + devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. + --Lew Mammel, Jr. + +"One fails the Inverse-Meta-Turing test if one conceives of a Creator, + but does not attempt to devise an intelligence test for It/Him. One + also fails if the concept of the Creator remains unchanged as the + result of the test. + [Bill Huston] +% +"Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science, + as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules." + [Huxley] +% +"If we must play the theological game, let us never forget + that it is a game. Religion, it seems to me, can survive + only as a consciously accepted system of make believe." + [Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"] +% +"You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible + fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous + folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, + as yet, quite intelligent enough." + [Aldous Huxley] +% +"History reveals that the Church and the State as a pair + of indispensable Molochs. they protect their worshipping + subjects, only to enslave and destroy them." + [Aldous Huxley, Themes in Variations, 1950] +% +"Luckily the majority of nominal Christians has at no time taken + the Christian ideal very seriously; if it had, the races and the + civilization of the West would long ago have come to an end." + [Aldous Huxley, in Cardiff, "What + Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." + [Aldous Huxley, "Proper Studies"] +% +"What is the easiest way for a skeptic to achieve faith? The question was + answered three hundred years ago by Pascal. The unbeliever must act 'as + though he believed, take holy water, have masses said etc. This will + naturally cause you to believe and will besot you.' (Cela vous abetira-- + literally, will make you stupid.) We have to be made stupid, insist Professor + Jacques Chevalier, defending his hero against the critics who have been + shocked by Pascal's blunt language; we have to stultify our intelligence, + because 'intellectual pride deprives us of God and debases us to the level of + animals.' Which is, of course, perfectly true. But it does not follow from + this truth that we ought to besot ourselves in the manner prescribed by + Pascal and all the propagandists of all religions. Intellectual pride can + be cured only by devaluating pretentious words, only by getting rid of + conceptualized pseudo-knowledge and opening ourselves to reality. Artificial + piety based on conditioned reflexes merely transfers intellectual pride from + the bumptious individual to his even more bumptious Church. At one remove, + the pride remains intact. For the convinced believer, understanding or direct + contact with reality is exceedingly difficult. Moreover, the mere fact of + having a strong reverential feeling about some hallowed thing, person or + proposition is no guarantee of the existence of the thing, the infallibility + of the person or truth of the proposition." + [Aldous Huxley, "Knowledge and Understanding"] +% +"The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon + the methods employed, not on the doctrine taught. These doctrines may + be true or false, wholesome or pernicious-it makes little or no + difference...Under favorable conditions, practically everybody can be + converted to practically anything." + [Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World Revisited," 1958] +% +"The solution...would seem to lie in dismantling the theistic edifice, which + will no longer bear the weight of the universe as enlarged by recent science, + and attempting to find new outlets for the religious spirit. God, in any but + a purely philosophical, and one is almost tempted to say Pickwickian sense, + turns out to be a product of the human mind. As an independent or unitary + being active in the affairs of the universe, he does not exist." + [Julian Huxley, "Science, Religion and Human + Nature," Conway Memorial Lecture, 1930] +% +"Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler + but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat." + [Sir Julian Huxley] +% +"The sense of spiritual relief which comes from rejecting + the idea of God as a supernatural being is enormous." + [Sir Julian Huxley. "Religion Without Revelation"] +% +"...any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of + natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the + universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief + in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, + of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine + inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the + responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious." + [Sir Julian Huxley] +% +"We should be agnostic about those things for which there is no + evidence. We should not hold beliefs merely because they gratify + our desires for afterlife, immortality, heaven, hell, etc." + [Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, (1887-1975) English biologist + and author, from "Religion without Revelation"] +% +"I use the word "Humanist" to mean someone who believes that man is just as + much a natural phenomenon as an animal or a plant; that his body, mind or + soul were not supernaturally created but are products of evolution, and that + he is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural being, but has + to rely on himself and his own powers." + [Julian Huxley, "The Humanist Frame," 1961] +% +"That it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective + truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically + justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my + opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics + deny and repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are + propositions which men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory + evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of + disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "Agnosticism and Christianity," + 1889, Prometheus Publications p. 193] +% +"The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more + self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "Controverted Questions," 1892] +% +"The Bible account of the creation of Eve is a preposterous fable." + [Thomas Huxley, English biologist] +% +"Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors." + [Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895), English biologist and + advocate of Darwin's natural selection theory] +% +"Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or + believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe." + [Thomas Huxley, from Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"The foundation of morality is to... give up pretending to believe + that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible + propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge." + [Thomas Huxley] +% +"...inclined to think that not far from the + invention of fire must rank the invention of doubt" + [Thomas Huxley] +% +"The only question which a wise man can ask himself is whether a + doctrine is true or false. Consequences will take care of themselves." + [Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist (1825-1895)] +% +"...I can but admire the courage and clear foresight of the Anglican divine + who tells us that we must be prepared to choose between the trustworthiness + of scientific method and the trustworthiness of that which the Church + declares to be Divine authority. For, to my mind, this declaration of war + to the knife against secular science, even in its most elementary form this + rejection, without a moment's hesitation, of any and all evidence which + conflicts with theological dogma--is the only position which is logically + reconcilable with the axioms of orthodoxy." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays", pp. 229,230] +% +"Cinderella [Science]... lights the fire, sweeps the house, and provides the + dinner; and is rewarded by being told that she is a base creature, devoted + to low and material interests. But in her garret she has fairy visions out + of the ken of the pair of shrews [Theology and Philosophy] who are quarrelling + downstairs. She sees the order which pervades the seeming disorder of the + world; the great drama of evolution, with its full share of pity and terror, + but also with abundant goodness and beauty... ; and she learns... that the + foundation of morality is to [be] done, once and for all, with lying; to give + up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, + least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which + binds half the world to orthodoxy." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"...claiming my right to follow whethersoever science should lead... + it is as respectable to be modified monkey as modified dirt." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"No one who has lived in the world as long as you & I have, can entertain + the pious delusion that it is engineered upon principles of benevolence... + the cosmos remains always beautiful and profoundly interesting in every corner + -- and if I had as many lives as a cat I would leave no corner unexplored." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"Science... warns me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps + with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such + belief than for one to which I was previously hostile. My business + is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to + try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations." + [Thomas Huxley, 1960] +% +"If then the question is put to me, would I rather have a miserable ape + for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessing great + means and influence and yet who employs those faculties and that influence + for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into grave scientific + discussion, I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape." + [Thomas H. Huxley, Reply to Bishop Wilberforce, + who asked if he was descended form an ape on + his mother's side or his father's side.] +% +"What are among the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and + semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the + soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; + that doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism a sin; that when + good authority has pronounced what is to be believed, and faith has + accepted it, reason has no further duty." + [Thomas H. Huxley, in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge + authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; + blind faith the one unpardonable sin." + [Thomas H. Huxley, in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"The church founded by Jesus has not made its way; has not + permeated the world--but did become extinct in the country + of its birth--as Nazarenism and Ebionism." + [Thomas H. Huxley, Letter to Robert Taylor, June 3, 1889] +% +"The belief in a demonic world is inculcated throughout the Gospels + and the rest of the books of the New Testament; it pervades the whole + patristic literature; it colors the theory and the practice of every + Christian church down to modern times." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "Controverted Questions," 1892] +% +"I neither deny nor affirm the immortality of man. I see no reason for + believing in it, but on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it." + [Thomas H. Huxley, Letter to Charles Kingsley, 1860] +% +"The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually we stand + on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. + Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"Orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. + It learns not, neither can it forget." + [Thomas H. Huxley, in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often + extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "On the Natural Inequality of Man," 1890] +% +"I have no faith, very little hope, and as much charity as I can afford." + [Thomas H. Huxley, in Cardiff, "What Great men think of Religion"] +% +"The clerics and their lay allies commonly tell us, that if we refuse to + admit that there is good ground for expressing definite convictions about + certain topics, the bonds of human society will dissolve and mankind lapse + into savagery. There are several answers to this assertion. One is that + the bonds of human society were formed without the aid of their theology; + and, in the opinion of not a few competent judges, have been weakened rather + than strengthened by a good deal of it. Greek science, Greek art, the ethics + of old Israel, the social organisation of old Rome, contrived to come into + being, without the help of any one who believed in a single distinctive + article of the simplest of the Christian creeds. The science, the art, + the jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern + world have grown out of those of Greece and Rome-not by favour of, but in + the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to which + science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of this world, + were alike despicable." + [Thomas Huxley, "Agnosticism and Christianity" 1889] + http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE5/Agn-X.html +% +"To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment + in another world, is just as base as to use force." + [Hypatia (c. 370-415 CE), Alexandrian mathematician, + murdered by a Christian mob in 415 CE] +% +"Nowhere is there an account or portrait of Christ laughing. . .he is always + stern, serious and as gloomy as a prison guard. Never does one see him + laughing until tears appear in his eyes like the roly-poly squint-eyed + Buddha guffawing with arms upraised..." + [I.R.] +% +"Call on God, but row away from the rocks." + [Indian proverb] +% +"To become a popular religion, it is only necessary + for a superstition to enslave a philosophy." + [William Ralph Inge, 1920] +% +"We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our + distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were + able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. + [William Ralph Inge] +% +"The church is only a secular institution in which + the half-educated speak to the half-converted." + [William Ralph Inge] +% +"December 25th is the birthday, not of Christ, but of Mithra, the + Invincible Sun. Isis of many names has acquired a new one as the Madonna." + [William R. Inge] +% +"Miracle is a bastard child of faith and reason, + which neither parent can afford to own." + [William R. Inge] +% +"We are not endeavoring to chain the future but to free the present. ...We + are the advocates of inquiry, investigation, and thought. ...It is grander + to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. ... I look + for the day when *reason*, throned upon the world's brains, shall be the + King of Kings and the God of Gods." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes + of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe + it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts... + I despise it with every drop of my blood." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child" 1877] +% +"An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled + his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was + invariably found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods + were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever + been considered a divine perfume." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"To hate man and worship god seems to be the sum of all the creeds." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses" 1879] +% +"..Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have + at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice..." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"I have little confidence in any enterprise or business or investment + that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Wooden God" letter + to the Chicago Times, March 27, 1890] +% +"The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Devil" 1899] +% +"The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth that all + power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial + of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon + one man to govern others." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality" 1873] +% + "With soap, baptism is a good thing." +[Robert G. Ingersoll, "My Reviewers Reviewed" + lecture in San Francisco, June 27, 1877] +% +"Nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. I have had some + little experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that until + I read the religious papers, I did not know what malicious and slimy + falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. The ingenuity with + which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of language is + simply amazing. The average religious editor is intolerant and insolent... + and always accounts for the brave and generous actions of unbelievers by + low, base, and unworthy motives." + ["The Ghosts", Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p.260] +% +"It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon + the Bible, and that all who look upon that book as false or foolish are + destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is + not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our + Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but + the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people + for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have nothing to + do. And yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemly + decide that this is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are + based upon the infamous laws of Jehovah." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality" 1873] +% +"I combat those only who, knowing nothing of the future, prophesy an eternity + of pain- those who sow the seeds of fear in the hearts of men- those only + who poison all the springs of life, and seat a skeleton at every feast." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Field-Ingersoll + Debate, Letter to Dr. Field. 1887] +% +"He who commends the brutalities of the past, + sows the seeds of future crimes." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Ingersoll-Gladstone + debate, response to Wm. Gladstone, 1888] +% +"A crime against god is a demonstrated impossibility." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Second + Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy" 1884] +% +"By the efforts of these infidels, the name of God was left out + of the Constitution of the United States. They knew that if an + infinite being was put in, no room would be left for the people." + They knew that if any church was made the mistress of the state, + that mistress, like all others, would corrupt, weaken, and destroy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels" + 1881, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 3, p. 382] +% +"Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, + defending the justice of his own imprisonment." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality" 1873] +% +"If priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrified + to god. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, + and it always happened that god wanted what his agents liked." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Christmas Sermon" + printed in Evening Telegraph, Dec. 19, 1891] +% +"The inspiration of the Bible depends on the credulity of him who reads." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" Sec. III, + The Ingersoll-Black Debate, (New York) April 25, 1881] +% +"It cannot be too often repeated, that truth scorns the assistance of miracle." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" + Sec. III, The Ingersoll-Black Debate, 1881] +% +"We are told in the Pentateuch, that god, the father of us all, gave + thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, + and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. If there + be a god, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I + denied this lie for him." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Few Reasons for + Doubting the Inspiration of the Bible"] +% +"If a man would follow, to-day, the teachings of the Old Testament, + he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings + of the New, he would be insane." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Third + Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often + he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"We are not accountable for the sins of "Adam" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Myth and Miracle" 1885] +% +"If Christ, in fact, said "I came not to bring peace but a sword," it is + the only prophecy in the New Testament that has been literally fulfilled." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why" 1881] +% +"Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, + no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual + mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance + to pretend that it supports the giver." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Christmas Sermon" + printed in Evening Telegraph, Dec. 19, 1891] +% +"We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, + vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works + of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your + reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. + We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our + hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. + We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a + 'this year's fact'. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your + miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two + thousand years. Their reputation for 'truth and veracity' in the neighborhood + where they resided is wholly unknown to us. Give us a new miracle, and + substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living this + world. Do not send us to Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the + fire with Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea + with Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in + sending us fox-hunting with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in + that little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired donkey. It is + worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our + attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two + sardines. We demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. + Let the church furnish at least one, or forever hold her peace." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They + live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Truth" 1897] +% +"This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the + purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves." + [Robert G. Ingersoll], "An Interview on Chief + Justice Comegys", Brooklyn Eagle, 1881] +% +"The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people is the Bible. + That book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. + That book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. + That book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation + a crime. That book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear." + [_Some Mistakes of Moses_, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2 p. 43] +% +"Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature. + In order to increase our respect for the Bible, it became necessary for the + priests to exalt and extol that book, and at the same time to decry and + belittle the reasoning powers of man. The whole power of the pulpit has + been used for hundreds of years to destroy the confidence of man in himself-- + to induce him to distrust his own powers of thought, to believe that he was + wholly unable to decide any question for himself, and that all human virtue + consists in faith and obedience. The church has said 'Believe and obey!' + If you reason you will become an unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost. + If you disobey, you will do so through vain pride and curiosity, and will, + like Adam and Eve, be thrust from Paradise forver! For my part, I care + nothing for what the church says, except in so far as it accords with my + reason; and the Bible is nothing to me, only in so far as it agrees with + what I think or know." + [_Some Mistakes of Moses_, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2 p. 53] +% +"Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Second Interview on Rev. + Talmadge, 1882, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 5, p. 49] +% +"Calvin founded a little theocracy, modeled after the Old Testament, and + succeeded in erecting the most detestable government that ever existed, + except the one from which it was copied." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies" + Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 226] +% +"That church [Catholic] teaches us that we can + make God happy by being miserable ourselves..." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved?" + 1880, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 492] +% +"..if all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be + gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise..." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved?" + 1880, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 497] +% +"Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, + the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing + but a vacuum remains." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877, + in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 285] +% +"Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the + sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all ages will turn to ashes + on the lips of men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873, + in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 203, and + from letter to Houston Post, Aug. 17, 1866] +% +"Suppose, however, that God did give this law to the Jews, and did tell them + that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to worship any other God + that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same God took + upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a + different religion, and that thereupon the Jews crucified him; I ask you, + did he not reap exactly what he had sown? What right would this god have to + complain of a crucifixion suffered in accordance with his own command?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", + in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2, p. 259] +% +"Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Heretics + and Heresies", 1874] +% +"God so loved the world that he made up his mind + to damn a large majority of the human race." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why + I Am An Agnostic", 1876] +% +"EACH nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. + He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on + the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic, and detested + all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and + worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent + blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted + upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted + upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these + priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily + vanquish all the other gods put together." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and + ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for + information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but + supposed them perfectly flat. Some thought the day could be lengthened by + stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of + a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had + created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant + as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they + might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience + was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account + of the creation of this little earth. All were woefully deficient in geology + and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as + executives, they were far inferior to the average of American presidents." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. + In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of + course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, + and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people + to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. + Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have someone deny their existence." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made + so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god + market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and + clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally visited + them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some other nation to + drag them into slavery -- to sell their wives and children; but generally + he glutted his vengeance by murdering their firstborn. The priests always + did their whole duty, not only in predicting these calamities, but in + proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people + because they had not given quite enough to them." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, + because the Bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, + and there never can be, an argument even tending to prove the inspiration of + any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy and + experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount + only to a useless agitation of the air. The instant we admit that a book is + too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is + infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would Address a communication to + intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal + flames, for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding + his communication. If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have + the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to + punish us for such action." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust + and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our + children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book they wish to be recognized + in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and tell + him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. + We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample + under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify + ourselves -- refuse to become liars -- we are denounced, hated, traduced and + ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire + the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. Let + the people hate, let the god threaten -- we will educate them, and we will + despise and defy the god." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is + the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by + an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation and + experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be + relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called + "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God? + And yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that believe. The Jews + pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the Christian + system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered + possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the + human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can + read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence in + comparison with the mental freedom of the race." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Salvation through slavery is worthless. + Salvation from slavery is inestimable." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book + is his master. The civilization of this century is not the child + of faith, but of unbelief -- the result of free thought." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person + that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention -- of barbarian + invention -- is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of + it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; + drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your + brain the coiled form of superstition -- then read the Holy Bible, and you + will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite + wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and + of such atrocity." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge + then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards the dangerous + tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep + mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased + repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall not eat of it, + neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." From every pulpit comes the same + cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good + and evil." For this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, + theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming + sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to + the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"According to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled + to the very letter, Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become + as gods, knowing good and evil." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to + thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of + learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears + the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of + inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead + calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first + let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872 + also quoted in Noyes, "Views of Religion"] +% +"There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent of + and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the + continuity of cause and effect. Pluck from the endless chain of existence one + little link; stop for one instant the grand procession and you have shown + beyond all contradiction that nature has a master. Change the fact, just for + one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god appears. + + The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always + demanded the evidence of miracle. The founder of a religion must be able to + turn water into wine -- cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a + simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the + satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In + times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was + almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was + the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle -- + that is to say, a violation of nature -- that is to say, a falsehood. + + No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a + truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but + falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was + performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one + is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior + to, and independent of nature. + + The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its + intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told + that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant, + control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"In the olden times the church, by violating the order of nature, proved the + existence of her God. At that time miracles were performed with the most + astonishing ease. They became so common that the church ordered her priests + to desist. And now this same church -- the people having found some little + sense -- admits, not only, that she cannot perform a miracle but insists + that the absence of miracle, the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect, + proves the existence of a power superior to nature. The fact is, however, + that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect proves exactly the contrary." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons + and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, + the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have + ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the + annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By this time he + should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. + The present is the necessary child of all the past. There has + been no chance, and there can be no interference." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man + must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If + the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor + is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenseless + are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. + The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading bibles will not + protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires. and + clothing will. To prevent famine, one plow is worth a million + sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than + all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. Under + the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of bravely solving + a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution of another. As long as + a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some petty prince or + king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in the + presence of their supposed creator and God? Under such circumstances, + what can their thoughts be worth?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are + all that we have any right to expect from the Christian world. As long as + every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply + impossible. As fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the domain of + the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease, while the + horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"According to the theologians, God prepared this globe expressly for the + habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with + ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with + earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame. + + Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that + it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. + The next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed; + covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to + disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple + contrary to the command of an arbitrary God." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I had said the world + was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. Upon being + informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be + guilty of such presumption. He said that, in his judgement, it was + impossible to point out an imperfection "Be kind enough," said he, "to + name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power." + "Well," said I, "I would make good health catching, instead of disease." + The truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and + agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are + watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and beneficent + God, who is superior to and independent of nature." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that religious + power has decreased. The intellectual advancement of man depends upon how + often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth. The church never + enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on the contrary, + all her power has been used to prevent them. In spite, however, of the church, + man found that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. By reading his + Bible, he found that the ideas of his God were more cruel and brutal than + those of the most depraved savage. He also discovered that this holy book was + filled with ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly + unacquainted with the nature of the phenomena by which we are surrounded; and + now and then, some man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest + thoughts. In every age some thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some + hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, + has gladly, proudly and heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition + for the sake of man and truth. These divine men were generally torn in pieces + by the worshipers of the gods. Socrates was poisoned because he lacked + reverence for some of the deities. Christ was crucified by a religious rabble + for the crime of blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than + to destroy his enemies at the command of God. Religious persecution springs + from a due admixture of love towards God and hatred towards man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended at + least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful people + began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers + hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. A few began to compare + Christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit + that the difference was hardly worth dying for. They also found that other + nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. They began to + suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real value." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women + of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious + mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have + appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to + happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, + to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have + said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all religions, + there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving + and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect + harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that + above and over all there is a being who, in some way, will reclaim and + glorify every one of the children of men; but for those who heartlessly try + to prove that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is almost + certain; that the highway of the universe leads to hell; who fill life with + fear and death with horror; who curse the cradle and mock the tomb, it is + impossible to entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt and scorn." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Reason, Observation and Experience -- the Holy Trinity of Science -- have + taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, + and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this + belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of + a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there + will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is + in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the + imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological + certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself + to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants, the + worst is a slave in power." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing + to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure + eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides + the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and + unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will + be glorified and people who are damned." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"... I want it so that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl + sitting upon a dead limb of the tree of knowledge and hooting the hoots + that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. But I want it so that + each one can be an investigator, a thinker; and I want to make his + congregation grand enough so that they will not only allow him to think, + but will demand that he shall think, and give to them the honest truth of + his thought." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"] +% +"There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition + has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of + demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and + all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Humboldt", 1869] +% +"If the book [the Bible] and my brain are both the work of the same + Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"Tell me there is a God in the serene heavens that will damn his children + for the expression of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, + judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests + in the wide world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in hell; + that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, + and that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this + doctrine as the most infamous of lies." + [Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the + cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man + is capable, grew, blossomed and bore fruit in this one word, Hell." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels", 1881] +% +"Is it not wonderful that the creator of all worlds, infinite in power and + wisdom, could not hold his own against the gods of wood and stone? Is it + not strange that after he had appeared to his chosen people, delivered + them from slavery, feed them by miracles, opened the sea for a path, led + them by cloud and fire, and overthrown their pursuers, they still preferred + a calf of their own making?" (Exod. 32:1-8) "...a God who gave his entire + time for 40 years to the work of converting three millions of people, and + succeeded in getting only two men, and not a single woman, decent enough + to enter the promised land?" (Num. 14:29-30) + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Few Reasons for + Doubting the Inspiration of the Bible"] +% +"It has been contended for many years that the Ten Commandments are the + foundations of all ideas of justice and law. ...Nothing can be more stupidly + false than such assertions. Thousands of years before Moses was born, the + Egyptians had a code of laws. ...far better than the Mosaic." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"] +% +"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels", 1881 + also from Speech, New York City, 1 May 1881] +% +"In nature there are neither rewards nor + punishments; there are consequences." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some + Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"In all ages hypocrites, called priests, have put + crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"For many centuries the sword and cross were allies. Together + they attacked the rights of man. They defended each other." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Voltaire", 1894, Sec. I] +% +"As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she + will be the slave of man. The bible was not written by a woman. Within + its leaves there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"You have no right to erect your toll-gate upon the highways of thought." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"The infidels of one age have been the aureoled saints of the next. + The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels", 1881] +% +"The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels", 1881 + also from Speech, New York City, 1 May 1881] +% +"It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough + and courage enough to stand by his own convictions. I believe it was Magellan + who said, "The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on + the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the Church." + On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873, + quoted in _The Great Quotations_] +% +"I would rather live with the woman I love in a world full + of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty + of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"A believer is a bird in a cage, a free-thinker is + an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics. They + declared that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent + of the governed." This was a contradiction of the then political ideas + of the world; it was, as many believed, an act of pure blasphemy -- a + renunciation of the Deity. ...It was a notice to all churches and priests + that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. Politically + it tore down every altar and denied the authority of every "sacred book" + and appealed from the Providence of God to the Providence of man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "God in the Constitution", originally + published in _The Arena_ in Boston in January 1890. Taken + from _The New Dresden Edition of the Works of Ingersoll_ + New York City: The Ingersoll Publishers, Inc., 1900] +% +"If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory + of mankind, nothing of value would be lost...I do not see how it is + possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the Song of + Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of Lear was the + work of an uninspired man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1889] +% +"Our ignorance is God; what we know is science." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine", 1870] +% +"I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. + If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, + then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"I believe in the religion of reason -- the gospel of this world; in the + development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to + the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that + he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896] +% +"To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, + to assist weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits. -- to love the truth, + to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war + against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and child and friend, to make + a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, + to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble + deeds of all the world, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others + happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving + words, to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with + gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn + beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then to be resigned + -- this is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the + brain and heart." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Foundations of Faith", + 1895, Section VIII, "Conclusion"] +% +"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural-that all the ghosts + and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every + drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls + of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and + all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a + servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide + world-not even in infinite space. I was free. + -free to think, to express my thoughts + -free to live to my own ideal + -free to live for myself and those I loved + -free to use all my faculties, all my senses + -free to spread imagination's wings + -free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope + -free to judge and determine for myself + -free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books + that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past + -free from popes and priests + -free from all the "called" and "set apart" + -free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies + -free from the fear of eternal pain + -free from the winged monsters of night + -free from devils, ghosts, and gods + For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all + the realms of my thought-no air, no space, where fancy could not spread + her painted wings + -no chains for my limbs + -no lashes for my back + -no fires for my flesh + -no master's frown or threat + -no following another's steps + -no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. + I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. + And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and + went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives + for the liberty of hand and brain + -for the freedom of labor and thought + -to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in + dungeons bound with chains + -to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs + -to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn + -to those by fire consumed + -to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and + deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. + And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, + that light might conquer darkness still." + [Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896] +% +"The first great step towards progress, is, for man to cease + to be the slave of man; the second, to cease to be the slave + of the monsters of his own creation." + [Robert Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"No man with any sense of humor ever founded a religion." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What + Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880] +% +"The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man believes or disbelieves + in spite of himself. They tell us that to believe is the safe + way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why I Am a Freethinker", 1881] +% +"The church never doubts -- never inquires. To doubt is heresy -- to + inquire is to admit that you do not know -- the church does neither." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine", 1870] +% +"A miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. ... No intelligent, + honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never will." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "About the Holy Bible", 1894] +% +"...in every religion the priest insists on five things -- + First: There is a God. + Second: He has made known his will. + Third: He has selected me to explain this message. + Fourth: We will now take up a collection; and + Fifth: Those who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Has Freethought a Constructive + Side?", printed in The Truth Seeker, New York 1890] +% +"Commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one enriches, + and the other impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth + is told, the other where falsehoods are believed." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Wooden God", letter to the + Chicago Times, written at Washington, D.C., March 27, 1890] +% +"Intelligence is the only moral guide." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Would You + Substitute For the Bible as a Moral Guide?"] +% +"Ignorance is the soil of the supernatural. The foundation of + Christianity has crumbled, has disappeared, and the entire fabric + must fall. The natural is true. The miraculous is false." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?" + Part 2, North American Review, March, 1890] +% +"We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly + understood; that there is nothing mysterious about them; + that they are simply transparent falsehoods." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Divided + Household of Faith", 1888] +% +"All the professors in all the religious colleges in this + country rolled into one, would not equal Charles Darwin." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Fifth + Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"The destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is + a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, motto on the title page + of "Some Mistakes of Moses", mentioned in + Interview with Chicago Times, November 14, 1879] +% +"I have noticed all my life that many people think they + have religion when they are troubled with dyspepsia." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty + of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"Should it turn out that I am the worst man in the whole world, the + story of the flood will remain just as improbable as before, and the + contradictions of the Pentateuch will still demand an explanation." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes Of Moses", 1879] +% +"To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to + know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does + not and cannot exist -- all this is but the beginning of wisdom." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "How to Edit a Liberal Paper", + Secular Thought, Toronto, January 8, 1887] +% +"Mental slavery is mental death and every man who has given up + his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is -- + not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, + but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness. + We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that + we will not have to forgive them." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes Of Moses", 1879] +% +"There are others who take the ground that all is natural; that there + never has been, never will be, never can be any interference from + without, for the reason that nature embraces all, and that there can + be no without or beyond." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?", Part II, 1890] +% +"I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by + stumblers carried in the star-less night, -- blown and flared by passion's + storm,-- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Field-Ingersoll Debate, + "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D. D., 1887] +% +"Beyond the truths that have been demonstrated is the horizon of the Probable, + and in the world of the Probable every man has the right to guess for himself. + Beyond the region of the Probable is the Possible, and beyond the Possible is + the Impossible, and beyond the Impossible are the religions of this world. My + idea is this: Any man who acts in view of the Improbable or of the Impossible + -- that is to say, of the Supernatural -- is a superstitious man. Any man + who believes that he can add to the happiness of the Infinite, by depriving + himself of innocent pleasure, is superstitious. Any man who imagines that he + can make some God happy, by making himself miserable, is superstitious. Any + one who thinks he can gain happiness in another world, by raising hell with + his fellow-men in this, is simply superstitious. Any man who believes in a + Being of infinite wisdom and goodness, and yet believes that that being has + peopled a world with failures, is superstitious. Any man who believes that + an infinitely wise and good God would take pains to make a man, intending at + the time that the man should be eternally damned, is absurdly superstitious. + In other words, he who believes that there is, or that there can be, any other + religious duty than to increase the happiness of mankind, in this world, now + and here, is superstitious." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Thirteen Club + Dinner, New York, December 13, 1886] +% +"Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Superstition", 1898] +% +"The mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping + on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows + there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; + that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and + he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"I have no confidence in any religion that + can be demonstrated only to children." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Political interview] +% +"Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, + for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not + investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"What effect will logic have upon a religious gentleman who firmly + believes that a God of infinite compassion sent two bears to tear + thirty or forty children in pieces for laughing at a bald-headed prophet?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Voltaire", 1894] +% +"Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish, + because man does not love God for God's sake, but for his own." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Rome or Reason, + A Reply to Cardinal Manning", 1888] +% +"But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they + love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, "We do not know." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Superstition", 1898] +% +"In the search for truth, -- everything in nature seems to hide, -- man needs + the assistance of all his faculties. All the senses should be awake. Humor + should carry a torch, Wit should give its sudden light, Candor should hold + the scales, Reason, the final arbiter, should put his royal stamp on every + fact, and Memory, with a miser's care, should keep and guard the mental gold." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on + his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; + Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888] +% +"Some president wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the + Bible as "the corner-stone of American Liberty." This sentence is a + mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward + the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to + substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Morality and Immorality" interview, + printed in The News, Detroit, Michigan, January 6, 1884] +% +"Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To + the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in + accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of + man and the why and wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer + in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that + everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Liberty In Literature", 1890] +% +"I admit that I do not know whether there is any infinite personality or not, + because I do not know that my mind is an absolute standard. But according to + my mind, there is no such personality; and according to my mind, it is an + infinite absurdity to suppose that there is such an infinite personality. But + I do know something of human nature; I do know a little of the history of + mankind; and I know enough to know that what is known as the Christian faith, + is not true. I am perfectly satisfied, beyond all doubt and beyond all + peradventure, that all miracles are falsehoods. I know as well as I know that + I live -- that others live -- that what you call your faith, is not true." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, unfinished article, reply to Rev. + Lyman Abbott's article "Flaws in Ingersollism" printed + in the North American Review, April 1890] +% +"In the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no + infamy has been left undone by the believers in ghosts, -- by the + worshipers of these fleshless phantoms. And yet these shadows were + born of cowardice and malignity. They were painted by the pencil of + fear upon the canvas of ignorance by that artist called superstition." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of + men -- nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Abraham Lincoln", 1894] +% +"I believe it is, as it always has been, easier to kill + two infidels than to answer one." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "An Interview on Chief + Justice Comegys", Brooklyn Eagle, 1881] +% +"Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear believes -- + courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays -- courage stands + erect and thinks. Fear retreats -- courage advances. Fear is barbarism + -- courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and + in ghosts. Fear is religion -- courage is science." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"Through all the years, those who plowed divided with those who prayed. + Wicked industry supported pious idleness, the hut gave to the cathedral, + and frightened poverty gave even its rags to buy a robe for hypocrisy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved?", 1880] +% +"It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and + it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Which Way?", 1884] +% +"The inventor of a good soup did more for his race than the maker of + any creed. The doctrines of total depravity and endless punishment + were born of bad cooking and dyspepsia." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "About Farming in Illinois", 1877] +% +"If there is a God, there should be no slaves." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty + of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"An infinite personality is an infinite impossibility." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"I do not know what takes place in the invisible world called the brain, + inhabited by the invisible something we call the mind. All that takes + place there is invisible and soundless. This mind, hidden in this brain, + masked by flesh, remains forever unseen, and the only evidence we can + possibly have as to what occurs in that world, we obtain from the actions + of the man, of the woman. By these actions we judge of the character, of + the soul. So I make up my mind as to whether a man is good or bad, not + by his theories, but by his actions." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Reply to Rev. J. M. King & Rev. Thomas Dixon, + printed in the Evening Telegraph, regarding their response to his + "Christmas Sermon" in the Evening Telegram, December 19, 1891] +% +"We do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is + grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a + creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while + men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish everything + in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service + possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know that doing away with + gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. It is a means to + an end: the real end being the happiness of man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty + on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"We are continually told that the Bible is the very foundation of modesty + and morality; while many of its pages are so immodest and immoral that a + minister, for reading them in the pulpit, would be instantly denounced as + an unclean wretch. Every woman would leave the church, and if the men + stayed, it would be for the purpose of chastising the minister." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the + contradictions that exist between Nature and a book? Why should + philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what + they know than upon what they have been told?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in + the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike + his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John + Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine! Imagine a + conversation between a block and an ax! As I read their conversation it + seemed to me as though John Knox and John Calvin were made for each other; + that they fitted each other like the upper and lower jaws of a wild beast. + They believed happiness was a crime; they looked upon laughter as blasphemy; + and they did all they could to destroy every human feeling, and to fill the + mind with the infinite gloom of predestination and eternal death. They taught + the doctrine that God had a right to damn us because he made us. That is + just the reason that he has not a right to damn us. There is some dust. + Unconscious dust! What right has God to change that unconscious dust into a + human being, when he knows that human being will sin; when he knows that + human being will suffer eternal agony? Why not leave him in the unconscious + dust? What right has an infinite God to add to the sum of human agony?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880] +% +"I have kindness and candor enough to say that + Calvin and Edwards were both insane." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896] +% +"The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? + Because they are acquainted with each other." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Sixth + Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"Not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend that the Mosaic laws + are filled with justice and intelligence, would live, for a moment, + in any country where such laws were in force." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"The church persecutes the living and her + God burns, for all eternity, the dead." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, + "Heretics and Heresies", 1874] +% +"And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and tell + him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. + We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample + under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify + ourselves -- refuse to become liars -- we are denounced, hated, traduced and + ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire + the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. + Let the people hate, let the God threaten -- we will educate them, and we + will despise and defy him." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to + hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. + I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of + this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned + the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to + every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and + with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung + the hearts of the tender, it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This + doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. + clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, + at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? + I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you. If you did, you could not + sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, + throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does + not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his + son the fact, that god takes care of all his creatures. Happening, one day, + to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son + the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. "See," + said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! What a long slender bill he + has! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing + them out of the water! He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus + enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." + "My son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing + the design, as well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the means of + subsistence." "Yes," replied the boy, "I think I see the goodness of God, at + least so far as the crane is concerned; but after all, father, don't you + think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?" + [Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design. If God created + man -- if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the + insane, the deformed and idiotic? Should the mother, who clasps to her + breast an idiot child, thank God?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896] +% +"I am told that I am in danger of hell; that for me to express my honest + convictions is to excite the wrath of God. They inform me that unless + I believe in a certain way, meaning their way, I am in danger of + everlasting fire. + + There was a time when these threats whitened the faces of men with fear. + That time has substantially passed away. For a hundred years hell has been + gradually growing cool, the flames have been slowly dying out, the brimstone + is nearly exhausted, the fires have been burning lower and lower, and the + climate gradually changing. To such an extent has the change already been + effected that if I were going there to-night I would take an overcoat and + a box of matches. + + They say that the eternal future of man depends upon his belief. I deny it. + A conclusion honestly arrived at by the brain cannot possibly be a crime; and + the man who says it is, does not think so. The god who punishes it as a crime + is simply an infamous tyrant. As for me, l would a thousand times rather go + to perdition and suffer its torments with the brave, grand thinkers of the + world, than go to heaven and keep the company of a god who would damn his + children for an honest belief." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "My Reviewers Reviews", lecture in San + Francisco, June 27, 1877, reply to attacks by clergymen for his + lectures "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", and "The Ghosts"] +% +"Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of + pity -- to unbind the martyr from the stake -- break all the chains -- + put out the fires of civil war -- stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear + the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science? + + Is it a small thing to make men truly free -- to destroy the dogmas of + ignorance, prejudice and power -- the poisoned fables of superstition, + and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine", 1870] +% +"Confronted with the universe, with fields of space sown thick with stars, + with all there is of life, the wise man, being asked the origin and destiny + of all, replies: "I do not know. These questions are beyond the powers + of my mind." The wise man is thoughtful and modest. He clings to facts. + Beyond his intellectual horizon he does not pretend to see. He does not + mistake hope for evidence or desire for demonstration. He is honest. He + neither deceives himself nor others." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Foundations of Faith", 1895] +% +"To exempt the church from taxation, is to pay part of the priest's salary." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Interview in The Truth Seeker, + New York, September 5, 1885. Quoted by Joseph Lewis + in "Franklin the Freethinker"] +% +"No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this infinite horror. + + All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and + famine, in fire and flood -- all the pangs and pains of every disease and + every death -- all of this is nothing compared with the agonies to be + endured by one lost soul. + + This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the justice + of God -- the mercy of Christ. + + This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of + Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real + persecutor. It founded the Inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the + fagots. It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as + terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless + thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It subverted + the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and + banished reason from the brain. + + Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox + creed. + + It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one + infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every + preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, + savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge. + + Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its + creator, God. + + While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my + strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896] +% +"Christianity teaches that all offences can be forgiven. Every church + unconsciously allows people to commit crimes on credit. On the other hand, + what is called infidelity says: There is no being in the universe who rewards, + and there is no being who punishes -- every act has its consequences. If the + act is good, the consequences are good; if the act is bad, the consequences + are bad; and these consequences must be borne by the actor. It says to every + human being: You must reap what you sow. There is no reward, there is no + punishment, but there are consequences, and these consequences are the + invisible and implacable police of nature. They cannot be avoided. They + cannot be bribed. No power can awe them, and there is not gold enough in the + world to make them pause. Even a God cannot induce them to release for one + instant their victim. + + This great truth is, in my judgment, the gospel of morality. If all men knew + that they must inevitably bear the consequences of their own actions -- if + they absolutely knew that they could not injure another without injuring + themselves, the world, in my judgment, would be far better than it is." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, January 9, 1891, answering + the critics of his "Christmas Sermon" printed + in the Evening Telegraph on December 19, 1891] +% +"Can a good man mock at the children of deformity? Will he deride the + misshapen? Your Jehovah deformed some of his own children, and then held + them up to scorn and hatred. These divine mistakes -- these blunders of the + infinite -- were not allowed to enter the temple erected in honor of him who + had dishonored them. Does a kind father mock his deformed child? What would + you think of a mother who would deride and taunt her misshapen babe?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on + his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; + Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888] +% +"Failure seems to be the trademark of Nature. Why? Nature has no design, no + intelligence. Nature produces without purpose, sustains without intention + and destroys without thought. Man has a little intelligence, and he should + use it. Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Is Religion?", his last + public address, delivered before the American Free + Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899] +% +"When a professor in a college finds a fact, he should make it + known, even if it is inconsistent with something Moses said." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did, + and never will agree. They are not in the least related. They are deadly + foes. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Can there be Methodist + mathematics, Catholic astronomy, Presbyterian geology, Baptist biology, or + Episcopal botany? Why, then, should a sectarian college exist? Only that which + somebody knows should be taught in our schools. We should not collect taxes + to pay people for guessing. The common school is the bread of life for the + people, and it should not be touched by the withering hand of superstition." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Why should a woman ask pardon of God for having been a mother? Why should + that be considered a crime in Exodus, which is commanded as a duty in + Genesis? Why should a mother be declared unclean? Why should giving birth + to a daughter be regarded twice as criminal as giving birth to a son? Can + we believe that such laws and ceremonies were made and instituted by a + merciful and intelligent God? If there is anything in this poor world + suggestive of, and standing for, all that is sweet, loving and pure, it + is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her prattling babe." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Only the other day a gentleman was telling me of a case of special providence. + He knew it. He had been the subject of it. A few years ago he was about to go + on a ship when he was detained. He did not go, and the ship was lost with all + on board. "Yes!" I said, "Do you think the people who were drowned believed + in special providence?" Think of the infinite egotism of such a doctrine. + Here is a man that fails to go upon a ship with five hundred passengers and + they go down to the bottom of the sea -- fathers, mothers, children, and + loving husbands and wives waiting upon the shores of expectation. Here is one + poor little wretch that did not happen to go! And he thinks that God, the + Infinite Being, interfered in his poor little withered behalf and let the + rest all go. That is special providence. Why does special providence allow + all the crimes? Why are the wife-beaters protected, and why are the wives and + children left defenceless if the hand of God is over us all? Who protects the + insane? Why does Providence permit insanity? But the church cannot give up + special providence. If there is no such thing, then no prayers, no worship, + no churches, no priests. What would become of National thanksgiving?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"When a man has been "born again", all the passages of the Old Testament + that appear so horrible and so unjust to one in his natural state, become + the dearest, the most consoling, and the most beautiful of truths. The + real Christian reads the accounts of these ancient battles with the + greatest possible satisfaction. To one who really loves his enemies, + the groans of men, the shrieks of women, and the cries of babes, make + music sweeter than the zephyr's breath." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Talmadgian Catechism", 1882] +% +"Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in + superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel + in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, + O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies", 1874] +% +"How touching when the learned and wise crawl back in cribs and ask to + hear the rhymes and fables once again! How charming in these hard and + scientific times to see old age in Superstition's lap, with eager lips + upon her withered breast!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" + Part III, The Ingersoll - Black Debate, 1881] +% +"I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it + so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the + dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine + chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880] +% +"We did not get our freedom from the church. The great truth, that + all men are by nature free, was never told on Sinai's barren crags, + nor by the lonely shores of Galilee." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" + Part III, The Ingersoll - Black Debate, 1881] +% +"Rome was far better when Pagan than when Catholic. It was better to allow + gladiators and criminals to fight than to burn honest men. The greatest of + the Romans denounced the cruelties of the arena. Seneca condemned the combats + even of wild beasts. He was tender enough to say that "we should have a bond + of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the depraved and base + take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering." Aurelius compelled the + gladiators to fight with blunted swords. Roman lawyers declared that all men + are by nature free and equal. Woman, under Pagan rule in Rome, became as free + as man. Zeno, long before the birth of Christ, taught that virtue alone + establishes a difference between men. We know that the Civil Law is the + foundation of our codes. We know that fragments of Greek and Roman art -- + a few manuscripts saved from Christian destruction, some inventions and + discoveries of the Moors -- were the seeds of modern civilization. + Christianity, for a thousand years, taught memory to forget and reason to + believe. Not one step was taken in advance. Over the manuscripts of + philosophers and poets, priests with their ignorant tongues thrust out, + devoutly scrawled the forgeries of faith. For a thousand years the torch of + progress was extinguished in the blood of Christ, and his disciples, moved + by ignorant zeal, by insane, cruel creeds, destroyed with flame and sword a + hundred million of their fellow-men. They made this world a hell. But if + cathedrals had been universities -- if dungeons of the Inquisition had been + laboratories -- if Christians had believed in character instead of creed -- + if they had taken from the Bible all the good and thrown away the wicked and + absurd -- if domes of temples had been observatories -- if priests had been + philosophers -- if missionaries had taught the useful arts -- if astrology + had been astronomy -- if the black art had been chemistry -- if superstition + had been science -- if religion had been humanity -- it would have been a + heaven filled with love, with liberty and joy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" + Part III, The Ingersoll - Black Debate, 1881] +% +"Science is the enemy of fear and credulity. It invites investigation, + challenges the reason, stimulates inquiry, and welcomes the unbeliever. It + seeks to give food and shelter, and raiment, education and liberty to the + human race. It welcomes every fact and every truth. It has furnished a + foundation of morals, a philosophy for the guidance of man. From all books + it selects the good, and from all theories, the true. It seeks to civilize + the human race by the cultivation of the intellect and heart. It refines, + through art, music and the drama -- giving voice and expression to every + noble thought. The mysterious does not excite the feeling of worship, but + the ambition to understand. It does not pray -- it works. It does not answer + inquiry with the malicious cry of "blasphemy." Its feelings are not hurt by + contradiction, neither does it ask to be protected by law from the laughter + of heretics. It has taught man that he cannot walk beyond the horizon -- that + the questions of origin and destiny cannot be answered -- they an infinite + personality cannot be comprehended by a finite being, and that the truth of + any system of religion based on the supernatural cannot by any possibility + be established -- such a religion not being within the domain of evidence. + And, above all, it teaches that all our duties are here -- that all our + obligations are to sentient beings; that intelligence, guided by kindness, + is the highest possible wisdom; and that "man believes not what he would, + but what he can." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on + his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; + Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888] +% +"Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous + doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted -- of + the tears it has caused -- of the agony it has produced. Think of the + millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. + This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in the universe. + Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and + degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. There is nothing more + degrading than to worship such a god. Lower than this the soul can never + sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me share the fate of + the unconverted; let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with + a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies", 1874] +% +"Religion makes enemies instead of friends. That one word, "religion," + covers all the horizon of memory with visions of war, of outrage, of + persecution, of tyranny, and death. That one word brings to the mind + every instrument with which man has tortured man. In that one word are + all the fagots and flames and dungeons of the past, and in that word + is the infinite and eternal hell of the future." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"No Devil, no hell. No hell, no atonement. + No atonement, no preaching, no gospel." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"We cannot trample upon their rights, without endangering our own; and no man + who will take liberty from another, is great enough to enjoy liberty himself." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Fifth Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"I beg of you not to pollute the soul of childhood, not to furrow the cheeks + of mothers, by preaching a creed that should be shrieked in a mad-house. Do + not make the cradle as terrible as the coffin. Preach, I pray you, the gospel + of Intellectual Hospitality -- the liberty of thought and speech. Take from + loving hearts the awful fear. Have mercy on your fellow-men. Do not drive to + madness the mothers whose tears are falling on the pallid faces of those who + died in unbelief. Pity the erring, wayward, suffering, weeping world. Do not + proclaim as "tidings of great joy" that an Infinite Spider is weaving webs + to catch the souls of men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Field-Ingersoll Debate, + "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D. D., 1887] +% +"I beg, I implore, I beseech you, never to give another dollar to build a + church in which that lie is preached. Never give another cent to send a + missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign land. + Why, they say, the heathen will go to heaven, any way, if you let them + alone. What is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening them? Let + them alone. The idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he does + not believe, he will be damned, when the chances are ten to one that he + will not believe it, is monstrous." + [Robert G. Ingersoll "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"The religion of Jesus Christ, as preached by his church, causes war, + bloodshed, hatred, and all uncharitableness; and why? Because, they say, a + certain belief is necessary to salvation. They do not say, if you behave + yourself you will get there; they do not say, if you pay your debts and love + your wife and love your children, and are good to your friends, and your + neighbors, and your country, you will get there; that will do you no good; + you have got to believe a certain thing. No matter how bad you are, you can + instantly be forgiven; and no matter how good you are, if you fail to believe + that which you cannot understand, the moment you get to the day of judgment + nothing is left but to damn you, and all the angels will shout "hallelujah." + [Robert G. Ingersoll "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"Over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of Jesus Christ. + For sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent + blood. The ingenuity of Christians was exhausted in devising punishment + severe enough to be inflicted upon other Christians who honestly and + sincerely differed with them upon any point whatever." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies", 1874] +% +"Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Address to the Jury", + trial of C. B. Reynolds for Blasphemy] +% +"To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Liberty in Literature", 1890] +% +"Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Rome or Reason?", + Reply to Cardinal Manning, 1888] +% +"Twenty years after the death of Luther there were more Catholics + than when he was born. And twenty years after the death of Voltaire + there were millions less than when he was born." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Interview with New York correspondent, + Chicago Times, May 29, 1881, answering criticism by NY + ministers in response to his "Great Infidels" lecture] +% +"This century will be called Darwin's century. He was one of the greatest men + who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life + than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin on the + one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and + from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. His + doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his + doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the + last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has + demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing + of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of + nature; that the Bible is a book written by ignorance -- at the instigation + of fear. Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there + was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the + more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held + up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet + when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest + and her grandest. Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his + doctrines are now accepted facts." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural -- that all the ghosts + and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every + drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom ... For the + first time, I was free ... I stood erect and joyously faced all worlds. + And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went + out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the + liberty of hand and brain ... And then I vowed to grasp the torch that + they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still. + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896, + quoted in Joseph Lewis' speech "Ingersoll the Magnificent"] +% +"Every fact is an enemy of the church. Every fact is a heretic. + Every demonstration is an infidel. Everything that ever really + happened testifies against the supernatural." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, + and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty + of Man, Woman and Child" 1877] +% +"For my part I would not kill my wife, even if commanded + to do so by the real God of this universe." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools + of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would + teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as + demonstrated truths. + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Speech at Chicago + Exposition Building, October 20, 1876] +% +"If there is a God, it is reasonably certain that he made the world, but it + is by no means certain that he is the author of the Bible. Why then should + we not place greater confidence in Nature than in a book? And even if this + God made not only the world but the book besides, it does not follow that + the book is the best part of creation, and the only part that we will be + eternally punished for denying. It seems to me that it is quite as important + to know something of the solar system, something of the physical history of + this globe, as it is to know the adventures of Jonah or the diet of Ezekiel. + For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific + investigation, than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing the Bible to be + true; why is it any worse or more wicked for Freethinkers to deny it, than + for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? + Why should we be damned for laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, + holding the Nebular Hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven? It + seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as + essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man + may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the + earth, the Copernican system, the three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility + of matter and the attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a + man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe + in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"I want no heaven for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange + for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my + individuality. Better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door + but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar of a god." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"Science built the Academy, superstition the inquisition." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"I have always noticed that the people who have the smallest + souls make the most fuss about getting them saved." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"To succeed the theologan invades the cradle. In the minds + of innocents they plant the seeds of superstition. Save + children from the pollution of this horror." + [Robert Ingersoll] +% +"Go around the world, and where you find the least superstition, there + you will find the best men, the best women, the best children." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% + "Public prayer is, if nothing else, + an undignified public performance." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, quoted in "Ingersoll + the Magnificent" by Joseph Lewis] +% +"Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it + does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief + in God. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of the Bible on account + of its cruelty. At the same time they worshiped what they were pleased to + call the God of Nature. Now we are convinced that Nature is as cruel as the + Bible; so that, if the God of Nature did not write the Bible, this God at + least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this God has + allowed millions of his children to destroy one another. So that now we have + arrived at the question -- not as to whether the Bible is inspired and not + as to whether Jehovah is the real God, but whether there is a God or not." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"In the presence of death I affirm and reaffirm the truth of all + that I have said against the superstitions of the world. I would + say that much on the subject with my last breath." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the + theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the + many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, + reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins + -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and + the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the + middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the + princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is + the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average + man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an + inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago. + + These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop + from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or + behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were + not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to + superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of + reason, observation and experience -and for them all, man is indebted to man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"My objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, + infinitely selfish, and, I might add, infinitely absurd." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The Bible is not inspired in its morality, for the reason that slavery is + not moral, that polygamy is not good, that wars of extermination are not + merciful, and that nothing can be more immoral than to punish the innocent + on account of the sins of the guilty." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The Catholics have a pope. Protestants laugh at them, and yet the Pope + is capable of intellectual advancement. In addition to this, the Pope is + mortal, and the church cannot be afflicted with the same idiot forever. The + Protestants have a book for their Pope. The book cannot advance. Year after + year, and century after century, the book remains as ignorant as ever." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The believers in the Bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are + pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have + been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the + dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? Simply for the purpose of raising + orthodox Christians? That he did a few miracles to astonish them? That all + the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally + going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist + barnacles, petrified Presbyterians, and Methodist mummies?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The Church has always been willing to swap + off treasures in heaven for cash down here." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Every minister likes to consider himself as a brave shepherd leading + the lambs through green pastures and defending them at night from + Infidel wolves. All this he does for a certain share of the wool." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Salvation for credulity means damnation for investigation." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"My creed is this: + Happiness is the only good. + The place to be happy is here. + The time to be happy is now. + The way to be happy is to help make others so." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Motto on the + title page of Vol. xii, Works] +% +"Think of the egotism of a man who believes + that an infinite being wants his praise!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Surely investigation is better than unthinking faith. + Surely reason is a better guide than fear." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The + Liberty of Man, Woman and Child"] +% +"When we find out that an assertion is a falsehood, a shining truth + takes its place, and we need not fear the destruction of the false. + The more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "44 Complete Lectures"] +% +"I am not so much for the freedom of religion + as I am for the religion of freedom." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The object of the Freethinker is to ascertain the truth-the conditions + of well being-to the end that his life will be made of value." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, contribution to The Truth Seeker, 1890] +% +"There may be a God who will make us happy in another world. If he does, + it will be more than he has accomplished in this. A being who has the + power to prevent it and yet allows thousands and millions of his children + to starve, who devours them with earthquakes, who allows whole nations + to be enslaved, cannot--in my judgment--be implicitly depended upon to + justice in another world." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Jehovah was not a moral God. He had all the vices and lacked all + the virtues. He generally carried out all his threats, but he + never faithfully kept a promise." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"If there is a God who has allowed the children to be oppressed in this world + he certainly needs another life to reform the blunders he made in this." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"If only Christians go to heaven and all others go to hell, it + seems to me that there will be a thousand times more misery in + the next world than in this." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"God cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward + improving the condition of his fellow-man. If he can, I had rather + go to hell than to heaven and keep company with such a god." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The doctrine of eternal punishment is the most infamous of all + doctrines--born of ignorance, cruelty and fear. Around the angel + of immortality Christianity has coiled the serpent. Upon Love's + breast the church has placed the eternal asp." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name + given by the powerful to the doctrines of the weak." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies"] +% +"Is there beyond the silent night + An endless day? + Is death a door that leads to light? + We cannot say." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, + Declaration of the Free] +% +"If we are immortal, it is a fact of nature, and that fact + does not depend on bibles, on Christs, priest, or creeds." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The hope of immortality never came from any religion. + The hope of immortality has helped to make religion." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"A known infidel cannot get very rich, for the reason that the + Christians are so forgiving and loving that they boycott him." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Christ said nothing about the Western Hemisphere because he did not know it + existed. He did not know the shape of the earth. He was not a scientist-- + never even hinted at any science--never told anybody to investigate, to + think. His idea was that this life should be spent; in preparing for the + next. For all of the evils of this life, and the next, faith was his remedy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"It is said that desire for knowledge lost us the Eden of + the past; but whether that is true or not, it will + certainly give us the Eden of the future." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"] +% +"True religion must be free. Without perfect liberty of mind there can be no + true religion. Without liberty the brain is a dungeon--the mind a convict." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"He who endeavors to control the mind by force + is a tyrant, and he who submits is a slave." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"] +% +"Nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. To put chains upon + the body is nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain. No god is + entitled to the worship or respect of a man who does not give, even to the + meanest of his children, every right he claims for himself. If the Pentateuch + is true, religious persecution is a duty, The dungeons of the Inquisition + were temples and the clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music + to the ear of God." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Do away with miracles, and the superhuman character of Christ + is destroyed. He Becomes what he really was--a man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Inspiration is only necessary to give authority to that which + is repugnant to human reason. Only that which never happened + needs to be substantiated by miracles." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only + worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Eulogy at the grave of his brother, Eben] +% +"The assassin cannot sanctify his dagger by falling on his knees, and + it does not help a falsehood if it be uttered as a prayer. Religion, + used to intensify the hatred of men toward men under the pretense of + pleasing God, has cursed this world." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The country that has got the least religion is the most prosperous, + and the country that has got most religion is in the worst condition." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Speech in Boston, April 23, 1880] +% +"Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, + you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and + all depths; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor + sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes + no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee upon + no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind you are + relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of + majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no popes, + no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can + be compelled to pay a reluctant homage." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Christ according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the + Father being the first and the holy Ghost the third. Each of these three + persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is + neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but + existed before he was begotten--just the same before as after. Christ is just + as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. The Holy + Ghost proceeded form the Father and Son, but was an equal to the Father and + Son before he proceeded, that is to say before he existed, but he is of the + same age as the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more + perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Let us remember that those who have sought natures truths have not persecuted + their neighbors. The astronomers and chemist have forged no chains and built + no dungeons. The geologist have invented no instruments of torture. The + philosophers have not demonstrated the truths of their theories by burning + others. The great infidels, the thinkers have lived for the good of humankind. + Intellectual liberty is the fresh air of the universe and the sunshine of the + soul. Without it, the universe is a prison." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Now they say that this book is inspired. I do not care whether it is or + not; the question is, Is it true? if it is true, it doesn't need to be + inspired. Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Consequently, in the name of God Almighty, by the authority of the + Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, and by our Own, We reprove and condemn + this Charter [the Magna Carta]; under pain of anathema We forbid the + King to observe it or the barons to demand its execution. We declare + the Charter null and of no effect, as well as all the obligations + contracted to confirm it. It is Our wish that in no case should it + have any effect." + [Pope Innocent III (1161-1216)] +% +"Use against heretics the spiritual sword of excommunication, + and if this does not prove effective, use the material sword." + [Pope Innocent III (1161-1216)] +% +"Our dear Son (King of France), the Chancellor of Paris, and the Doctors, + before the clergy and people, publicly burned by fire the aforesaid books + (The Talmud) with all their appendices. We beg and beseech your Celestial + Majesty in the Lord Jesus, that, having begun laudably and piously to + prosecute those who perpetuate these detestable excesses, that you continue + with due severity. And that you command throughout your whole kingdom that + the aforesaid books with all their glossaries, already condemned by the + Doctors, be committed to the flames. Firmly prohibiting Jews From having + Christians as servants and nurses..." + [Pope Innocent IV, A.D. 1244, Bull. Rom. Pont., IV, 509] +% +"...ice crystals only grow when an outside agent [God] + is driving the process against the natural decay process + described by the second law of thermodynamics." + [Institute for Creation Research + http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-162.htm62.htm] +% +"Truth is, christians are the only ones in + the world that cannot explain anything" + ["Internut", christian on IRC] +% +"I tell Christians, If you had two children and one had to be bribed + (heaven) and threatened (hell) to do what he was supposed to do, and + the other one just did it because that's what he knew was the right + thing to do, which would you consider the better person?" + [Greg Irwin, President of the Humanist Association of Canada] +% +"Would you have mansions of gold in the sky, + and live in a shack, here in the back? + Would you have wings up in heaven to fly, + While you live here with rags on your back?" + [IWW song, from The Little Red Songbook, + Songs to fan the flames of discontent] +% +"Man is a dog's idea of what God should be." + [Holbrook Jackson, quoted in + "Omni", Aug. 1988, p. 31.] +% +"On the inner walls of the holy of holies in the Temple of Luxor inscribed by + King Amenhotep III (1538-1501 B.C.) the birth of Horus is pictured in four + scenes very much like Christian representations of the Annunciation and the + Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and the Birth and Adoration of the + Christ Child. These four consecutive scenes, as engraved on the walls of the + Temple of Luxor, are reproduced in Gerald Massey's Ancient Egypt: The Light + of the World Vol. II (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907) page 757, and may be + described as follows..." + [John G. Jackson, "Christianity Before Christ" + Austin TX: American Atheist Press, 1985 p. 110] +% +"The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion, it will cease + to be free for religion--except for the sect that can win political power." + [Supreme Court Justice Robert Houghwout Jackson, dissenting + opinion in Zorach v. Clauson (343 US 306 -- 1952)] +% +"If we concede to the State power and wisdom to single out + 'duly constituted religious' bodies as exclusive alternatives + for compulsory secular instruction, it would be logical to + also uphold the power and wisdom to choose the true faith among + those 'duly constituted.' We start down a rough road when we + begin to mix compulsory public education with compulsory godliness." + [Supreme Court Justice Robert Houghwout Jackson, dissenting + opinion in Zorach v. Clauson (343 US 306 -- 1952)] +% +"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is + that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox + in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or + force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." + [Robert H. Jackson, Supreme Court opinion (West Virginia State + Board of Education v Barnette, 319 U.S. 624{1943})] +% +"[I]n our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, + economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all + thought is divinely classified into two kinds -- that which is their own + and that which is false and dangerous." + [Justice Robert H. Jackson, American Communications Assn. + v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 438; 70 S.Ct. 674, 704 (1950)] +% +"[T]he effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to + take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things + which could directly or indirectly be made public business, and thereby be + supported in whole or in part at taxpayers' expense. That is a difference + which the Constitution sets up between religion and almost every other + subject matter of legislation, a difference which goes to the very root of + religious freedom[...] This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because + it was first in the forefathers' minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, + and its strength is its rigidity. It was intended not only to keep the + states' hands out of religion, but to keep religion's hands off the state, + and, above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by + denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public + policy or the public purse." + [Justice Robert H. Jackson, in dissent in Everson v. Board of + Education of Ewing TP., 330 U.S. 1 (1947) at 26, 27.] +% +"[The Establishment Clause and Religious Freedom Clause] of our Federal + Constitution ha[ve] never been wholly pleasing to most religious groups. + They are all quick to invoke its protections; they are all irked when they + feel its restraints. This Court has gone a long way, if not an unreasonable + way, to hold that public business of paramount importance as maintenance of + public order, protection of the privacy of a home, and taxation may not be + pursued by a state in a way that even indirectly will interfere with + religious proselyting.[...] But we cannot have it both ways. Religious + teaching cannot be a private affair when the state seeks to impose + regulations which infringe on it indirectly, and a public affair when it + comes to taxing citizens of one faith to aid another, or those of no faith + to aid all. If these principles seem harsh in prohibiting aid to Catholic + education, it must not be forgotten that it is the same Constitution that + alone assures Catholics the right to maintain these schools at all when + predominant local sentiment would forbid them. [...] Nor should I think + that those who have done so well without this aid would want to see this + separation between Church and State broken down. If the state may aid + these religious schools, it may therefore regulate them. Many groups have + sought aid from tax funds, only to find that it carried political controls + with it. Indeed, this Court has declared that 'It is hardly lack of due + process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes.' + Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 131." + [Justice Robert H. Jackson, in dissent in Everson v. Board of + Education of Ewing TP., 330 U.S. 1 (1947) at 27, 28.] +% +"Nothing is more dangerous than the certainty of being right... + All the massacres were done by virtue, in the name of the true + faith, of the legitimate nationalism, of the idoneous politics, + of the just ideology; in short, in the name of the combat + against other people's truth, the combat against Satan" + [Francois Jacob] +% +"The National Government will therefore regard as its first and supreme + task to restore to the German people unity of mind and will. It will + preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation + rests. It will take under its firm protection Christianity as the basis + of our morality, and the family as the nucleus of our nation and our State." + [_Nazism, A History in Documents & Eyewitness Accounts_. + (Original source listed in the bibliography: Jacobsen and + Jochmann, Ausgewahlte Dokumente Bd II.)] +% +"Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism." + [William James (1842-1910) American philosopher and psychologist] +% +"Jeff 3:16 + For God so hated the world that he gave his only bastard son, that + whosoever believeth in him shall not flourish but have everlasting strife." + [Jeff Janusch, backslide247@aol.com] +% +"Damn the Solar System. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered + with comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better myself." + [Francis [Lord Jeffery] +% +"In addition I think science has enjoyed an extraordinary success + because it has such a limited and narrow realm in which to focus its + efforts. Namely, the physical universe." + [Ken Jenkins] +% +"After the survivor of the Spanish conquest has told his life's story he is + convicted by the Inquisition: + + "He posted no brief in defense or mitigation of his offenses, and + when he was most solemnly advised by the Court President of the dire + consequences he faced if found guilty, Juan Damasceno volunteered + only one comment: + + 'It will mean I do not go to the Christian heaven?' + + He was told that that would indeed be the worst of his punishments: + that he would most assuredly not go to Heaven. At which, his smile + sent a thrill of horror through every soul of the Court." + ["Aztec", by Gary Jennings] +% +"If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is + bad to touch a woman always and in every case." + [St. Jerome, Epistle 48.14] +% +"For the preservation of chastity, an empty and + rumbling stomach and fevered lungs are indispensable." + [St. Jerome (340?-420)] +% +"Holy virginity is a better thing than conjugal chastity.... A mother will + hold a lesser place in the Kingdom of heaven, because she has been married, + than the daughter, seeing that she is a virgin .... but if thy mother has + been humble and not proud, she will have some sort of place, but not thou..." + [Saint Jerome, Roman theologian, Sermon 354] +% +"All riches come from iniquity, and unless one has lost, another cannot + gain. Hence that common opinion seems to be very true, 'the rich man is + unjust, or the heir to an unjust one.' Opulence is always the result of + theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor." + [St. Jerome (compare to Karl Marx)] +% +"Though thy father cling to thee, and thy mother rend her + garments and show thee the breasts thou has sucked, thrust + them aside with dry eyes to embrace the cross." + [St. Jerome, Letter to Heliodorus, + on true Christian "family values"] +% +"I never spared heretics and have always done my utmost so + that the enemies of the Church should also be my enemies." + [St. Jerome, 420 AD] +% +"We Catholics may lie and say we are Protestants when we are among the + Protestants or we may lie when we are among the Huguenots and say we are + Huguenots; and if we wish we can stoop so low as to say we are Jews when + we are among the Jews if our lying would benefit the Catholic Church." + [Jesuit oath from the Congressional Record] +% +"The Roman Catholic church, convinced that it is the only true church, + must demand the right to freedom for herself alone and the end of + freedom for all others." + [Jesuit publication] +% +"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; + I came not to send peace, but a sword." + [Jesus, Matthew 10:34] +% +"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should + reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." + [Jesus, Luke 19:27, as part + of a self-referential parable] +% +"The belief that the soul continues its existence after the + dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or + theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is + accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture." + [The Jewish Encyclopedia (1910), Vol. VI, p. 564] +% +"If God lived on earth, people would break his windows." + [Jewish proverb, quoted in: Claud Cockburn, + Cockburn Sums Up, epigraph (1981).] +% +"No one has an idea really of where we should draw the line. What about + the Bible? Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around. If + you're looking for violent rape imagery, the Bible's right there in your + hotel room. If you just want to look up ways to screw people up, there it + is, and you're justified because God told you to. You have Shakespeare and + you have Sophocles--what are we going to do, lose _Oedipus Rex_ if someone + pokes an eye out?" + [Penn Jillette, from Reason magazine, + on censorship of violent TV shows] +% +"You have painted a world of people who are Christian because they are + weak-willed puppets, desperate for whatever will give them a sense of + purpose and security, who fear nothing more than a stable individual." + [Jim in Boulder] +% +"I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints - + The sinners are much more fun." + [Billy Joel, from "Only the Good Die Young"] +% + "About half." +[Pope John XXIII, when asked how many people work in the Vatican, + from Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan-Witts, "Pontiff", p. 337] +% +"It can therefore be said that, from the viewpoint of the doctrine of + the faith, there are no difficulites in explaining the origin of man, + in regard to the body, by means of the theory of evolution." + [Pope John Paul II, April 16, 1986] +% +"Adultery is in your heart not only when you look with + excessive sexual zeal at a woman who is not your wife, + but also if you look in the same manner at your wife." + [Pope John Paul II] +% +"She spoke to him about the approximately 200,000 women who die every + year from self-induced abortions--a major health issue: "Religious + leaders--and all of us, really--must address this very important issue." + +"Don't you think," John Paul II interjected, "that all irresponsible + behavior of men is cause by women?" + [Pope John Paul II to Nafis Sadik, UN Representative, at the UN + Council for Women, from _His Holiness: John Paul II and the + Hidden History of Our Time_, by Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi] +% +"Human beings cannot be morally responsible to God. If we blame a person for + an evil act, we thereby imply that he was to some extent evil prior to his + action. For to say that a person is responsible for an evil action is to say + he caused it because he was evil. But how did he become evil? It he made + himself evil, then this would be an evil act and would--if he were responsible + for it--imply that he was already evil. It follows that the evil of a person + must precede the act of making himself evil. Therefore this individual cannot + ultimately be the responsible source of his own evil. Then who is? It cannot + be Satan, for the same argument would apply to him. It must be God, for he + created everything. Therefore God is ultimately responsible for all evil." + [B. C. Johnson, "The Atheist Debater's Handbook"] +% +"It is sometimes argued that we have a fifty-fifty betting proposition when + considering God's existence or nonexistence. If we bet that God exists and + he does exist, then we lose nothing while possibly gaining salvation. If we + bet that God exist and he does not exist, then we lose nothing. But if we + bet that God does not exist and he does exist, then we lose everything. Of + course, if we bet that God does not exist and we are correct, then we lose + nothing. Therefore it is prudent to bet on God. (This is Pascal`s Wager). + The problem with the above argument is that it does not establish a + fifty-fifty betting proposition. There are many alternatives that it fails + to consider. For example, God may exist but he may damn anyone who "bets" on + his existence merely for reasons of prudence. He may consider such a "bet" + to be an insult. Furthermore, it may be that a mere belief in God is not + enough to ensure salvation. A further requirement may be the belief in a + particular religion. But which religion? Again, there are many alternatives. + Another possible alternative is that God offers salvation only to atheist + because God does not like being surrounded by obsequious "yes-men." God may + prize independence and skepticism." + [B. C. Johnson, "The Atheist Debater's Handbook"] +% +"What excellent fools + religion makes of men!" + [Ben Johnson] +% +"Praying in churches hasn't improved society + and praying in schools won't either." + [Ellen Johnson] +% +"I believe in honesty and truthfulness, not because I fear a god or a devil, + but because I think it is the best way for people to live together. I believe + in helping others because when we cooperate with our neighbors we make life + easier for all. I believe in treating others as I want to be treated - but I + certainly do not believe in turning the other cheek and the truth is I never + knew any Christians who did either." + [James Hervey Johnson] +% +"It's critical to our national health and survival to restore social virtue + and purity to our state and nation," Johnson said. "Is living together without + the benefit of marriage good? Is homosexuality good? If cohabitating and + homosexual behavior is detrimental to the individual and to society, besides + breaking the law, then society has the responsibility to resist it." + [Arizona State Rep. Karen Johnson, a Mormon fundamentalist who + has been married 5 times, in Arizona Republic, Feb. 4, 1999] +% +"One of my favorite fantasies is that next Sunday not one woman, in any + country of the world, will go to church. If women simply stop giving our + time and energy to the institutions that oppress, they cease to be." + [Sonia Johnson] +% +"The one reason why we've always had an open Bible in every + room in the Holiday Inn motels is to help people find Jesus + and the solution to their problems, no matter who they are." + [Wallace Johnson, co-founder of Holiday Inns, + on the use of his business to proselytize] +% +"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe + political view or strange religion there exists a proponent on + the Net. The proof is left as an exercise for your kill-file." + [Bertil Jonell] +% +"I would rather see a saloon on every corner than a Catholic in + the White House. I would rather see a nigger as president." + [Bob Jones, Sr., founder of Bob Jones University] +% +"Blacks aren't attracted to fundamentalism, and they don't like discipline." + [Bob Jones, Jr., founder of Bob Jones University] +% +"The Bible itself is intolerant, and true followers + of God's word should be as well." + [Bob Jones III] +% +"My guess is that he has forgotten. After all he is 2,000 years old and + is probably suffering from advanced Alzheimer's disease -- staggering + around pissing in his toga, exposing himself to the little teeny-bopper + angels. The old man should pull the plug." + [Earle D. Jones, on Jesus and the rapture] +% +"The rights of the people to be free to exercise their religious + and philosophical beliefs" includes *by necessity* the right to abstain + from the practise of any religious and philosophical beliefs. This right + cannot be guaranteed in any environment wherein a practice of this type + is enacted in a state funded context -- like a classroom -- and the + participation is all but complusory for those present in that they must + experience another's religious practice on their time and against their + will. School ground is not the issue. School TIME *is*. At that point, it + becomes STATE time, which makes it STATE religion. Say hello to theocracy." + [Timothy Jones , on alt.atheism] +% +"I saw Christ last night and he looked like shit. Well that + is not surprising since he's been dead for about 2000 years." + [William Jones] +% +"'Twas only fear first in the world made gods." + [Ben Jonson (1572?-1637), Sejanus] +% +"I'm counting on you lord, please don't let me down + Prove that you love me and buy the next round" + [Janis Joplin, "Mercedes Benz"] +% +"When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; + but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism!" + [David Starr Jordan, Cardiff, + What Great Men Think of Religion] +% +"That one man or ten thousand or ten million men find a + dogma acceptable does not argue for its soundness." + [David Starr Jordan, quoted in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful + thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve. + That instant was his [Lucifer's] ruin." + [James Joyce,_A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_] +% +"The idea of an incarnation of God is absurd: why should the human race + think itself so superior to bees, ants, and elephants as to be put in + this unique relation to its maker? . . Christians are like a council + of frogs in a marsh or a synod of worms on a dung-hill croaking and + squeaking "for our sakes was the world created." + [Julian The Apostate] +% +"Such things have often happened and still happen, + and how can these be signs of the end of the world?" + [Julian, Emperor of Rome 361-363 A.D.] +% +"No wild beasts are as hostile to men as + Christian sects in general are to one another." + [Julian, Emperor of Rome 361-363 A.D.] +% +"Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a + pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city + until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him is + ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe + because it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historical + fact, for he merely said: + + "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because + it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain + because it is impossible." + + Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of + philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it." + [C. G. Jung, in Psychological Types. Tertullian + was one of the founders of the Catholic Church] +% +"Religious Philosophy is an oxymoron- + a philosopher of religion is ONLY a moron" + [Kamian] +% +"NO proof. NO god. NO problem." + [Kamian] +% +"If I were to mock religious belief as childish, if I were to suggest that + worshiping a supernatual deity, convinced that it cares about your welfare, + is like worrying about monsters in the closet who find you tasty enough to + eat, if I were to describe God as our creation..... I'd violate the norms + of civility and religious correctness, I'd be excoriated as an example of + the cynical, liberal elite responsible for America's moral decline. I'd be + pitied for my spiritual blindness; some people would try to enlighten and + convert me. I'd receive hate mail. Atheists generate about as much + sympathy as pedophiles. But, while pedophilia may at least be characterized + as a disease, atheism is a choice, a willful rejection of beliefs to which + vast majorities of people cling." + [Wendy Kaminer, "The Last Taboo", in + The New Republic (Oct. 14, 1996)] +% +"In this climate -- with belief in guardian angels and creationism becoming + commonplace -- making fun of religion is as risky as burning a flag in an + American Legion hall. But, by admitting that they're fighting a winning + battle, advocates of renewed religiosity would lose the benefits of + appearing besieged. Like liberal rights organizations that attract more + money when conservative authoritarians are in power, religious groups + inspire more believers when secularism is said to hold sway." + [Wendy Kaminer, "The Last Taboo", in + The New Republic (Oct. 14, 1996)] +% +"People who believe that god exists and heeds their prayers + have probably waived the right to mock people who talk to + trees or claim to channel the spirits of Native Americans." + [Wendy Kaminer] +% +"I suspect that media elites offer virtually no analysis of the religious + impulse or majoritarian religious beliefs mainly because they fear appearing + impious or giving offense. ...What's striking about journalists and + intellectuals today, liberal and conservative alike, is not their mythic + Voltairian skepticism but their deference to belief and utter failure to + criticize, much less satirize, America's romance with God." + [Wendy Kaminer, "Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: + The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety"] +% +"Superstitions, cults and mysticism appear with surprising consistency + during a social crisis. Today it is ESP and UFOs, astrology and clairvoyance, + mystic cults and mesmeric healers. The growth of interest in such things is + a sure indicator of social unrest, personal uneasiness, frustration and loss + of purpose. These symptoms are also present in the West, particularly in the + U.S., where they are more chronic; in the Soviet Union, however, we have an + acute fever. ...Carl Sagan of Cornell University has told me that in the U.S. + there are 15,000 astrologers and only 1,500 astronomers. ...It is fascinating + that in the Soviet Union we are importing creationism from fundamentalists in + the U.S. ...The momentous changes happening now in the Soviet Union are the + reason for this current upsurge of the irrational. What is important is the + emerging extremism that they may signal." + [Sergei Kapitza, President of the Physical Society of the U.S.S.R. + and editor of the Russian edition of Scientific American, "Antiscience + Trends in the U.S.S.R.", Scientific American 265(2):32-38, August 1991] +% +"Convicts register their religious affiliation when they're processed into + prison. And about 99.5% of the huge U.S.A. prison population consists of + inmates who identified themselves as members of religious denominations." + [Gene M. Kasmar] +% + = AN HONEST PRAYER = +Dear Lord, love me today and forever, bless my soul and conscience +daily, agree with all of my decisions, punish my enemies until I am +satisfied, give me huge amounts of money, promise to help me always +win, look the other way when I cheat, justify my excuses and believe +all my lies, obey my wishes, and reserve the most luxurious part of +heaven just for me. I will be thankful as long as you do what I say. +Amen. + [Wally Kaspars, from LUMPEN vol 5, Nos. 8/9] +% +"Organized religion: The world's largest pyramid scheme." + [Bernard Katz] +% +"There is no opinion so absurd that a preacher could not express it." + [Bernie Katz] +% +"The child begins by acting like the grownups who believe, and + soon believes himself. The proofs come later, if at all. + Religious belief generally starts as make-believe." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"The analogy between the God of popular Roman Catholicism and a cruel Caesar + is striking: one must serve him in every way and praise him all but + continually; those who displease him are given over to eternal torture; he + cannot be approached directly even with petitions; the best procedure is to + ask somebody who has found favor-a saint, and a particular one depending on + the nature of one's case-to intercede with the mother of his son, in the hope + that she may take up the matter with her son, and the son with the father." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"Christianity preaches that love is divine and points to Jesus as the + incarnation of love: but a Buddhist, and not only a Buddhist, might well say + that the sacrifice of a few hours' crucifixion followed by everlasting bliss + at the right hand of God in heaven, while millions are suffering eternal + tortures in hell, is hardly the best possible symbol of love and self- + sacrifice. The boss's son who works briefly at lower jobs before he joins his + father at the head of the company would hardly reconcile the workers to their + fate if they should be tormented bitterly without relief. Of course, some + Christians have felt this strongly and it has troubled them deeply, but the + dominate note in the New Testament and ever since has been one of astounding + callousness." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"Those committed to an institution generally claim that all those who prefer + fresh air and freedom lack the courage to commit themselves. In fact, the + shoe is on the other foot. More often than not, commitment to an institution + issues from a want of courage to stand up alone. Typically, it is an escape, + a search for togetherness, for safety in numbers." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"The deepest difference between religions is not that between polytheism + and monotheism.... Even the difference between theism and atheism is not + nearly so profound as that between these who feel and those who do not + feel their brothers' torments." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"For those engaged in an impartial investigation, a man's faith creates + no presumption whatsoever of a higher probability; on the contrary, it is + more suspicious than a less emotional belief. It raises the question whether + there is considerable, albeit not compelling, evidence, or whether "faith" + is but a noble word for wishful thinking." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"Faith in immortality, like belief in God, leaves unanswered the ancient + question: is God unable to prevent suffering, and thus not omnipotent? + or is he able and not willing it and thus not merciful? and is he just?" + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Theologians do not just do this incidentally: (gerrymander) this is + theology. Doing theology is like doing a jigsaw puzzle in which the verses + of Scripture are the pieces: the finished picture is prescribed by each + denomination, with a certain latitude allowed. What makes the game so + pointless is that you do not have to use all the pieces, and that pieces + which do not fit may be reshaped after pronouncing the words "this means." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"As long as we cling to the conception of hell, God is not love in any human + sense-and least of all, love in the human sense raised to the highest potency + of perfection. And if we renounce the belief in hell, then the notion that + God gave his son to save those who believe in the incarnation and resurrection + looses meaning. The significance of salvation depends on an alternative, and + in traditional Christianity this alternative is eternal torment." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"Few Christians would be in doubt what to think of a father tortured his + children for forty-eight hours because they did not agree with him or did + not obey him; and if he had a great many children and had given only a + few of them a single chance while offering the vast majority no opportunity + at all to know his will, most people would consider this the epitome of an + inhuman lack of love and justice. The God of traditional Christianity, + however, outdoes even this analogy by relegating the mass of mankind to + eternal torment." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"To try to fashion something from suffering, to relish our triumphs, + and to endure defeats without resentment: all that is compatible + with the faith of a heretic." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Once we decide to be dishonest with our children, our students, or our + readers, we have a vested interest in suppressing honesty, in censorship." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"They may think they chose their doctrine because it is offered to us as + infallible and true, but this is plainly no sufficient reason: scores of + other doctrines, scriptures, and apostles, sects and parties, cranks and + sages make the same claim. Those who claim to know which of the lot is + justified in making such a bold claim, those who tell us that this faith + or that is really infallible and true are presupposing in effect, whether + they realize this or not, that they themselves happen to be infallible." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Consider the justice of the God of St. Augustine-and by no means only + St. Augustine. All men deserve damnation, but God elects a few for salvation. + They do not deserve this: the grace of God would not by gratia if it were not + gratis. Yet the damned cannot complain that God is unjust, for no man + receives a worse lot than he deserves, only some receive a better lot, and + this shows God's infinite mercy. + No student would be in doubt for a moment what to think of the justice + of a teacher who gave a test that everybody failed and then nevertheless gave + a few of his students "excellent," justifying his procedure along the lines + suggested by Augustine. This is precisely what we mean by injustice." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"First: having to use means to achieve ends is one of the features that + distinguishes limited power from omnipotence. Second: the uneconomic use + of unpleasant means to achieve doubtful ends with frequent failures clearly + points to limited power rather than omnipotence." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Pascal assumes that the man who believes in order to save his neck, + unequivocally prompted by self-seeking prudence, will be saved, while the + man who denies himself the comfort of belief in the name of intellectual + integrity will not be saved. What, then, does Pascal consider godlike?" + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"What Pascal overlooked was the hair-raising possibility that God might + out-Luther Luther. A special area in hell might be reserved for those who + go to mass. Or God might punish those whose faith is prompted by prudence. + Perhaps God prefers the abstinent to those who whore around with some + denomination he despises. Perhaps he reserves special rewards for those + who deny themselves the comfort of belief. Perhaps the intellectual + ascetic will win all while those who compromise their intellectual + integrity lose everything." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"To make sense of the churches' mission to save souls, one must suppose that + those who either are not reached by Christian preaching or reject it are + not saved but left to some bad fate, traditionally named hell. To make sense + of the churches, mission, one has to suppose that a man's eternal fate does + not depend on his own efforts or his conduct, and that God lets our eternal + bliss or torment hinge, at least in large part, on the efficiency of one or + another organization. A human judge acting in analogous fashion would be + said to have abdicated any effort to be just." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Christianity, from its inception, has conceived itself as an enemy of + reason and worldly wisdom; it has exerted itself to impede the development + of reason, belittled the achievements of reason, and gloated over the + setbacks of reason." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"The more important the issue at hand, the more it demands careful scrutiny. + This is a simple but important point which most religious people overlook." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"The attempt to solve the problem of suffering by postulating original + sin depends on the belief that cruelty is justified when it is + retributive;indeed, that morality demands retribution." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Dissatisfied with oneself, one becomes a seeker. Difficulty becomes + a challenge and delight; critical thinking, a way of live." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% + "Theology is the systematic attempt to pour the + newest wine into the old skins of a denomination." +[Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"It is always tempting to divide men into two lots: Greeks and barbarians, + Muslims and infidels, those who believe in God and those who don't. But who + does not fear to understand things that threaten his beliefs? Of course, + one is not consciously afraid; but everybody who is honest with himself + finds that often he does not try very hard to understand what clashes + with his deep convictions." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/black-humor b/fortunes/off/black-humor new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef3bf66 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/black-humor @@ -0,0 +1,1949 @@ +A cannibal warrior is experiencing severe gastric distress, so he goes +to his Village Witch Doctor with his complaint. The VWD examines him +and, concluding that something he ate disagreed with him, began to cross +examine him about his recent diet. + "Well, I ate a missionary yesterday. Do you think that could be +the problem?" + The VWD says "Hmmmm." (All doctors say "Hmmmm.") "That could be. +Tell me a bit about this missionary." + "Well, he was tall for a white man, wearing a brown robe. He was +walking down the trail, not watching for danger, so I speared him, dragged +him home, cleaned him, boiled him and ate him." + "Ah-hah!" (All doctors say "Ah-hah!") There's your problem," smiles +the VWD. You boiled him, but he was a friar!" +% + A carpet installer decides to take a cigarette break after completing +the installation in the first of several rooms he has to do. Finding them +missing from his pocket he begins searching, only to notice a small lump in +his recently completed carpet-installation. Not wanting to pull up all that +work for a lousy pack of cigarettes he simply walks over and pounds the lump +flat. Foregoing the break, he continues on to the other rooms to be carpeted. + At the end of the day, while loading his tools into his truck, two +events occur almost simultaneously: he spies his pack of cigarettes on the +dashboard of the truck, and the lady of the house summons him imperiously: +"Have you seen my parakeet?" +% +A castaway was washed ashore after many days on the open sea. The island +on which he landed was populated by savage cannibals who tied him, dazed +and exhausted, to a thick stake. They then proceeded to cut his arms +with their spears and drink his blood. This continued for several days +until the castaway could stand no more. He yelled for the cannibal chief +and declared, "You can kill me if you want to, but this torture with the +spears has got to stop. Dammit, I'm tired of getting stuck for the drinks." +% +A GOOD WAY TO THREATEN somebody is to light a stick of dynamite. Then you +call the guy and hold the burning fuse to the phone. "Hear that?" you say. +"That's dynamite, baby." + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% + A guy returns from a long trip to Europe, having left his beloved +dog in his brother's care. The minute he's cleared customs, he calls up his +brother and inquires after his pet. + "Your dog's dead," replies his brother bluntly. + The guy is devastated. "You know how much that dog meant to me," +he moaned into the phone. "Couldn't you at least have thought of a nicer way +of breaking the news? Couldn't you have said, `Well, you know, the dog got +outside one day, and was crossing the street, and a car was speeding around a +corner...' or something...? Why are you always so thoughtless?" + "Look, I'm sorry," said his brother, "I guess I just didn't think." + "Okay, okay, let's just put it behind us. How are you anyway? +How's Mom?" + His brother is silent a moment. "Uh," he stammers, "uh... Mom got +outside one day..." +% + A guy walks into a pub and asks: "Does anyone here own a Doberman? +I feel really bad about this, but my Chihuahua just killed it." + A man leaps to his feet and replies, "Yes, I do, but how can that +be? I raised that dog from a pup to be a vicious killer." + "Yes, well, that's all well and good," replied the first, "but my +dog's stuck in its throat." +% + A man is walking along when he sees a funeral procession going by, the +longest procession he's ever seen. It seems to consist of the hearse, +followed by a man with a Doberman on a leash, followed by several hundred +other men. After watching for a few minutes, he can restrain his curiosity +no longer, and walks up to one of the mourners. + "Excuse me, sir, I don't mean to bother you in your moment of grief, +but this is the strangest procession I've ever seen. What happened, who is +the funeral for?" + "Well, it's nothing special, really, the funeral is for the mother- +in-law of the man at the front of the procession. You see, his Doberman +attacked and killed her." + "That's awful!", replies the onlooker. "But... um... tell me, you +don't think he'd let me borrow that dog, do you?" + "Get in line, buddy," replies the mourner, "get in line." +% +A New Yorker was driving through Berkeley when he saw a big crowd gathered +by the side of the street. Curiousity got the better of him and he leaned +out of his window to ask an onlooker what was going on. The fellow explained +that a protestor against the U.S. position in South America had doused +himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. "That's terrible," gasped +the man. "But why is everyone still standing around?" + "Well, they're taking up a collection for his wife and kids," the +onlooker explained. "Would you be willing to help?" + "Well, sure," replied the New Yorker. "I suppose I could spare a +gallon or two." +% +A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came upon +two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. "That's what +I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow man". + +As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well, he +sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing." +% +A Southern boy graduates from high school heads north to college, taking the +family dog, Old Blue with him, for company. He's only been there a few weeks +when he gets a call from his girlfriend; seems like they've got a problem, +and she needs a thousand dollars to take care of it. The boy calls his folks: + "How are you?" they ask. + "Oh, I'm fine," he says. + "And how," they ask, "is Old Blue?" + "Well, he's kind of depressed. You see, there's this lady up here +that teaches dogs to talk, and Ol' Blue is feelin' kind of left out 'cause +he's the only dog that doesn't know how to talk. She charges a thousand +dollars." + The parents send the boy the thousand dollars, he forwards it to Mary +Lou, and everything's fine until Christmas vacation. The boy leaves Ol' Blue +at his dorm, 'cause he just can't figure out what to tell his parents. Sure +enough, when he gets home, the first thing his father wants to know is +"Where's Old Blue?" + "Well, Pa," says the boy. "I was driving on home and Old Blue was +talking away about this and that when we passed the Buford's farm. Old Blue, +well, he said, `Say, what do you think your mother would do if I told her +that your father's been comin' over here and seeing Mrs. Buford all these +years?'" + The father looks at his son -- "You shot that dog, didn't you, boy?" +% +A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. +% +A truly wise woman never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. +% +A woman was married to a golfer. One day she asked, "If I were +to die, would you remarry?" + After some thought, the man replied, "Yes, I've been very happy in +this marriage and I would want to be this happy again." + The wife asked, "Would you give your new wife my car?" + "Yes," he replied. "That's a good car and it runs well." + "Well, would you live in this house?" + "Yes, it is a lovely house and you have decorated it beautifully. +I've always loved it here." + "Well, would you give her my golf clubs?" + "No." + "Why not?" + "She's left handed." +% +After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names +have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, +James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important +electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi Galvani discovered (this +is the truth) that when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg +of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even +though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. +Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian +medicine. Today, skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been +seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and +watch it hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact +that it sinks like a stone. + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% +All extremists should be taken out and shot. +% +Always run from a knife and rush a gun. + -- Jimmy Hoffa +% +An encounter with a beautiful woman is good medicine for the well organized +logical mind -- a little jolt never hurt. Note that the anarchists have +been saying this for years about the A-bomb and civilization. + -- Encyclopadia Apocryphia +% +An old man is lying on his deathbed with all his children, grandchildren and +great-grandchildren gathered around, teary-eyed at the approaching finale of +a deeply loved family member. The old man is in a light coma, and the doctors +have confirmed that the waiting will be over within the next twenty-four +hours. Suddenly, the old man opens his eyes whispers: "I must be dreaming +of heaven... I smell my daughter Lisle's strudel." + "No, no, grandfather, you are not dreaming", he is reassured. +"Grandmother is baking strudel right now." + A faint smile crosses the old man's face. "Go and get me a sliver of +strudel," he says, "she bakes the finest strudel in the world." + One of the grandchildren is immediately dispatched to honor the old +man's request, and, after what seems a long time, he returns empty-handed. + "Did you bring me some of Lisle's strudel?", the old man quavers. + "I'm... I'm very sorry, grandfather, but she says it's for the +funeral." +% +And so it goes. It is humiliating, when you should know better, to become +victim of the timeless story of the little brown dog running across the +freight yard, crossing all the railroad tracks until a switch engine nipped +off the end of his tail between wheel and rail. The little dog yelped, and +he spun so quickly to check himself out that the next wheel chopped through +his little brown neck. The moral is, of course, never lose your head over +a piece of tail. + -- John D. MacDonald, "The Scarlet Ruse" +% +And so, men, we can see that human skin is an even more complex and +fascinating organ than we thought it was, and if we want to keep it looking +good, we have to care for it as though it were our own. One approach is to +undergo a painful surgical procedure wherein your skin is turned inside-out, +so the young cells are on the outside, but then of course you have the +unpleasant side effect that your insides gradually fill up with dead old +cells and you explode. So this procedure is pretty much limited to top +Hollywood stars for whom youthful beauty is a career necessity, such as +Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles. + -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face" +% +As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who are +interested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sick perverted +disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask, "that you make +jokes about setting fire to a goat?" ... + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +As I bit into the nectarine, it had a crisp juiciness about it that was very +pleasurable - until I realized it wasn't a nectarine at all, but A HUMAN HEAD!! + -- Jack Handley +% +As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull +your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you. +The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along +with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall +from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all +over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of +a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the +spider is suing you for damages. +% +At social gatherings, I would amuse everyone by standing uponst the +coffee table and striking meself repeatedly upon the head with a brick. + -- H. R. Gumby +% +"Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think +Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? + + (1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. + (2) Advising the President. + (3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin." + -- David Letterman +% +Bitch, bitch, bitch -- +That's all I ever hear, +Ever since the dog ate the baby, +"Get rida the dog, get rida the dog." +% +Blood flows down one leg and up the other. +% +Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. +% +"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began +to suspect 'Hungry' ..." + -- Gary Larson, "The Far Side" +% +**** CONVENTION REMINDER + +No experiment was approved for the convention by the Human Subjects +Committee of the Psychiatric Convention Planning Team. If you notice +smoke coming from under a closed door, if you find a body on the hotel +carpet, or if you just meet someone who orders you to press a button +marked "450 volts", react as you would normally. +% +Crush! Kill! Destroy! +% +Cut a man's hand when you fight him. He'll freeze, fascinated by the sight +of his own blood. That's when you stick him in the throat. + -- Gerry Youghkins +% +Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why +several of us died of tuberculosis. + -- Jack Handley +% +Dammit, how many times do I have to tell you? +_____FIRST you rape, ____THEN you pillage!! +% +Damned if I know. And you can be fuckin' sure I'll never rent no car +from Avis again. + -- Herbie Sperling, on the meaning of two pistols and an + axe used in three murders being found in the trunk of his + rented car. +% +Dear Abby: + I have two brothers. One was sent to the electric chair when I was +a child. My mother died in an insane asylum. My father is a pimp and my +sister is a very successful and highly paid prostitute. My other brother +is a graduate student attending Purdue University. + Recently I met a wonderful girl who has just been released from prison +for murdering her illegitimate child with a Zip-loc sandwich bag. We're very +much in love and want to be married after her venereal disease is cured. + My problem is this: should I tell her about my brother at Purdue? + + Sincerely, + Undecided. +% +Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be +the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table. + -- The Anarchist Cookbook +% +Did you know? + EVERY TIME A LOAF OF BREAD IS BAKED, + APPROXIMATELY + 150,000,000 YEASTS ARE + KILLED + + Come to the award-winning 1987 film, + "The Very Small and Quiet Screams" + -- a cinematic electromicrograph of yeasts being baked. + +A must for those who care about yeast, and especially for those who don't. + + SPONSORED BY + Brown Anaerobe Rights Coalition (BARC) + Student Bakers for Social Responsibility + Coalition for the ELevation of Life (CELL) + Campus Crusade for Fetal Matters + +Defend all life: "From greatest to least, from human to yeast!" +% +Dig it, first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same +room with them, then they even shoved a fork in a victim's stomach. Wild! + -- Bernadine Dohrn, on the Manson killings +% +Does it rape elephants? + -- Brent Byer +% +Don +Ameche: I didn't know you had a cousin Penelope, Bill! + Was she pretty? +W.C.: Well, her face was so wrinkled it looked like seven miles of + bad road. She had so many gold teeth, Don, she use to have + to sleep with her head in a safe. She died in Bolivia. +Don: Oh Bill, it must be hard to lose a relative. +W.C.: It's almost impossible. + -- W. C. Fields, "The Further Adventures of Larson E. + Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles" +% +Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers! + -- Firesign Theatre +% +Dozens of bears are found dead in Alaska and Canada every summer, killed +by blood lost to the voracious mosquito. The estimated life-expectancy +of a naked man on the tundra in summer is about 15 minutes. In that +time, approximately 250,000 mosquitoes would have drawn enough blood to +kill him. + -- Gus McLeavy, "Day-by-Day Trivia Almanac" +% +Dr. Fritzkee's Lucky Astrology Diet + +The problem with the diets of today is that most women who do achieve +that magic weight, seventy-six pounds, are still fat. Dr. Fritzkee's +Lucky Astrology Diet is a sure-fire method of reducing with the added +luxury that you never feel hungry. + +Here's how the diet works: + + FOODS ALLOWED +First Month: One egg +Second Month: A raisin +Third Month: Pumpkin pie with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. + +If after the third month you haven't gotten to your dream weight, try +lopping off parts of your body until those scales tip just right for you. +% +Driving in Texas is simple. For the first 100 miles you swerve to avoid +jackrabbits. For the second 100 miles you hit whatever jackrabbits get in +the way. After that you chase off into the brush after them. +% +During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen were +blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a red-face +country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted, "Hey, you almost +hit my wife." + +"Did I?" cried one hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a shot at +mine, over there." +% +Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse +will happen to you the rest of the day. + +[Well, actually, to either of you... Ed.] +% +Eat the rich -- the poor are tough and stringy. +% +Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of +regrets that Michaelangelo died; but by and by you only regret that you didn't +see him do it. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Every suicide is a solution to a problem. + -- Jean Baechler +% +Famous last words: + 1: Everything that you'll need to know is in the manual. + 2: You and what army? + 3: Don't worry, I can handle it. + 4: If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't + be a cop. + 5: I don't see how they make a profit + out of this stuff at a dollar and a quarter a fifth. + 6: We're just getting into semantics again. + 7: Everything's under control. + 8: He's an asshole! Don't try to "shush" me! +% +Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. +% +FOR SALE: + Parachute. Used once. Never opened. Slightly Stained. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS! #6 + +RAZORBACK: Paul Harbride, 1984, 2 hours 25 min. + One of the great Australian films of the early 1980's, and + arguably the best movie ever made about a large, man-eating + hog. Some violence. With Gregory Harrison. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #10 + +CARTABLANCA: + Bogart stars as the owner of a north african nightclub that sells + only Mexican beer. Of course, this policy gets him into no end of + trouble with the local French authorities who would really prefer + wine and the occupying Germans who believe that only their beer is + fit to be sold. Wacky events ensue until the gripping climax in + which the much-hated German beer distributer is drowned in a vat. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #11 + +MONOPOLI: + Peter Weir's classic film examining the false heroism of parlour + games. The powerful ending of the film sees one young man after + another charge toward GO, only to senselessly lose his life on the + Boardwalk property. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #4 + +WITLESS: + Peter Weir directs Sylvester Stallone in the most challenging role + of his career. Stallone plays a Philadelphia police officer on the + run from corrupt officials. He is wounded and then nursed back to + health by Amish Mennonites. Fearful that they might unwittingly + reveal his hiding place, he blows them all away. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #7 + +OUT OF "OUT OF AFRICA": + This film is a compilation of selected news clips depicting audiences + frantically pushing and shoving to get out of theatres where "Out of + Africa" is showing. Many people are trampled to death in the frenzy. + Due to its violence and offensive language, not recommended for + younger viewers. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #8 + +THE SMURFS AND THE CUISINART (1986) + The lovable little blue Smurfs encounter a lovable little kitchen + appliance, which invites them to play. The Smurfs learn a valuable + (if sometimes fatal) lesson. + +THE SMURFS AND THE CARBON-DIOXIDE INDUSTRIAL LASER (1987) + The inevitable sequel. The lovable and somewhat mangled surviving + Smurfs team up with the Care Bears to encounter a cute, lovable piece + of high-tech welding equipment, which teaches them the magic of + becoming rather greasy smoke. Heartwarming fun for the entire family. +% +FORTUNE PRESENTS FAMOUS LAST WORDS: #4 + +Socrates: I DRANK WHAT!?!? +Tarzan: Who greased the grape viiiiiiiiiiiinnnneee........ +Al Capone: There's a violin in my violin case! +Pilot, TWA Fl. #343: What's a mountain goat doing 'way up here? +% +God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to +change the things we can, and wisdom to hide the bodies of the slobs we +have to kill for pissing us off ... +% +Goldfish... what stupid animals. Even Wayne Cody stops eating before +he bursts. +% +Groundhog Day has been observed only once in Los Angeles because when the +groundhog came out of its hole, it was killed by a mudslide. + -- Johnny Carson +% +Guns don't kill people. Bullets kill people. +% +Happy is the child whose father died rich. +% +Harris had the beefsteak pie between his knees, and was carving it, and George +and I were waiting with our plates ready. + "Have you got a spoon there?" says Harris; "I want a spoon to help +the gravy with." + The hamper was close behind us, and George and I both turned round to +reach one out. We were not five seconds getting it. When we looked round +again, Harris and the pie were gone! + It was a wide, open field. There was not a tree or a bit of hedge for +hundreds of yards. He could not have tumbled into the river, because we were +on the water side of him, and he would have had to climb over us to do it. + George and I gazed all about. Then we gazed at each other. + "Has he been snatched up to heaven?" I queried. + "They'd hardly have taken the pie, too," said George. + There seemed weight in this objection, and we discarded the heavenly +theory. + "I suppose the truth of the matter is," suggested George, descending +to the commonplace and practicable, "that there has been an earthquake." + And then he added, with a touch of sadness in his voice: "I wish he +hadn't been carving that pie." + -- Jerome K. Jerome, "Three Men In A Boat" +% +Harry and Fred were playing their Sunday afternoon golf game. The game, as +always, was close. They were at the treacherous 12th hole: a par three that +required a perfect first shot over a large pond and onto a tiny green. There +were sand traps on the other three sides of the green, and a small road 50 +feet beyond it. Harry went first. He carefully addressed the ball and hit +a good shot that landed just on the edge of the green, narrowly avoiding the +pond. Just as Fred addressed his ball, he looked up and noticed a funeral +procession along the road just behind the green. Fred put down his club, +took his hat off, and waited for the entire procession to pass. As soon as +the cars were gone he put his hat back on and started addressing the ball +again. Harry said, "Damn, Fred. That was a really nice thing you did, +waiting for the funeral to pass like that." + Fred finished his swing, making perfect contact with the ball. It +was an excellent shot that landed 7 feet from the hole. "It's the least I +could do," he said, smiling at his shot, "We were married for 22 years, +you know." +% + Harry, a golfing enthusiast if there ever was one, arrived home +from the club to an irate, ranting wife. + "I'm leaving you, Harry," his wife announced bitterly. "You +promised me faithfully that you'd be back before six and here it is almost +nine. It just can't take that long to play 18 holes of golf." + "Honey, wait," said Harry. "Let me explain. I know what I promised +you, but I have a very good reason for being late. Fred and I tee'd off +right on time and everything was find for the first three holes. Then, on +the fourth tee Fred had a stroke. I ran back to the clubhouse but couldn't +find a doctor. And, by the time I got back to Fred, he was dead. So, for +the next 15 holes, it was hit the ball, drag Fred, hit the ball, drag Fred... +% +Have you flogged your kid today? +% + He had been bitten by a dog, but didn't give it much thought +until he noticed that the wound was taking a remarkably long time to +heal. Finally, he consulted a doctor who took one look at it and +ordered the dog brought in. Just as he had suspected, the dog had +rabies. Since it was too late to give the patient serum, the doctor +felt he had to prepare him for the worst. The poor man sat down at the +doctor's desk and began to write. His physician tried to comfort him. +"Perhaps it won't be so bad," he said. "You needn't make out your will +right now." + "I'm not making out any will," relied the man. "I'm just writing +out a list of people I'm going to bite!" +% +He heard the snick of a rifle bolt and found himself peering down the muzzle +of a weapon held by a drunken liquor store owner -- "There's a conflict," he +said, "there's a conflict between land and people... the people have to go..." + -- Stan Ridgeway, "Call of the West" +% +He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the +cabbages. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +He was a cowboy, mister, and he loved the land. He loved it so much he +made a woman out of dirt and married her. But when he kissed her, she +disintegrated. Later, at the funeral, when the preacher said, "Dust to +dust," some people laughed, and the cowboy shot them. At his hanging, he +told the others, "I'll be waiting for you in heaven -- with a gun." + -- Jack Handley +% +He was the sort of person whose personality would be greatly improved +by a terminal illness. +% +He was the world's only armless sculptor. He put the chisel in his mouth +and his wife hit him on the back of the head with a mallet. + -- Fred Allen +% +He's got the heart of a little child, and he keeps it in a jar on his desk. +% + "Heard you were moving your piano, so I came over to help." + "Thanks. Got it upstairs already." + "Do it alone?" + "Nope. Hitched the cat to it." + "How would that help?" + "Used a whip." +% +Hello, friend! You say things aren't going too well? You say you have a +date with your favorite girl when it starts raining so hard you can't see? +And you're out on some back road when the car stalls and won't start, so +you set off across the fields, and 50 feet of barbed wire hits you right +smack in the puss? And then there's a big explosion behind you and you +don't hear your girl screaming any more? + + Well, take a walk in the sun and hold your head up high! + You'll show the world; you'll tell them where to get off! + You'll never give up, never give up, never give up -- that ship! +% + "Hello, Mrs. Premise!" + "Oh, hello, Mrs. Conclusion! Busy day?" + "Busy? I just spent four hours burying the cat." + "Four hours to bury a cat!?" + "Yes, he wouldn't keep still: wrigglin' about, 'owlin'..." + "Oh, it's not dead then." + "Oh no, no, but it's not at all a well cat, and as we're goin' away +for a fortnight I thought I'd better bury it just to be on the safe side." + "Quite right. You don't want to come back from Sorrento to a dead +cat, do you?" + -- Monty Python's Flying Circus +% +Help Stamp Out Rape! (Say Yes.) +% +HERE'S A GOOD JOKE to do during an earthquake. Straddle a big crack in +the earth and if it opens wider, go, "Whoa! Whoa!" and flap your arms +around as if you're going to fall. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Hire the handicapped -- they're fun to watch! +% +Home of Doberman Propulsion Laboratories: The ultimate in watchdog weaponry. + -- Chris Shaw +% +How to Raise Your I.Q. by Eating Gifted Children + -- Book title by Lewis B. Frumkes +% + "How'd you get that flat?" + "Ran over a bottle." + "Didn't you see it?" + "Damn kid had it under his coat." +% +I braved the contempt of my friends last week and ventured out to see +Bambi, the Disney rerelease that is proving to be a hit once again in the +box office. I was looking forward to a gentle, soothing, late afternoon +relief from the Washington Summer. Instead I was traumatized. As a +psycho-sexual return to the horrors of early adolescence, it couldn't be +more effective. For the first half-hour, you're lulled into an agreeable +sense of security and comfort. Birds twitter; small rabbits turn out to +be great conversationalists. Pop is what Senator Moynihan would describe +as an absent father, but Mom's there to make you feel OK in the odd +thunderstorm. You make great friends, fool around on the ice, discover +the meadow, generally mellow out. Then, without any particular warning, +your mom gets shot, your voice breaks, huge growths start appearing on +your head, and your peers start heading off into the clover with the +apparent intention of having sex. Next thing you know, the forest burns +down. If I were still eight, I think I'd prefer Rambo III. + -- Townsend Davis +% +I can't stand this proliferation of paperwork. It's useless to fight the +forms. You've got to kill the people producing them. + -- Vladimir Kabaidze, general director of the Ivanovo Machine + Building Works (near Moscow) in a speech to the Communist + Party Conference +% +I collect rare photographs... I have two... One of Houdini locking his +keys in his car... the other is a rare picture of Norman Rockwell beating +up a child. + -- Steven Wright +% +I could never learn to like her -- except on a raft at sea with no +other provisions in sight. + -- Mark Twain +% +I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that the +Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress is thinking +about eliminating a federal program under which scientists broadcast signals +to alien beings. This would be a large mistake. Alien beings have nuclear +blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off their federal programs as if they +were merely poor people ... + -- Dave Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE COMING!" +% +I GUESS I KINDA LOST CONTROL because in the middle of the play I ran up +and lit the evil puppet villain on fire. + +No, I didn't. Just kidding. I just said that to illustrate one of the +human emotions which is freaking out. Another emotion is greed, as when +you kill someone for money or something like that. Another emotion is +generosity, as when you pay someone double what he paid for his stupid +puppet. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I GUESS OF ALL MY UNCLES, I liked Uncle Caveman the best. We called him +Uncle Caveman because he lived in a cave and because sometimes he'd eat +one of us. Later, we found out he was a bear. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I GUESS WE WERE ALL GUILTY, in a way. We shot him, we skinned him, and +we all got a complimentary bumper sticker that said, "I helped skin Bob." + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I had a dream that all the victims of The Pill came back...boy, were they mad! + -- Steven Wright +% +I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense. +% +I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it any time! +% + "I know a life of crime led me to this sorry state. I blame society. +Society made me what I am today!" + "That's bullshit Archie. You're just a young suburban punk like me." + "It still... hurts... auugghh!" + "You're going to be okay..." + "...gurgle..." + "... maybe not." + -- Repo Man +% +"I know what you're thinking -- `Did he fire six shots or only five?' +Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement, I kind of lost track +myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the +world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself +one question: `Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?" + -- Harry Callahan, badge #2211 +% +I love the smell of napalm in the morning. + -- Robert Duval, "Apocalypse Now" +% +I read a column by George Will that Scarface should be rated X because +parents were taking their children to see it. So what? Why should the +motion-picture industry be responsible for our morality? + Dad says to Mom, "Honey, Scarface is in town." + "What's it about?" + "Human scum who kill each other over cocaine deals." + "Sounds great! Let's take the kids!" + -- Ian Shoales +% +I wrecked trains because I like to see people die. I like to hear +them scream. + -- Sylvestre Matuschka, "the Hungarian Train Wreck Freak", + escaped prison 1937, not heard from since +% +"I'm terribly sorry, sir," the novice barber apologized, after badly nicking +a customer. "Let me wrap your head in a towel." + "That's all right," said the customer. "I'll just take it home under +my arm." +% +I've never struck a woman in my life, not even my own mother. + -- W. C. Fields +% +IF A KID ASKS YOU where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him +is, "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing +to tell him is, "Probably because of something you did." + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +If every kid had a funny tooth to bite down on whenever the world disappointed +him, prussic acid could solve our population problems in one generation. + -- G. C. Edmonson's Albert, "The Man Who Corrupted Earth" +% +... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with +the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls +asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ... + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +If Ricky Schroder and Gary Coleman had a fight on television with +pool cues, who would win? + (1) Ricky Schroder + (2) Gary Coleman + (3) The television viewing public + -- David Letterman +% +If you go parachuting, and your parachute doesn't open, and your friends are +all watching you fall, I think a funny gag would be to pretend you were +swimming. + -- Jack Handley +% +If you guys have a beef with her, that's her problem. Don't lay it on +me. The old lady has to take care of her own weight. + -- Herbie Sperling, convicted heroin dealer, on being + arrested for narcotics possession at his mother's house. +% +If you laid all the Elvis impersonators in the world, end to end... +you'd wanna run and get a steam roller, real fast. + -- David Letterman +% +If you look rather casual with the knife when you flick it open, people +don't like it. + -- Gerry Youghkins +% +If you love something, set it free. +If it comes back to you, it'll be yours forever. +If it doesn't, hunt it down and shoot it with an AK 47 +% +"If you're a real good kid, I'll give you a piggy-back ride on a buzz-saw." + -- W. C. Fields +% +If you're a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it's real +embarrassing if someone tries to kill you. + -- Jack Handley +% +If your enemy is buried in quicksand up to his neck, pull him out. +If he is buried up to his eyes, step on his head. + -- Niccoli Machiavelli, "The Prince" +% +Inspector: "Mrs. Freem, was this your husband's first hunting accident?" +Mrs. Freem: "His first fatal one, yes." + -- Woody Allen +% +Inter-Dwarf Memo +To: Dwarf-list +From: Doc +Re: S. White + + If that bitch cleans one more thermometer with Ajax, I'm gonna kill +her. I'll give her apples, nice big apples. With surprises inside. Yeah, +surprises. +% +Inter-Dwarf Memo +To: Dwarf-list +From: Happy +Re: S. White + + Let it be noted that if she whistles that goddamned song one +more time I'm gonna rip her fuckin' lips off. Have a nice day. +% +It is November first 1940; in the famous sound stage of THE WIZARD OF OZ on +the MGM lot, a little man is lying face-up on the yellow brick road. His +wide eyes stare upward into the blinding stage lights. He is wearing a +kind of comic soldier's uniform with a yellow coat and puffy sleeves and +big fez-like blue and yellow hat with a feather on top. His yellow hair +and beard are the phony straw color of Hollywood. He could pass for some +kind of cute in the typical tinsel-town way if it wasn't for the knife +sticking out of his chest. *Someone had murdered a Munchkin.* + -- Stuart Kaminsky, "Murder on the Yellow Brick Road" +% + It seems that John gets this phone call: + "Hello," he answers. The voice on the other end of the line +is hard and cold. + "This is Susan," he hears. "We met at a party a few months ago. + "Of course, Susan!", John replies. "How are you?" + "Not very well. Remember how after the party you took me home and +we parked? And you told me that I was a 'good sport'? Well, I'm pregnant +and I'm going to kill myself tonight." + John is silent for a few moments, collecting his thoughts. "Well," +he finally replies, "you sure *are* a good sport." +% +It was a warm, sunny Sunday, and a man and his wife decided to take in the zoo. +They spent the day, and at closing time they walked past the gorilla cage, and +the man noticed the gorilla looking at his wife. "That gorilla is getting +excited just looking at your tits," he said. "Why don't you take your blouse +off and we'll see what he does?" + At first she refused. But finally persuaded by her husband, she took +off her blouse and bra. The gorilla went nuts. He started grunting and +jumping up and down. + "Hey," the husband said, "let's really blow his mind. Take off all +your clothes and we'll see what he does." + Again she said no and again he persuaded her. This time the ape +really went bananas! He climbed up and down the bars, did flips, ran around +in circles and tossed his food all over the cage. The husband went over to +the cage, opened the door and pushed his wife in. + "Now," said the husband, "tell that motherfucker you have a headache!" +% +It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them about the deer, but I ended up +not doing it. That was one thing I kept to myself. I've never spoken or +written of it until just now, today. And I have to tell you that it seems +a lesser thing written down, damn near inconsequential. But for me it was +the best part of that trip, the cleanest part, and it was a moment I found +myself returning to, almost helplessly, when there was trouble in my life -- +my first day in the bush in Vietnam, and this fellow walked into the clearing +where we were with his hand over his nose and when he took his hand away there +was no nose there because it had been shot off; the time the doctor told us +our youngest son might be hydrocephalic (he turned out just to have an +oversized head, thank God); the long crazy weeks before my mother died. I +would find my thoughts turning back to that morning, the scuffed suede of +her ears, the white flash of her tail. But eight hundred million Red Chinese +don't give a shit, right? The most important things are the hardest to say, +because words diminish them. It's hard to make strangers care about the +good things in your life. + -- Stephen King, "The Body" +% +It was pity stayed his hand. "Pity I don't have any more bullets," thought +Frito. + -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" +% +"It's all so painfully empty and lonesome... I don't think I can stand +any more of it... the whole dreadful way we are born, die, and are +never missed. The fact there is *nobody*... nobody really... We come +out of a yawning tomb of flesh and sink back finally into another tomb. +What is the point of it all? Who thought up this sickening circle of +flesh and blood? We come into the world bleeding and cut and our bones +half-crushed only to emerge and suffer more torment, multilation, and +then at the last lie down in some hole in the ground forever. Who could +have thought it up, I wonder?" + -- James Purdy +% +It's hard to outrun dead people because they don't have to breathe. + -- Hokey, describing "Night of the Living Dead" +% +Joan of Arc is alive and medium well. +% +July 4 + +Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days +of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one +Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Keep patting your enemy on the back until a small bullet hole appears +between your fingers. + -- Joe Bonanno +% +Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out. +% +Kill a commie for Christ! +% +Kill a commy for your mommy. +% +Kill for the love of killing! Kill for the love of Kali! + -- Hindu saying +% +Kill your parents. + -- Jerry Rubin +% +Knights are hardly worth it. I mean, all that shell and so little meat... +% +Legalize free-enterprise murder: why should governments have all the fun? +% +Long, long ago, in the Old West, a rancher rode into town to buy supplies. +When he returned, he found that his whole family had been killed, his wife +raped, his house burned, and all his cattle rustled. When he told his +distant neighbors about the tragedy, a few of them reported that the only +stranger they had seen in the area for weeks was a tall desperado wearing a +black hat and a red neckerchief. + The cowboy saddled his fastest horse and set out to find the villain. +He searched for months but couldn't catch up with the culprit; in town after +dusty town he was told that a man fitting the description had been there but +had just departed; usually after some heinous crime. + One evening after a hard day's ride he came into a town, tied his +horse, and entered the saloon. At a table in the corner sat an ugly man, +with a black hat and a red neckerchief! Slowly the cowboy stalked up to +this man, his hands resting upon his guns. + "Are you the man who killed my family, raped my wife, burned my +house and rustled my cattle?" + "Probably; after so many, how can I be sure?" snarled the bandit. + "You better cut that shit out!" +% +Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them +first for seven hours, they always come out tender. + -- W. C. Fields +% +Many lower life forms demonstrate qualities that, at first, just don't +seem survival oriented. For instance, the female praying mantis, after mating +with, well, her mate, will devour him. For the male praying mantis, however, +it's a catch-22. If he mates, he gets screwed out of an opportunity to mate +again. If he doesn't mate, he doesn't reproduce, ending his family tree. This +suicidal behavior is commonly called the Preying Mantis Syndrome -- and many +life forms are periodically subject to its wrath. How did the preying mantis +become stuck in such a awful, vicious cycle? This is probably what happened: + The male mantis arrives at the residence of the female mantis. After +some courtship exercises (dinner, a movie, inserting the diaphram) they mate. +The female mantis, her lust for... lust being satisfied, relaxes while the +male raids the refrigerator and returns home. This behavior continues until +the male and female (mantissas?) establish a permanent relationship. Then the +male establishes a new pattern of behavior: Football on Mondays, baseball on +Tuesdays, happy hour on Wednesdays, uh, well, uh, working-late-at-the-office +on Thursdays, etc. etc. The female tolerates this for awhile, then files for +a divorce. After a long court battle, she concludes one thing: It simplifies +matters tremendously to just eat him when you're done with him. + Well, through the centuries of evolution, the Preying Mantis Syndrome +has been carried up to the highest life forms, as well as to humans. That is +why, one week out of every month, the female of the species will feel compelled +to bite the head off of the male. The Syndrome is inescapable, but when it +occurs in the female of our species, it's best to just avoid them for a while. +% + Mother seemed pleased by my draft notice. "Just think of all the +people in England, they've chosen you, it's a great honour, son." + Laughingly I felled her with a right cross. + -- Spike Milligan +% + Moving along a dimly light street, a man I know was suddenly +approached by a stranger who had slipped from the shadows nearby. + "Please, sir," pleaded the stranger, "would you be so kind as +to help a poor unfortunate fellow who is hungry and can't find work? +All I have in the world is this gun." +% +My best argument against discrimination is quite simple: + +Does it really matter if the ABC people are inferior to the DEF people if +they can tell one end of a gun from the other? +% +My girlfriend and I sure had a good time at the beach last summer. First +she'd bury me in the sand, then I'd bury her. This summer I'm going to go +back and dig her up. +% + "My God! Are we sure he was a liberal?" + "Pretty sure. They pulled him from a Volvo." +% +Negotiate, my ass! Let's kill something! +% +Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off. +% +Never hit a man with glasses; hit him with a baseball bat. +% +Never say "Oops" in an operating room. +% +Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower. +% +New members urgently required for SUICIDE CLUB, Watford area. + -- Monty Python's Big Red Book +% +NEWSFLASH!! + Rodney Fenster looked up the shaft of elevator number four at +1700 N. 17th St. this morning to see if the elevator was on its way down. +It was. Age 31. +% +No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was +human nature. +% +Note to myself: use real bullets next time. +% +... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to get it +over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in the mall, +the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs on the mall +public-address system, and many of these songs can damage children +emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a snowman who +befriends some children, plays with them until they learn to love him, then +melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about a young reindeer who, +because of a physical deformity, is treated as an outcast by the other +reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does he ignore the deformity? +Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect Rudolph for the sensitive +reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as +if Rudolph were nothing more than some kind of headlight with legs and a +tail. So unless you want your children exposed to this kind of +insensitivity, you should shop quickly. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Nuke the gay, unborn, baby whales for Jesus. +% +Nuke the unborn gay female whales for Jesus. +% +Nuke them till they glow, then shoot them in the dark. +% +On his way back from work, a driver came upon a horrible wreck in which one +car looked exactly like his neighbor's. Stopping hurriedly on the side of +the road, he ran toward the smoldering debris. + "Listen, mister," a policeman said, holding him back, "I can't let +you come any closer." + "But that may be my friend, Henry, in there," the anguished man +explained. + "OK, but it's pretty grisly," the cop cautioned. "There was a +decapitation." + The policeman reached into the back seat of the demolished car and +pulled forth the head, holding it at arm's length. "Is this your friend?" + "That's not him -- thank heavens," the man said. "Henry's much +taller." +% + On the occasion of Nero's 25th birthday, he arrived at the Colosseum +to find that the Praetorian Guard had prepared a treat for him in the arena. +There stood 25 naked virgins, like candles on a cake, tied to poles, burning +alive. "Wonderful!" exclaimed the deranged emperor, "but one of them isn't +dead yet. I can see her lips moving. Go quickly and find out what she is +saying." + The centurion saluted, and hurried out to the virgin, getting as near +the flames as he dared, and listened intently. Then he turned and ran back +to the imperial box. "She is not talking," he reported to Nero, "she is +singing." + "Singing?" said the astounded emperor. "Singing what?" + "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..." +% + Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in The Holiday Season, that very +special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old +traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We +traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we +see a shopper emerge from the mall. Then we follow her, in very much the same +spirit as the Three Wise Men, who, 2,000 years ago, followed a star, week after +week, until it led them to a parking space. + We try to keep our bumper about 4 inches from the shopper's calves, to +let the other circling cars know that she belongs to us. Sometimes, two cars +will get into a fight over whom the shopper belongs to, similar to the way +great white sharks will fight over who gets to eat a snorkeler. So, we follow +our shopper closely, hunched over the steering wheel, whistling "It's Beginning +to Look a Lot Like Christmas" through our teeth, until we arrive at her car, +which is usually parked several time zones away from the mall. Sometimes our +shopper tries to indicate she was merely planning to drop off some packages and +go back to shopping. But, when she hears our engine rev in a festive fashion +and sees the holiday gleam in our eyes, she realizes she would never make it. + -- Dave Barry, "Holiday Joy -- Or, the Great Parking Lot + Skirmish" +% + Once upon a time, there was a fisherman who lived by a great river. +One day, after a hard day's fishing, he hooked what seemed to him to be the +biggest, strongest fish he had ever caught. He fought with it for hours, +until, finally, he managed to bring it to the surface. Looking of the edge +of the boat, he saw the head of this huge fish breaking the surface. Smiling +with pride, he reached over the edge to pull the fish up. Unfortunately, he +accidentally caught his watch on the edge, and, before he knew it, there was a +snap, and his watch tumbled into the water next to the fish with a loud +"sploosh!" Distracted by this shiny object, the fish made a sudden lunge, +simultaneously snapping the line, and swallowing the watch. Sadly, the +fisherman stared into the water, and then began the slow trip back home. + Many years later, the fisherman, now an old man, was working in a +boring assembly-line job in a large city. He worked in a fish-processing +plant. It was his job, as each fish passed under his hands, to chop off their +heads, readying them for the next phase in processing. This monotonous task +went on for years, the dull *thud* of the cleaver chopping of each head being +his entire world, day after day, week after weary week. Well, one day, as he +was chopping fish, he happened to notice that the fish coming towards him on +the line looked very familiar. Yes, yes, it looked... could it be the fish +he had lost on that day so many years ago? He trembled with anticipation as +his cleaver came down. IT STRUCK SOMETHING HARD! IT WAS HIS THUMB! +% + Once upon a time, there were five blind men who had the opportunity +to experience an elephant for the first time. One approached the elephant, +and, upon encountering one of its sturdy legs, stated, "Ah, an elephant is +like a tree." The second, after exploring the trunk, said, "No, an elephant +is like a strong hose." The third, grasping the tail, said "Fool! An elephant +is like a rope!" The fourth, holding an ear, stated, "No, more like a fan." +And the fifth, leaning against the animal's side, said, "An elephant is like +a wall." The five then began to argue loudly about who had the more accurate +perception of the elephant. + The elephant, tiring of all this abuse, suddenly reared up and +attacked the men. He continued to trample them until they were nothing but +bloody lumps of flesh. Then, strolling away, the elephant remarked, "It just +goes to show that you can't depend on first impressions. When I first saw +them I didn't think they they'd be any fun at all." +% +One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell by Dickens +without laughing. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +ONE THING KIDS LIKE is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take +my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to a burned-out +warehouse. "Oh, oh," I said. "Disneyland burned down." He cried and +cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. + +I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Only way to open lips of pigeon: sledgehammer. +% +Orcs really aren't so bad (if you use lots of catsup). +% +Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? +% + "Perhaps he is not honest," Mr. Frostee said inside Cobb's head, +sounding a bit worried. + "Of course he isn't," Cobb answered. "What we have to look out for +is him calling the cops anyway, or trying to blackmail us for more money." + "I think you should kill him and eat his brain," Mr. Frostee +said quickly. + "That's not the answer to *every* problem in interpersonal relations," +Cobb said, hopping out. + -- Rudy Rucker, "Software" +% +Pipo was born with few complications, but then the doctor accidentally dropped +the infant on her head provoking her drunken father to drag the physician +outside where he would beat him to death with a live ocelot. + -- Love and Rockets +% +Please do not look directly into laser with remaining eye. +% +PPRB -- Pillage, plunder, rape and burn. +% +Psychics will soon lead dogs to your body. +% +Readers Ask: + Is it possible to kill a vampire with a gun? + +Vampires are a source of great irritation to the average homeowner and it is +usually to one's advantage to remove these pests as rapidly as possible. If +a professional exterminater specializing in the undead is unavailable, it is +possible to handle the situation with common household items. However, much +of the common folklore of vanquishing the undead needs clarifying. First, +driving a sharpened Louisville Slugger through a vampire's heart will NOT kill +it. Since it's not quite alive, why would the heart be any different than +puncturing it in the, for example, left buttock? Stake driving should be +avoided at any cost since its effect will be to terribly annoy the vampire, +and the last thing you want on your hands is an irate Lord of Darkness. +Handguns are also a definite no-no. Common sense indicates that it requires +more to defeat an incarnation of evil than hurling lumps of lead or silver +through its body. One time-honored method is to expose the vampire to the +sun, sever its head (any power saw should be sufficient), fill its mouth with +holy wafers (vanilla wafers over which the Lord's prayer has been read will +do in a pinch), immerse the head in an urn filled with holy water, place the +urn in consecrated lands and bury the rest of the body underneath a crossroad +(i.e. the intersection of Broad & Chestnut). Sure, it's a lot of work. But +you'll never have to worry about those damn bats pestering the neighbors again. +% +Remember kids, if there's a loaded gun in the room, be sure +that you're the one holding it. + -- Mr. Greenfatigues +% + Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence + Tip #1: How to tell when you are dead. + + (1) Little things start bothering you: little things like worms, + bugs, ants. + (2) Something is missing in your personal relationships. + (3) Your dog becomes overly affectionate. + (4) You have a hard time getting a waiter. + (5) Exotic birds flock around you. + (6) People ignore you at parties. + (7) You have a hard time getting up in the morning. + (8) You no longer get off on cocaine. +% + Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence + + (1) Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear + bomb; use the stairs. + (2) When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit + the ground. + (3) If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials. + (4) Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to + psychological problems. + (5) Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to + recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed + potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc. + (6) Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs + will be scarce in the post-nuclear age. + (7) Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles. + (8) Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be + staggering illegally. + (9) Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more + sanitary due to limited circulation. + (10) Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on + D-Day. +% + Sam went to his psychiatrist complaining of a hatred for elephants. +"I can't stand elephants," he explained. "I lie awake nights despising +them. The thought of an elephant fills me with loathing." + "Sam," said the psychiatrist, "there's only one thing for you to do. +Go to Africa, organize a safari, find an elephant in the jungle and shoot it. +That way you'll get it out of your system." + Sam immediately made arrangements for a safari hunt in Africa, +inviting his best friend to join him. They arrived in Nairobi and lost no +time getting out on the jungle trails. After they had been hunting for +several days, Sam's best friend grabbed him by the arm one morning and +yelled at him: + "Sam, Sam, Sam! Over there behind that tree there's and elephant! +Sam -- Get your gun -- no, no, not THAT gun -- the rifle with the longer +barrel! Now aim it! QUICK! SAM! QUICK! No! Not that way -- this way! +Be sure you don't jerk the trigger! Wait SAM! Don't let him see you! Aim +at his head!" + Sam whirled around, took aim, and killed his friend. He was put in +prison and his psychiatrist flew to Africa to visit him. "I sent you over +here to kill and elephant and instead you shoot your best friend," the +psychiatrist said. "Why?" + "Well," Sam replied, "there's only one thing in the world that I +hate more than elephants and that is a loudmouth know-it-all!" +% +Save the whales. Club a seal instead. +% +Scene: + A small boy stands agasp on the stairway overlooking the living + room. A rather largish man in a big red suit with white fur and red + and white belled cap hunches over the fireplace, obviously interrupted + in filling stockings with packages taken from a huge bag slung over his + shoulder. His eyebrows are raised, matter-of-factly, as he spies the + boy intently watching him. + +Caption: + "I'm sorry you've seen me, Billy. Now I'll have to kill you. +% +Seeing a commotion in Harvard Square, a man strolled over and asked what +was going on. One of the onlookers explained to him that there was a Mooney +who had immersed himself in gasoline and was threatening to set fire to +himself to demonstrate his commitment to the Rev. Moon. The man gasped and +asked what was being done to defuse the obviously dangerous situation. + "Well", replied the onlooker, "we're taking up a collection -- so +far I've got two Bics, four Zippos and eighteen books of matches." +% +Seems like this guy wanders into a rural outfitting store in Alaska, +and starts talking to a rather grizzled old man sitting by the cash +register. + "Hear ya got a lotta' bears 'round here?" + "Yeah, you could say that," answers the old man. + "GRIZZLIES?!?!" + "A few." + "Got any bear bells?" + "What's that?" + "You know, them little dingle-bells ya put on yer backpack so +bears know yer there so's they can run away ... I'll take one fer black +bears, and one fer them grizzlies. Say, how do you know yer in grizzly +country, anyhow?" + "Look fer scatt. Grizzly scatt's different from black bear scatt." + "Well now, what's IN grizzly scatt that's different?" + "Bear bells." +% +Silly Sally was baby sitting. But Silly Sally was getting bored. Thinking +a walk would help, she put the baby in his carriage. Silly Sally pushed the +carriage and pushed the carriage up this hill and down that one. She pushed +the carriage up the highest hill in town, and ALL OF A SUDDEN! It slipped out +of her hands (OH! NO!) and it was headed at high speed for the busiest +intersection in town. BUT! + +Silly Sally just laughed and la.....ug.......h....e....d........... +BECAUSE! SHE KNEW THERE WAS A STOP SIGN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL! +% +Silly Sally was playing in the garage. And she was being disobedient. +She was playing with matches... AND... She burned down the garage. +(OHHHHHH) Silly Sally's mother said, "Silly Sally! You have been naughty! +And when your father gets home, you are going to get a good licking!" BUT! + +Silly Sally just laughed and la.....ug.......h....e....d........... +BECAUSE! SHE KNEW HER FATHER WAS IN THE GARAGE WHEN SHE BURNED IT DOWN! +% +... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their procedure +is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as to infest the +waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of sharks today is +bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making documentaries. Once the +sharks arrive, they are generally fairly listless. The general shark +attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another documentary." So the divers have to +somehow goad them into attacking, under the guise of Scientific Research. +"We know very little about the effect of electricity on sharks," the +narrator will say, in a deeply scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going +to jab this Great White in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers +keep this kind of thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps +at them, and then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very +dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all along. + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +Some people call them "cars" or "trucks;" I call them "dimensional +transmogrifiers" because they change three-dimensional cats into +two-dimensional ones. + -- F. Frederick Skitty +% +Sometimes it happens. People just explode. Natural causes. + -- Repo Man +% +Support mental health or I'LL KILL YOU!!!! +% +Support the American Kidney Foundation. Don't wear your motorcycle helmet. +% +Thanksgiving Day. + +Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys. In the +island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become +you and me to sneer at Fiji. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +-- THE BATES MOTEL -- + ... convenient + ... clean + ... cozy + + Norman, knock loudly, + I'm in the shower. + + M. +% +The first Great Steward, Parrafin the Climber, was employed in King +Chloroplast's kitchen as second scullery boy when the old King met a tragic +death. He apparently fell backward by accident on a dozen salad forks. +Simultaneously the true heir, his son Carotene, mysteriously fled the city, +complaining of some sort of plot and a lot of threatening notes left on his +breakfast tray. At the time, this looked suspicious what with his father's +death, and Carotene was suspected of foul play. Then the rest of the King's +relatives began to drop dead one after the other in an odd fashion. Some +were found strangled with dishrags and some succumbed to food poisoning. A +few were found drowned in the soup vats, and one was attacked by assailants +unknown and beaten to death with a pot roast. At least three appear to have +thrown themselves backward on salad forks, perhaps in a noble gesture of +grief over the King's untimely end. Finally there was no one left in Minas +Troney who was either eligible or willing to wear the accursed crown, and +the rule of Twodor was up for grabs. The scullery slave Parrafin bravely +accepted the Stewardship of Twodor until that day when a lineal descendant +of Carotene's returns to reclaim his rightful throne, conquer Twodor's +enemies, and revamp the postal system. + -- Bored of the Rings, "Harvard Lampoon" +% +The first guy that rats gets a belly-full of slugs in the head. Understand? + -- Joey Glimco, trade unionist +% + The foreman of a lumber camp put a new workman on the circular saw. +As he turned away, he heard the man say, "Ouch!". + "What happened?" + "Dunno," replied the man. "I just stuck out my hand like this, and +-- well, I'll be damned. There goes another one!" +% +The Fortune Travel Agency offers a special... Vacation in Hell! + -- Grace Kelly drives you to the airport. + -- Thurman Munson flies you to a remote tropical island. + -- Ted Kennedy's your chauffeur on the island. + -- You go yachting with Natalie Wood. + -- You have drinks with William Holden. + -- And Roman Polanski stays at home and watches your kids. +% +The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them +before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions. To see +the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp +their wives and daughters to his arms. + -- Genghis Khan +% +"The hell with the prime directive! Let's kill something!" +% +The honeymooning couple agreed it was a fine day for horseback riding. +After a mile or so, the bride's mount cantered under a low tree and a +branch scraped her forehead lightly. The groom dismounted, glared at his +wife's horse, and said, "That's number one." + The ride then proceeded. After another mile or so, the bride's +horse stumbled over a pebble and the lady suffered a slight jostling. +Again, her man leapt from his saddle and strode over to the nervous animal. +"That's two," he said. + Five miles later, the bride's horse became frightened when a rabbit +crossed its path, reared up and threw the girl. Immediately, the groom was +off his horse. "That's three!", he shouted, and, pulling out a pistol, he +shot the horse between the eyes. + "You brute!" shrieked his bride. "Now I see the kind of man I +married! You're a sadist, that's what!" + The groom turned to her coolly. "That's one," he said. +% +The human race has been fascinated by sharks for as long as I can remember. +Just like the bluebird feeding its young, or the spider struggling to weave +its perfect web, or the buttercup blooming in spring, the shark reveals to +us yet another of the infinite and wonderful facets of nature, namely the +facet that it can bite your head off. This causes us humans to feel a +certain degree of awe. + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +The Least Successful Animal Rescue + The firemen's strike of 1978 made possible one of the great animal +rescue attempts of all time. Valiantly, the British Army had taken over +emergency firefighting and on 14 January they were called out by an elderly +lady in South London to retrieve her cat which had become trapped up a +tree. They arrived with impressive haste and soon discharged their duty. +So grateful was the lady that she invited them all in for tea. Driving off +later, with fond farewells completed, they ran over the cat and killed it. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The man standing at the bar (in court, unfortunately) was well-dressed, +alert and obviously intelligent. The judge asked him how he pleaded to +the charge of rape and, much to the magistrate's surprise, he replied, +"Not guilty by reason of insanity, your Honor." + "Insanity?" exclaimed the judge. + "Yes, sir," said the defendant. "I'm just crazy about it." +% +The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little +children for their insurance money. + -- Sherlock Holmes +% +The people of Halifax invented the trampoline. During the Victorian +period the tripe-dressers of Halifax stretched tripe across a large wooden +frame and jumped up and down on it to `tender and dress' it. The tripoline, +as they called it, degenerated into becoming the apparatus for a spectator +sport. + +The people of Halifax also invented the harmonium, a device for +castrating pigs during Sunday service. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The Psblurtex is an 18-inch long anaconda that hides in the gentlemen's +outfitting departments of Amazonian stores and is often bought by +mistake since its colors are those of the London Reform Club. Once +tied around its victim's neck, it strangles him gently and then claims +the insurance before running off to Germany where it lives in hiding. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100 +showed that all had these things in common: + + (1) They all had moderate appetites. + (2) They all came from middle class homes + (3) All but two of them were dead. +% + The Snack + +"Oh my God," screamed Mommy, "You went and ate the Baby." + +"What baby?" asked Daddy. "You know that's just the last of the leftover + donkey." + +"Donkey, my ass!" said Mommy with some sentience. "Do you think I don't + recognize my own baby? Why I can still see his little privates + caught in the gap between your front teeth. How many times have I + told you to take only what's on the *top* two shelves of the freezer?" + +"But there wasn't a thing to eat," cried Daddy. + "And am I not the master of my own?" + +"Nothing to eat? + What about the elephant testicles in aspic that I put up for you + just last week in the ball jar? Our very first baby, too," wailed + Mommy, "that I was saving for Christmas dinner." + +"Testicles, testicles," said Daddy. "A man gets tired of testicles." + -- L. L. Zeiger +% +The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find their money. + -- Ed Bluestone, The National Lampoon +% +The Truth Shall Rape You Over. + -- Caltech +% +The Worst Homing Pigeon + This historic bird was released in Pembrokeshire in June 1953 and was +expected to reach its base that evening. It was returned by post, dead, +in a cardboard box eleven years later from Brazil. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% + Then there's the atmosphere -- half the time you can eat the air, +it's got so much stuff floating around in it. It takes the edge out of +the colors. Down here even the traffic lights are pastel. And people! +With a lot of these folks you'd have to check their green cards just to +make sure that they are Earthlings. Then there's the police. In Portland, +when some guy goes bananas, the cops rope off a sixteen block area around +him and call a shrink from the medical school who stands atop a patrol car +with a megaphone and shouts, "OK! THIS! ALL! STARTED! WHEN! YOU! WERE! +THREE! YEARS! OLD! ON! ACCOUNT! OF! YOUR MOTHER! RIGHT? SO! LET'S! +TALK! ABOUT! IT!" Down here they don't waste that kind of time. The LAPD +has SWAT teams composed of guys who make Darth Vader look like Mr. Peepers. +Before they go to bust a bookie joint they mortar it first. + -- M. Christensen, "A Portland Innocent in LA" +% +There appears before you a threatening figure clad all over in heavy black +armor. His legs seem like the massive trunk of the oak tree. His broad +shoulders and helmeted head loom high over your own puny frame and you +realize that his powerful arms could easily crush the very life from your +body. There hangs from his belt a veritable arsenal of deadly weapons: +sword, mace, ball and chain, dagger, lance, and trident. +He speaks with a commanding voice: + + "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" + +As he grabs you by the neck all grows dim about you. +% +There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, +and praiseworthy ... + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a +suitable application of high explosives. +% +There is this trouble about special providences--namely, there is so often a +doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of the +children, the bears and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out +of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the children. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +There once was a king who ruled his country long, wisely, and well. The +king had a son whom he hoped would someday rule the land. He also wished +in his heart that the son ould be wise and compassionate. One day he said +to the prince: + "If you promised that you would give a certain woman anything, even +half of your kingdom, and then she demanded the life of your best friend, +what would your decision be, my son?" + The young prince thought for a moment and then said, "I would tell +her that she was my best friend, and cut her head off." + The king knew that his son would be a great king. +% + There was a knock on the door. Mrs. Miffin opened it. "Are +you the Widow Miffin?" a small boy asked. + "I'm Mrs. Miffin," she replied, "but I'm not a widow." + "Oh, no?" replied the little boy. "Wait 'til you see what +they're carrying upstairs!" +% +There was a man who enjoyed playing golf, and could occasionallly put up +with taking in a round with his wife. One time (with his wife along) he +was having an extremely bad round. On the 12th hole, he sliced a drive +over by a grounds-keepers' shack. Although he did not have a clear shot +to the green, his wife noticed that there were two doors on the shack, +and there was a possibility that, if both doors were opened, he might be +able to hit through. Without hesitation, he instructed his wife to go +around to the other side and open the far door. Sure enough, this gave +him a clear path to the green. He stepped up to his ball and prepared +to hit. His wife had been standing by the far door waiting for him to +hit through. After a moment, she became curious and stuck her head in +the doorway, to see what he was doing. At that exact moment, the husband +cracked a three-wood that hit his wife square on the forehead, killing +her instantly. A few weeks later, the man was playing a round at the same +course, this time with a friend of his. Once again on the 12th hole, he +sliced his drive to the shack. His friend suggested that he might be able +to hit through, if he was to open both doors. + "Nah", replied the man, "Last time I did that I took a 7". +% +They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist... + -- Civil War General John Sedgwick, his last words + Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, 1864 +% +"They spend years searching for their natural parents, convinced their +parents will be happy to see them. I mean, really, can you imagine someone +being happy to see an orphan? Nobody wants them... that's why they're orphans!" + The speaker is Anne Baker, founder and guiding force behind +Orphan-Off, an organization dedicated to keeping orphans confused about the +whereabouts of their natural parents. She is a woman with a mission: + "Basically, what we do is band together to exchange information +about which orphans are looking for which parents in what part of the +country. We're completely computerized. + "The idea is to throw the orphans as many red herrings and false +leads as possible. We'll tell some twenty-three-year-old loser that his +real parents can be found at a certain address on the other side of the +country. Well, by the time the kid shows up, the family is prepared. They +look over the kid's photos and information and they say, 'Oh, the Emersons... +yeah, they used to live here... I think they moved out about five years ago. +I think they went to Iowa, or maybe Idaho.' + "Bam, the door shuts in the kid's face and he's back to zero again. +He's got nothing to go on but the orphan's pathetic determination to continue. + "It's really amazing how much these kids will put up with. Last year +we even sent one kid all the way to Australia. I mean, really. Besides, if +your natural parents were Australian, would you want to meet them?" + -- "National Lampoon", September, 1984 +% +They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat + -- Book title by Lewis Grizzard +% +They're an insidious bunch, your killer pianos. Had one get loose on me +back in '62. It slipped out of the cables while we were lowering it out +of its twelfth story apartment, and crushed six innocents in an insane bid +for freedom. + -- Stig's Inferno +% + This guy is walking down the beach one fine sunny day, feeling +good, when suddenly he sees this woman with no arms or legs in a wheelchair, +sobbing like crazy. He decides to be gallant, "What's wrong, miss?" + "I......I'm 21 and I I've never been kissed... +" + So this guy, he decides, what the hell, let's cheer up the poor lady. +He leans over and gives her a long wonderful kiss. This does wonders, and +the woman's face lights up and she grins from ear to ear, and the guy wanders +away feeling wonderful. + Well, next week, the same guy is walking along the same beach, and +sees the same girl who is once again sobbing her eyes out. Gallant to the +end, our hero says, "What's wrong, miss, can I help?" + "I...I'm 21 and I've never been fucked..." + The guy picks her up out of her chair, cuddles her close, and brings +her over to the shore, and throws her into the water. "Now you're fucked!" +% +... this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six +million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch." + -- The Firesign Theater +% +This is supposed to be a 'appy occasion. Let's not BICKER and ARGUE over +'oo killed 'oo! + -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail +% +This one is for all you military types. For those who don't know, Rangers +are *extremely* well trained members of the U.S. Army. Marines are people +who start out as normal soldiers and then are made to believe that bullets +don't actually hurt. + One day a platoon of Marines are on patrol when they come upon a +Ranger relaxing on top of a small hill. The Ranger puts his hands on his +hips and screams out, "Do any of you seaweed sucking jarheads think you're +man enough to take me on?" + The biggest Marine comes running up the hill, screaming back at the +Ranger. When he gets to the top he simply plows into his foe and the two +tumble down the other side of the hill, out of sight. There is the sound of +a horrendous fight for a moment or two, and then all is quiet. Soon, the +Ranger reappears, quite untouched. He puts his hands on his hips and sneers, +"Well, looks to me like one of you couldn't do it, how about the rest?" + The enraged Marine platoon leader sends his entire platoon (30+men) +charging after the Ranger. They all go tumbling down the far side of the hill. +After 15 minutes of screaming and yelling and cursing a lone, bloodied Marine +crawls over the top of the hill. The platoon leader yells up to his man, +"What's going on up there?" The wounded Marine, with his last bit of breath, +replies, "Sir, it's a... a trap, sir. There're two of them!" +% +This yuppie, see, was in a car wreck. His BMW was mangled, and so was he. +The paramedic was leaning over him getting his vitals, and all the yup +could groan was "My BMW! My BMW!" + The paramedic tried to quiet the man, pointing out that his car +wasn't his chief concern at the moment, especially as he'd been rearranged +pretty badly himself -- for example, his left arm was severed at the elbow +and was lying about twenty feet away. + There was a moment of stunned silence from the yup followed by +"Oh no! My Rolex! My Rolex!" +% +TO ME, CLOWNS AREN'T FUNNY. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered +where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the +circus and a clown killed my dad. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Two pirates are sitting in a seaside tavern, talking. One of them has a +hook instead of a hand, and an eye patch. The other pirate has a wooden +leg. Over a few beers, they start to tell each other how they received their +injuries. + "One day," says the first pirate, "we had pulled alongside a merchant +vessel and were boarding her. I had my sword drawn when suddenly a man with +a saber caught me by surprise and cut my hand off. So I had this hook put +on. How did you lose your leg?" + "From a broadside of grapeshot from an English military vessel, in a +terrific battle off the coast of France. And how about your eye?" + "Well, I don't really like to talk about it," said the first pirate. + "Come on," says the second pirate. "It doesn't matter after all +these years, does it?" + "Oh, okay," says the first pirate. "See, it's pretty embarrassing; +a seagull shit in my eye." + "A seagull!? I can see how that would hurt, but I don't see why +you would *lose* the eye..." + "But," the first pirate says, "it was my first day with the hook." +% +Two recent emigrants to the United States, on their first day off the boat +in New York City, spied a hotdog vendor. "Do they eat dogs in America?" +one asked his companion. + "I don't know." + "Well, if we're going to live in America, we have to learn to eat +American foods." + So they each bought a wax paper wrapped hotdog and sat down to eat +them on a nearby park bench. One man looked inside his wax paper, then over +at the other man, and asked, "So, what part did you get?" +% +Unbearably lovely music is heard as the curtain rises, and we see the +woods on a summer afternoon. A fawn dances on and nibbles at some +leaves. He drifts lazily through the soft foliage. Soon he starts +coughing and drops dead. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% + Upon reading a story about a man who throttled his mother-in-law, a +man commented, "Sounds to me like a practical choker." +% +Warning: Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again. +% +We are simple killers of people and destroyers of property. +% +We found on St. Paul's only two kinds of birds -- the booby and the noddy... +Both are of a tame and stupid disposition, and are so unaccustomed to visitors, +that I could have killed any number of them with my geological hammer. + -- Charles Darwin +% +"We had it tough ... I had to get up at 9 o'clock at night, half an +hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours down +mill, and when we came home our Dad would kill us, and dance about on +our grave singing Halelleuia ..." + -- Monty Python +% +We ought to be very grateful that we have tools. Millions of years ago +people did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult. For +example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he had to drive +the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his bare fist, so +generally the paneling wound up getting spattered with primitive blood, +which isn't really all that bad when you consider how ugly paneling is to +begin with. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +We're deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell from the +fact that everywhere you look, you see jolly old St. Nick urging you to +purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him right in his bowl +full of jelly. + -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" +% + "We've decided to have the budgie put down." + "Oh, is he very old then?" + "No, we just don't like him." + "Oh. How do they put budgies down anyway?" + "Well, it's funny you should be asking that, as I've been reading a +great big book called `How to put your budgie down'. And as I understand it, +you can either hit them over the head with the book, or shoot them there, just +above the beak." + "Mrs. Conkers flushed hers down the loo." + "Oh, you don't want to do that, because they breed in the sewers and +pretty soon you get huge evil smelling flocks of soiled budgies flying out +of people's lavatories infringing their personal freedoms." + -- Monty Python +% +Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if +you run out of food. + -- Dean McLaughlin. +% + "Well, it's a little rough... it might not be necessary to drag him 40 +blocks. Maybe just four. You could put him in the trunk for the first 36 +blocks, then haul him out and drag him the last four; that would certainly +scare the piss out of him, bumping alone the street, feeling all his skin being +ripped off..." + "He'd be a bloody mess. They might think he was just some drunk and +let him lie there all night." + "Don't worry about that. They have a guard station in front of the +White House that's open 24 hours a day. The guards would recognize Colson... +and by that time of course his wife would have called the cops and reported +that a bunch of thugs had kidnapped him." + "Wouldn't it be a little kinder if you drove about four more blocks +and stopped at a phone box to ring the hospital and say, 'Would you mind going +around to the front of the White House? There's a naked man lying outside +in the street, bleeding to death...'" + "... and we think it's Mr. Colson." + "It would be quite a story for the newspapers, wouldn't it?" + "Yeah, I think it's safe to say we'd see some headlines on that one." + -- Hunter Thompson, talking to R. Steadman on C. Colson, + ex-Marine captain, now born again, of Watergate fame. +% +"Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in +poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come +and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles, ya eunuch jelly thou!" + -- Alex in "Clockwork Orange" +% +What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations +involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will +be pretty bad. + -- Dave Barry +% +What is this line of duty, and suffering? You are not supposed to suffer +if you are an assassin. The other person is supposed to suffer. + -- Chiun, glory of the name of Sinanju, teacher of the youth + from outside Sinanju named Remo. +% +What you mean, how old am I? About one hundred! But Viennese answer is +better: we say, "I keep passing the open windows." This is an old joke. +There was a street clown called King of the Mice: he trained rodents, he +did horoscopes, he could impersonate Napoleon, he could make dogs fart +on command. One night he jumped out his window with all his pets in a box. +Written on the box was this: "Life is serious, but art is fun!" I hear his +funeral was a party. A street artist had killed himself. Nobody had +supported him but now everybody missed him. Now who would make the dogs +make music and the mice pant? The bear knows this, too: it is hard work +and great art to make life not so serious. + -- John Irving "The Hotel New Hampshire" +% +When arguments fail, use a blackjack. + -- Edward "Spike" O'Donnell, Al Capone associate. +% +When I kill, the only thing I feel is recoil. +% +When I was a child... We had a quick-sand box in the backyard... +I was an only child... eventually. + -- Steven Wright +% +When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will you take me +to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them come and get you." + -- Jerry Lewis +% +When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we'd +all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. +It wasn't until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear. + -- Jack Handley +% +When I was eight years old I came home with tears in my eyes because some +kids had stolen my samwich. My father handed me an ice pick, and said, +"Next time, hit 'em first and hit 'em hard." + -- Jake LaMotta +% +When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an +act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A +group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a six-year-old. +"It is always so," my mother said. "You do things together which not one +of you would think of doing alone." ... Wherever one looks in the world +of human organization, collective responsibility brings a lowering of +moral standards. The military establishment is an extreme case, an +organization which seems to have been expressly designed to make it +possible for people to do things together which nobody in his right mind +would do alone. + -- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope" +% +When President Paul Doumer of France was assassinated in Paris in 1932, +newspapers differed in their versions of the event. This is from "Paris +was Yesterday: 1925-1939" by Janet Flanner, edited by Irving Drutman. + + Taste varied as to his cry when he was shot down, the more popular + papers preferring his despairing "Oh, la la!," the graver dailies + favoring "Is it possible?" What few reported were his dying words: + "But what kind of chauffeur was it?" Having been told by his aides + not that he had been shot but that he had been struck by a taxi, the + President spent the last conscious moments of his life wondering how + how an automobile got into the charity book sale at the Maison + Rothschild, where his assassination occurred. +% +When the Ngdanga tribe of West Africa hold their moon love ceremonies, +the men of the tribe bang their heads on sacred trees until they get a +nose bleed, which usually cures them of ____that. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +When the usher noticed a man stretched across three seats in a movie theatre, +he walked over and whispered, "I'm sorry, sir, but you're allowed only a single +seat." The man moaned, but did not budge. "Sir," the user said more loudly, +"if you don't move, I'll have to call a manager." The man moaned again but +stayed where he was. The usher left, and returned with the manager, who, after +several more attempts at dislodging the fellow, called the police. + The cop took a look at the reclining man and said, "All right, boyo, +what's your name?" + "Samuel," he mumbled. + "And where're you from, Sam?" + "The balcony." +% + When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure +clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer +to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. + + In a way, the next move is up to him. + -- R. A. Lafferty +% +WHEN YOU'RE RIDING IN A TIME MACHINE way far into the future, don't stick +your elbow out the window or it'll turn into a fossil. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +When you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all. +% +Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct +is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. +Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny. + -- Jack Handley +% +Where there's a whip there's a way. +% +... which reminds me of the Carrot family: Ma Carrot, Pa Carrot, and Baby +Carrot. One fine spring day they decided to go out for a picnic. They all +piled into their carrot-mobile and drive out to the country. But Pa Carrot +wasn't watching where he was going and alas, he hit an oil slick and skidded +right into a tree. Ma and Pa Carrot escaped with a few cuts and bruises, but +poor Baby Carrot got broken in two. They frantically rushed him to the +hospital and immediately the doctors started operating in a desperate attempt +to save Baby Carrot's life. Ma and Pa Carrot were beside themselves with +anxiety ... would poor little Baby Carrot make it? + After hours of waiting the doctor finally emerges, bleary-eyed and +barely able to walk. + "Is he all right, is he all right?" Pa Carrot frantically stammers. + "Well, I have some good news and some bad news," replies the doctor. + Ma and Pa Carrot look at each other and blurt out, nearly in unison, +"The good news first!" + "All right, the good news is that Baby Carrot will live." + "And the bad news? What's the bad news about our Baby Carrot?" +The doctor puts his hand on Pa Carrot's shoulder and solemnly looks him in +the eye. "Your son will live... but... he'll be a vegetable for the rest of +his life." +% +Which would you rather have, a bursting planet or an earthquake here and there? + -- John Joseph Lynch +% +Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently +there must be a beverage. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +Why don't elephants eat penguins ? + +Because they can't get the wrappers off ... +% +Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If you cut +down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut down the new +tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that tree, yet another +will grow, only this one will be a mutation with long, poisonous tentacles +and revenge in its heart, and it will sit there in the forest, cackling and +making elaborate plans for when you come back. + +Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago, when a +group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot. Suddenly, +lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the cavemen stared +at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood heat!" The other +cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately beat him to death with +stones. But the key discovery had been made, and from that day forward, the +cavemen had all the heat they needed, although their insurance rates went +way up. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +Yeah, if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck +-- shoot it. +% +You can imagine my embarrassment when I killed the wrong guy. + -- Joe Valachi +% +You can't go into the ring and be a nice guy. I would go a month, two +months, without having sex. It worked for me because it made me a +vicious animal. You can't fight if you have any compassion or anything +like that. + -- Jake LaMotta +% +You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you a +new way. + -- Will Rogers +% +You know what I wish? I wish all the scum of the Earth had one throat +and I had my hands about it. + -- Rorschach, "Watchmen" +% +You should never ride in an airplane with a sports team, because if the +plane goes down, it's you they're gonna eat! + -- Gordon Downie, singer for Tragically Hip +% + Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that bring +electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a chance to +kill you. This is called a "circuit". The most common home electrical +problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit breaker"; this causes +the electricity to back up in one of the wires until it bursts out of an +outlet in the form of sparks, which can damage your carpet. The best way +to avoid broken circuits is to change your fuses regularly. + Another common problem is that the lights flicker. This sometimes +means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more often it means +that your home is possessed by demons, in which case you'll need to get a +caulking gun and some caulking. If you're not sure whether your house is +possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a fine documentary film based on an +actual book. Or call in a licensed electrician, who is trained to spot the +signs of demonic possession, such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous +cats on the dinette table, etc. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% + "Your son still sliding down the banisters?" + "We wound barbed wire around them." + "That stop him?" + "No, but it sure slowed him up." +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/cookie b/fortunes/off/cookie new file mode 100644 index 0000000..08b3f47 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/cookie @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +Shit Happens. +% +Eat shit -- billions of flies can't be wrong. +% + Well, punk is kind of anti-ethical, anyway. Its ethics, so to speak, +include a disdain for ethics in general. If you have to think about some- +thing so hard, then it's bullshit anyway; that's the idea. Punks are anti- +ismists, to coin a term. But nonetheless, they have a pretty clearly defined +stance and image, and THAT is what we hang the term `punk' on. + -- Jeff G. Bone +% +Trailing Edge Technologies is pleased to announce the following +TETflame programme: + +1) For a negotiated price (no quatloos accepted) one of our flaming + representatives will flame the living shit out of the poster of + your choice. The price is inversly proportional to how much of + an asshole the target it. We cannot be convinced to flame Dennis + Ritchie. Matt Crawford flames are free. + +2) For a negotiated price (same arrangement) the TETflame programme + is offering ``flame insurence''. Under this arrangement, if + one of our policy holders is flamed, we will cancel the offending + article and flame the flamer, to a crisp. + +3) The TETflame flaming representatives include: Richard Sexton, Oleg + Kisalev, Diane Holt, Trish O'Tauma, Dave Hill, Greg Nowak and our most + recent aquisition, Keith Doyle. But all he will do is put you in his + kill file. Weemba by special arrangement. + + -- Richard Sexton +% +"Well, it don't make the sun shine, but at least it don't deepen the shit." + -- Straiter Empy, in _Riddley_Walker_ by Russell Hoban +% +"Take that, you hostile sons-of-bitches!" + -- James Coburn, in the finale of _The_President's_Analyst_ +% +"Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!" + -- The Ghostbusters diff --git a/fortunes/off/debian b/fortunes/off/debian new file mode 100644 index 0000000..048becf --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/debian @@ -0,0 +1,127 @@ +< Overfiend> well, excellent. I get to tear someone a new asshole. + -- in #debian-devel +% +< calc> dondelelcaro: there is free sex in the archive iirc +< liw> I maintain sex, yes +< liw> I'm the upstream of sex +< dondelelcaro> liw: and the downstream as well? wow. +< jbailey> I'd hate to be upstream of sex. +< jbailey> You'd never get any. +< liw> jbailey, but giving is so much better than getting :) + -- in #debian-devel +% +< Overfiend> MFen: but if you have the awesome manliness to cleanly + implement this missing feature, it will probably be + accepted. +< Overfiend> you'd be so manly you'd have to rent a wheelbarrow to cart + your balls around + -- in #debian-devel +% +* Overfiend whacks one of the TODO items off the list +< joshk> whacking something else now? +< Overfiend> in a manner of speaking :) + -- in #debian-devel +% + iDunno: anyhow, tbm fits the description of an alug user + he uses linux and is based in East Anglia :) + "he uses linux". I run the Debian project, for fucks sake! :-P +% +< asuffield> 125 should logically be... hmm... function key 20 +< asuffield> which is like.. the fuck? +< Overfiend> a long penis sticking out of the right side of the keyboard + -- in #debian-devel +% + To: + My manhood is not usually enlarged by men only. Such + enlargement often involves women. + -- in #debian-devel +% + moshez: This is finland. You don't need to say anything to + shop at the supermarket :) + You need to know what they mean when the cute checkout girl + asks if you want pussy. + That's all. + dark: is this a particularly common problem? + asuffield: Yes :) The word for shopping bags sounds like that. + -- in #debian-devel +% + the himilayan rat aparantly doesn't relise humping an allready + pregnant female rat gets him nowhere but a bitemark on the leg. +* Sir_Ahzz separates the rats. + -- in #debian-devel +% + apt sex + sex is probably updatedb; locate; talk; date; cd; unzip; strip; look; + touch; finger; head; mount; fsck; more; yes; yes; umount; make clean; + sleep + is there a female equivalent of that command line? + RST2003: sleep :) + -- in #debian +% + don't you people have something better to do than stare at + females you will never even meet? + asuffield: never say never + asuffield: I don't keep this chloroform-soaked rag in my + pocket for NOTHING + -- in #debian-devel +% + OW OW OW OW OW, jesus CHRIST. We're supposed to be FROZEN + and our LIBC and BINUTILS are maintained by CVS ADDICTS + whose LEFT HAND is SUPERGLUED to their DICKS + "*PANT* *PANT* YEAH BABY!!!! FRESH COMMITS TO CVS!!!!" + *PANT* *PANT* + -- in #debian-devel +% +< ari> why did gimp fail to build on amd64? +< nickr> because you touch yourself at night +< ari> how did you know :( +% +No, I'd rather look for porn. + + -- Debian Project Leader Martin Michlmayr, when asked to do some + real work +% +< ore> God uses GNOME? +< joshk> no wonder it rains so often +< ore> "Dammit, those damn heaven's gates won't open, gconfd crashed + again" + -- in #debian-devel +% + I'm a pope-worshipper, so I don't feel bound by your standards. +* seeeS thought it said vorlon was a pppoe worshipper + -- in #debian-devel +% +< keta> woah, I've been out for a week, a new stable release, a processor + on my laptop that will soon be abandoned, if i had had a girlfriend + I'll surely would have found her pregnant on my return + -- in #debian-devel, following the release of Sarge (3.1r0) +% + what the fuck is this code doing? + spray_min = SPRAYMAX+1; + mdz_: spraying + asuffield: sucking +% + "Hi, I'm too fucking stupid to understand a 15-year old + RFC, so please file a proper bug report on punched cards. + Thanks." +% +* Overfiend prefers girls who have developed, and DON'T FUCKING **GIGGLE** +% + I ought to perpetrate some sabotage to underscore my point + and trash the 0x60 codepoint in all the xfonts-base fonts. + bwa hahahahaha + bwahahahahahahaha + MOO)HAHAHAHAHA + YES THIS IS AN EXCELLENT IDEA + I OUGHT TO MAKE IT AN INVERSE, UPSIDE DOWN QUESTION MARK + BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHA + MOOOOOAHAHAHAHAHA +--- Overfiend is now known as PUREFUCKINGEVIL + BWAHAHAHAHA + + -- Branden 'Overfiend' Robinson, on the subject of + people using `mismatched' quotes +% + i'm glad Debian finally got into + polar-deep-freeze-we-arent-shitting-you state finally. + -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0 diff --git a/fortunes/off/definitions b/fortunes/off/definitions new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4509eb --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/definitions @@ -0,0 +1,1411 @@ +68: + Do me now and I'll owe you one. +% +71: + 69 with two fingers up your ass. + -- George Carlin +% +A clitoris is a lot like Antarctica: + most men know it's there, but few really care. +% +A.A.A.A.A.: + An organization for drunks who drive. +% +Achilles' Biological Findings: + (1) If a child looks like his father, that's heredity. If he + looks like a neighbor, that's environment. + (2) A lot of time has been wasted arguing over what came first + -- the chicken or the egg. It was undoubtedly the + rooster. +% +Adam's Law: + (1) Women don't know what they want; + they don't like what they have got. + (2) Men know very well what they want; + having got it, they begin to lose interest. +% +Adolescence, n.: + The stage between puberty and adultery. +% +Adultery: + Putting yourself in someone else's position. +% +ambition, n: + An ant crawling up an elephant's leg with rape on his mind. +% +anxiety, n: + The first time you can't do it a second time. + +panic, n: + The second time you can't do it the first time. +% +Appointment book: + The reference of last resort when trying to duck undesired + invitations ("Gee, the soonest I can pencil you in is + December, 2004"), or when trying to figure out what the hell + it was you did during the past year. +% +Arkansas: + Where the men are men, so are the women and the sheep run scared. +% +Ass: + The masculine of "lass". +% +Bacchus, n.: + A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for + getting drunk. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Balls' Law: + The angle of the dangle is directly proportional to the heat + of the meat provided that the thrusts of the busts are constant. +% +Baltimore, n.: + Where the women wear turtleneck sweaters to hide their flea collars. +% +Baltimore: + A wharf-rat stealing Diogenes' lamp. +% +beef stroganoff, n: + A bull masturbating. +% +"Better late than never!": + The single girl's motto. +% +bi, n: + When *everybody* thinks you're a pervert. +% +Big Toe: +The pad of the male big toe applied to the clitoris or the vulva +generally is a magnificent erotic instrument. The famous gentleman in erotic +prints who is keeping six women occupied is using tongue, penis, both hands, +and both big toes. Use the toe in mammary or armpit intercourse or any time +you are astride her, or sit facing as she lies or sits. Make sure the nail +isn't sharp. In a restuarant, in these days of tights one can surreptitiously +remove a shoe and sock, reach over, and keep her in almost continuous orgasm +with all four hands fully in view on the table top and no sign of contact-- +A party trick which really rates as advanced sex. She has less scope, but +can learn to masturbate him with her two big toes. The toes are definitely +erogenic areas, and can be kissed, sucked, tickled, or tied with stimulating +results. + -- The Joy of Sex + [Avoid armpit intercourse when razor stubble is present. Ed.] +% +BOHICA: + Bend over, here it comes again. +% +Bondage: +Bondage, or as the French call it, ligottage, is the gentle art of tying up +your sex partner --- not to overcome reluctance but to boost orgasm. It's +one unscheduled sex technique which a lot of people find extremely exciting +but are scared to try, and a venerable human resource for increasing sexual +feeling, partly because it's a harmless expression of sexual aggression -- +something we badly need, our culture being very uptight about it -- and more +because of its physical affects: slow orgasm when unable to move is a +mind-blowing experience for anyone not too frightened of their own aggressive +self to try it. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +Boston, n.: + Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for + finishing second in the Irish jig competition. +% +Boston: + An outdoor Betty Ford Clinic. +% +British Israelites: + The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of Britain to +be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by Sargon of Assyria +on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They further believe that the future +can be foretold by the measurements of the Great Pyramid, which probably +means it will be big and yellow and in the hand of the Arabs. They also +believe that if you sleep with your head under the pillow a fairy will come +and take all your teeth. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Brontosaurus Principle: + Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them + in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when + this occurs, they are an endangered species. + -- Thomas K. Connellan +% +brunette bush, n: + The dark side of the moon. +% +cad, n.: + A man who doesn't tell his wife + that he's sterile until she's pregnant. +% +California: + From Latin 'calor', meaning "heat" (as in English 'calorie' or + Spanish 'caliente'); and 'fornia', for "sexual intercourse" or + "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." + -- Ed Moran, Covina, California +% +callgirl, n: + A negotiable blonde. +% +Camille's Axiom: + If you haven't asked yourself, "Why the hell did + I go to college anyway?", you must be teaching. +% +Chastity belt: + An anti-trust suit. + + (And an unchivalrous knight is the one that files it.) +% +Chastity: + The most unnatural of the sexual perversions. + -- Aldous Huxley +% +Chicago, n.: + Where the dead still vote ... early and often! +% +Christ: + A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. +% +Christian, n.: + One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired + book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who + follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent + with a life of sin. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Christmas: + A time when each of us gets to reflect upon what we each most + deeply and sincerely believe in. Money. At the mall of our choice. +% +cigarette, n.: + A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between. +% +Cinderella 10: + A woman who sucks and fucks 'til midnight and + then turns into a pizza and a six-pack. +% +Clarke's Third Law: + Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. + +G's Third Law: + In spite of all evidence to the contrary, the entire universe + is composed of only two basic substances: magic and bullshit. + +H's Dictum: + There is no magic ... +% +Cleveland: + Where their last tornado did six million dollars worth of improvements. +% +clitoris, n: + A haired trigger. +% +Cocaine: + The thinking man's Dristan. +% +cock-sucker, n: + Someone who got caught doing what you got away with. +% +coitus interruptus, n: + A jerky movement following the words (by either sex partner) + "I want to have your child." +% +cold, adj.: + When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions. +% +cold, adj: + When your dog sticks to the fire hydrant. +% +Colorado: + Where they don't buy M & M's, 'cause they're so hard to peel. +% +computerfirm nymphomaniac, n: + Hot Apple pie. +% +confusion, n: + Father's Day in San Francisco. +% +confusion: + One woman plus one left turn. +excitement: + Two women plus one secret. +bedlam: + Three women plus one bargain. +chaos: + Four women plus one luncheon check. +% +Conservative, n.: + One who admires radicals centuries after they're dead. + -- Leo C. Rosten +% +Conservative, n: + A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished + from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +continental breakfast, n: + A roll in bed with some honey. +% +Coors, n: + Like making love in a canoe -- fucking close to water. +% +Corrupt, adj.: + In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. +% +courage, n: + Two cannibals having oral sex. +% +Cox's philosophy: + Life's a bitch, then you die. +% +coyote love, n: + Coyote love is a nebulous term. Basically, what it involves is + the taking of a member of the preferred sex home from a singles + bar. Then, when you wake up the next morning, they're sleeping + on your arm. So, rather than wake them up as you escape, you + chew off your arm at the shoulder. + +coyote ugly, adj: + When you chew off the other arm 'cause she'll be looking for + a one-armed man! + +See also proof that average instantaneous beauty increases monotonically +as alcohol consumption increases and time, t, approaches last call. +% +crew, n: + Eight big men and their cute little cox. +% +Crinklaw's Observation: + Nowadays the order of life is reversed: Sex is first enjoyed, + marriage follows, and after marriage comes abstinence. +% +Dallas: + The city that chose Astroturf to keep the cheerleaders from grazing. +% +Democracy, n.: + A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting + or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. + Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights. + Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, + whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, + prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. + Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy. + -- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932), + since withdrawn. +% +Democracy, n: + In which you say what you like and do what you're told. + -- Gerald Barry + +The difference between a Democracy and a Dictatorship is that in a +Democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a Dictatorship +you don't have to waste your time voting. + -- Charles Bukowski +% +diaphragm, n: + A childproof cap. +% +dicker, v: + What you do to your wife if arguing doesn't work. +% +Disclaimer of the Week: + Any Society Which Requires Disclaimers Has Too Many Goddamn Lawyers. +% +dyke, n: + A woman who kick-starts her vibrator. And rolls her own tampons. +% +Elliptical, n.: + The feel of a kiss. +% +embarrassment, n.: + Finding out your German Shepherd has the clap. +% +Erogenous zone, n.: + The skin you touch to love. +% +eternity, n.: + The length of time between when you come and he leaves. +% +exotic dancer, n.: + A girl who brings home the bacon a strip at a time. +% +Faith, n: + That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be untrue. +% +Fear, n.: + What you feel when you see a U-Haul with Texas license plates. +% +felt tip, v.: + Past tense for a breast examination! +% +Female rabbits: + The gift that just "keeps on giving." +% +female, n.: + Life support system for a pussy. +% +Feminism, n.: + A political position which seeks to rebuild society so that + both men and women are treated as women wish to be treated. +% +First Corollary of Taber's Second Law: + Machines that piss people off get murdered. + -- Pat Taber +% +First Law of Bicycling: + No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind. +% +Flirt, n.: + A girl whose favorite man is the next one. +% +fornication, n.: + Term used by people who don't have anybody to screw with. +% +FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #5 + Don't wear your spurs while making love in a waterbed. +% +FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #8 + Don't wear your high heels while making love on the pool table. +% +Frisbeetarianism, n.: + The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and + gets stuck. +% +fuck-me-pumps, n.: + Stiletto heels of a certain length, usually black patent leather. +The proper designation is "throw-me-down-and-fuck-me" pumps. Shoes with +heels just high enough to let the frayed tip of a bullwhip trail around +them properly. +% +fuckoff, n.: + The tie breaker at the Miss America Beauty Pageant. +% +garter, n.: + An elastic band intended to keep a woman + from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country. +% +gay, adj.: + Of a man, one who'd rather swish than fight. +% +Georgia: + Where kinky sex means getting laid. +% +Glee Club groupie, n.: + A girl into choral sex. +% +God: + Darwin's chief rival. +% +Goldfish: +Two naked people tied and put on a mattress together to make love +"fish fashion" (ie: no hands). Originally a nineteenth-century bordel joke. +It can be done (if you are the victims, try on your sides from behind). +Venerable party game, but don't play it with strangers, or leave players +unsupervised, even briefly. There was a nice spoof on this sex stunt in +the movie "Soldier Blue". A good many women can get an orgasm from this +simply by struggling, especially if you put them in front of a mirror. +Don't both tie yourselves, even if you can manage it -- you might not be +able to get loose. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +good scout, n.: + Someone who knows the lay of the land and will take you to her. +% +Gourmet, n.: + Anyone whom, when you fail to finish something strange or + revolting, remarks that it's an acquired taste and that you're + leaving the best part. +% +great lover, n.: + A man who can breathe through his ears. +% +Gross, adj.: + When your bloody mary still has the string in it. +% +Gross, adj.: + When your grandmother kisses you goodnight and slips you some tongue. +% +Gynecologist, n.: + Someone who spends their time spreading old wives' tails. +% +Haggis, n.: + Haggis is a kind of stuff 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 + ... +% +Hall's Laws of Politics: + (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending. + (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want + something fixed. + (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend + military spending, and conservatives social spending in + their own districts). +% +Handel's Proverb: + You can't produce a baby in one month by impregnating 9 women! +% +Handy hint: + A tea bag or two can be a dandy substitute when you're out of tampons. +% +happiness, n.: + Finding the owner of a lost bikini. +% +happiness, n.: + Having your Herpes (Type II) test come back negative. +% +Hartley's Second Law: + Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself. + +My corollary: + The completely psychotic have all the fun. +% +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. +% +hell, n.: + Truth seen too late. +% +henpecked husband, n.: + One who's afraid to tell his pregnant wife that he's sterile. +% +hermit, n.: + A man who'd rather get off by himself. +% +herpes, n.: + The final proof that 'tis better to give than to receive. + Much better. +% +high technology, n.: + A California innovation composed of equal parts of silicon and + marijuana. +% +honor, n.: + Almost as good as in 'er. +% +horny, adj.: + When your cock gets hard if the wind blows. +% +hypocrite, n.: + A man who says he likes cats, but won't eat pussy. +% +Impossible, adj.: + (1) I wouldn't like it and when it happens I won't approve; + (2) I can't be bothered; (3) God can't be bothered. Meaning (3) may + perhaps be valid but the others are 101% whaledreck. + -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab" +% +impotent loser, n.: + Someone who can't even get his hopes up. +% +Incest, n: + Sibling revelry; a sport the whole family can enjoy. +% +Infatuation, n: + When you're in love, there's a lump in your throat. + When you're infatuated, there's a lump in your pants. +% +Infidel: + In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; + in Constantinople, one who does. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +innunendo, n.: + Italian enema. +% +irony, n.: + A windy day, when, just as a beautiful girl with + a short skirt approaches, dust blows in your eyes. +% +Japan, n: + A fictional place where elves, gnomes and economic imperialists + create electronic equipment and computers using black magic. It + is said that in the capital city of Akihabara, the streets are + paved with gold and semiconductor chips grow on low bushes from + which they are harvested by the happy natives. +% +Johnny Carson's Observation on Geriatrics: + Sex in the sixties is great, but it improves if you pull + over to the side of the road. +% +Kansas: + Where the men are men and so are the women! +% +Kasha, n.: + Kasha is always defined as "buckwheat groats". There's only + one problem with this definition: what the fuck are "buckwheat + groats"? *_I* know what they are -- they're kasha. But that doesn't + help *___you* much. + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College: + Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex + for the students, and parking for the faculty. +% +Kleptomaniac, n.: + A rich thief. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Knowledge Engineering: + +A combination of: + +Engineering, n.: + The application of science and mathematics by which the properties +of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to man in +structures, machines, products, systems and processes. + +and + +Knowledge, n.: + Sexual intercourse. + +See also: Prostitution, Grantsmanship. +% +Kotex, n.: + Not the best thing on earth, but next to the best. +% +Kumquat, n.: + Any of several small citrus fruits with sweet spongy rind and + somewhat acidic pulp that are used chiefly for preserves. + Extremely popular in some forms of sexual intercourse. In fact, + an early indication that your partner is willing to experiment + sexually may be a rather insistent moaning of "kumquat, kumquat" + during orgasm. + + Note: this is *not* to be confused with a warning from your + partner that his/her parents are upstairs and probably awake. +% +LA: + Where the only way to determine that the seasons have changed + is to note that people have changed the main topic of conversation. + From mud slides to brush fires. +% +Labia majora, n.: + The curly gates. +% +lagnaf, n.: + Let's All Get Naked And Fuck! +% +Law of Probable Dispersal: + Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. +% +Law of the Yukon: + Only the lead dog gets a change of scenery. +% +lawyer, n.: + Someone who can get a sodomy charge changed to "following too + closely." +% +lazy, adj.: + Marrying a pregnant woman. +% +Lesbian QOTD: + I didn't give up sex, I just gave up premature ejaculation. +% +liberal, n.: + Someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. +% +Life is like a penis: + when it's soft you can't beat it, and when it's hard you get fucked. +% +Little death (la petite mort): +Some women do indeed pass right out, the 'little death' of French +poetry. Men occasionally do the same. The experience is not +unpleasant, but it can scare an inexperienced partner cold. A friend +of ours had this happen with the first girl he ever slept with. On +recovery she explained, "I am awfully sorry, but I always do that." By +then he had called the police and an ambulance. So there is no cause +for alarm, any more than over the yells, convulsions, hysterical +laughter, or sobbing, or any of the other quite unexpected reactions +that go along with complete orgasm in some people. By contrast others +simply shut their eyes, but enjoy it no less. Sound and fury can be a +flattering testimony to a partners skills, but a fallacious one, +because they don't depend on the intensity of feeling, nor it upon them. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +Little Known Facts, #23: + Did you know... that if you dial 911 in Los Angeles you get + the BMW repair garage? +% +Lucky, adj: + When you have a wife and a cigarette lighter -- both of which work. +% +Luser, n.: + Someone who picks up a female hitch-hiker walking home from a date. +% +macho, adj.: + Jogging home from your vasectomy. +% +maiden aunt, n.: + A girl who never had the sense to say "uncle." +% +Maiden, n.: + A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and + views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical + distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found. + The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her + piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though in respect to + comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard to + the part of her that is audible, beaten out of the field by the + canary -- which, also, is more portable. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Male, n.: + Life support system for a cock. +% +Man, n.: + An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks + he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief + occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, + which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest + the whole habitable earth and Canada. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +man-hour, n.: + A sexist, obsolete measure of macho effort, equal to 60 Kiplings. +% +manager, n.: + A man known for giving great meeting. +% +masturbation, n.: + A self-service elevator. +% +masturbation, n.: + Coming unscrewed. +% +menage a trois, n.: + Using both hands to masturbate. +% +Meteorologist, n.: + A man who can look in a woman's eyes and predict whether. +% +Miss, n.: + A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that + they are in the market. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Missionary Position: + The missionary on top. +% +Mistress, n.: + Something between a mister and a mattress. +% +Mom's Law: + When they finally do have to take you to the hospital, your underwear + won't be clean or new. +% +Monday, n.: + In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +monotony, n.: + Marriage to one woman at a time. +% +Montana: + A grizzly bear praying for the early arrival of cable television. +% +Montana: + Where forty-three below keeps out the riff-raff. +% +Montana: + Where men are men and women are sheep. +% +mosquito, n.: + The state bird of New Jersey. +% +mother: + Half a word. +% +Motto of the Electrical Engineer: + Working computer hardware is a lot like an erect penis: + it stays up as long as you don't fuck with it. +% +Murphy's Discovery: + Do you know Presidents talk to the country the way men talk to women? + They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and everything will be + all right." And what happens? Nine months later, you're in trouble! +% +Murray's Rule: + Any country with "democratic" in the title isn't. +% +mythology, n.: + The body of a primitive people's beliefs, concerning its origin, + early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished + from the true accounts which it invents later. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Naeser's Law: + You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. +% +navel, n.: + A place to stash your gum on the way down. +% +necrophelia, n.: + Dead boring. + +incest, n.: + Relatively boring. +% +necrophilia, n.: + Dropping in for a cold one. +% +New release: + Abortions are becoming so popular in some countries that the waiting + time to get one is lengthening rapidly. Experts predict that at this + rate there will soon be an up to a one year wait. +% +New York: + Where men are men, sheep enjoy it, and lepers laugh their heads off. +% +Noncombatant, n.: + A dead Quaker. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +nothing, adj.: + A man with an erection who walks into a wall and breaks his nose. +% +O'Riordan's Theorem: + Brains x Beauty = Constant. + +Purmal's Corollary: + As the limit of (Brains x Beauty) goes to infinity, + availability goes to zero. +% +Occident, n.: + The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It + is largely inhabited by Christians, powerful sub-tribe of the + Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which + they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are the + principal industries of the Orient. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ocean, n.: + A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for + man -- who has no gills. +% +On Brassieres: + Russian: Uplifts the masses. + Salvation Army: Raises the fallen. + American: Makes mountains out of molehills. +% +optimist, n.: + A man who makes a motel reservation before a blind date. +% +optimist, n.: + Someone who goes down to the marriage + bureau to see if his license has expired. +% +oral contraceptive, n.: + The word "No". +% +oral sex, n.: + The taste of things to come. +% +Oregon, n.: + Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday night. +% +Overheard: + "How do I feel? Great! And I kiss pretty good, too!" +% +pain, n.: + Falling out of a twenty story building, + and snagging your eyelid on a nail. +% +pain, n.: + Sliding down a 50-foot razor blade into a bucket of alcohol. +% +Parker's Law: + Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone. +% +Password: +% +Peeping Tom: + A window fan. +% +penis envy, n.: + The desire to be pink and wrinkled and about four inches long. +% +perfect woman, n.: + Four feet tall, no teeth and a flat head so you can rest + your drink. + + [Pistol-grip ears? Ed.] +% +philadelphia flying fuck, n.: + Okay, see, he hangs from a chin-up bar with his feet on the arms + of the rocking chair. She crouches in the rocking chair pleasuring + him orally. + + [Note: Personally, we've never tried this. If you have, or if + you do, please inform us of the results at Fortune, Box 1597, + Rockville IL. Thank you. Ed.] +% +Pig, n.: + An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race + by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is + inferior in scope, for it balks at pig. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +pile driver, n.: + Local drink; two parts vodka, one part prune juice. +% +Planned Parenthood: + The emission Control Center. +% +platonic friendship, n.: + What develops when two people get tired of making love to each other. +% +pocket pool, n.: + Well, for guys, it's two-ball in the side pocket. + For women, it's playing the slots. +% +polish fly, n.: + You put it in her drink and she begs you to take her bowling. +% +Politician, n.: + An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of + organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the + agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared + with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Politician, n.: + From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tete" ("head" or + "face," as in "tete-a-tete:" head to head or face to face). Hence + "polytetien," a person of two or more faces. + -- Martin Pitt +% +Pompoir: + +The most sought-after feminine sexual response of all. + +'She must... close and constrict the Yoni until it holds the Lingam as with +a finger, opening and shutting at her pleasure, and finally acting as the +hand of the Gopala-girl who milks the cow. This can be learned only by long +practice, and especially by throwing the will into the part affected, even +as men endeavor to sharpen their hearing... Her husband will then value her +above all other women, nor would he exchange her for the most beautiful +queen in the Three Worlds... Among some races the constrictor vaginae muscles +are abnormally developed. In Abyssinia for instance, a woman can so exert +them as to cause pain to a man, and when sitting on his thighs, she can +induce orgasm without moving any other part of her person. Such an artist +is called by the Arabs Kabbazah, literally, a holder, and it's not surprising +that slave dealers pay large sums for her' Thus Richard Burton. It has +nothing to do with 'race' but a lot to do with practice. See exercises. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +pray, n: + To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf + of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +premature ejaculation, n.: + A spoilspurt. +% +premature ejaculator, n.: + Troubled shooter. +% +Premenstrual Syndrome: + Just before their periods women behave the way men do all the time. +% +promotion from within: + A system of moving incompetents up to the policy-making + level where they can't foul up operations. +% +promotion, n.: + New title, new salary, new office, same old crap. +% +psychologist, n.: + Someone who watches everyone else when an attractive woman walks + into a room. +% +pubic hair, n.: + Organic dental floss. +% +Puritanism: + the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. + -- H. L. Mencken, "A Book of Burlesques" +% +QFD: + Quelle fucking drag. "Jamie got stuck at Rome airport for +thirty-six hours and it was, like, totally QFD." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +QOTD: + "... was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort-of + Sun-God robes, on a pyramid, with a thousand naked women screaming + and throwing little pickles at you? ... Why am I the only one + who has that dream?" +% +QOTD: + "Are you into casual sex, or should I dress up?" +% +QOTD: + "He's a perfectionist. If he married Raquel Welch, he'd expect + her to cook." +% +QOTD: + "He's so egotistical he yells his own name when he comes." +% +QOTD: + "He's such a hick he doesn't even have a trapeze in his bedroom." +% +QOTD: + "Her other car is a broom." +% +QOTD: + "I don't give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut." +% +QOTD: + "I say, and without apology, hang the bitch." +% +QOTD: + "I treat her like a throughbred, and she's STILL a nag!" +% +QOTD: + "I used to beat off so much in the shower, I'd get a hard on every + time it rained." +% +QOTD: + "I want a home, a family, an occasional spanking ..." + -- Kathy Ireland +% +QOTD: + "I was a fifty-four-year-old virgin, but I'm all right now." +% +QOTD: + "I'd crawl a mile over burning desert sand just to kiss the dick of + the guy who screwed her last." +% +QOTD: + "I'd drag my dick a mile over broken glass just to masturbate in + her shadow!" +% +QOTD: + "It's been so long since I've had sex, I've forgotten + who gets tied up." +% +QOTD: + "It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name." +% +QOTD: + "Let go of my ears, I know what I'm doing!" +% +QOTD: + "Let's do it." + -- Gary Gilmore +% +QOTD: + "My ambition is to marry a rich woman who's too proud to let + her husband work." +% +QOTD: + "One day, I'd like to wake up in the morning to find that every gay + and lesbian has lavender skin. On that morning, I will be -- mauve." +% +QOTD: + "She was so tough she rolled her own tampons." +% +QOTD: + "The difference between dark and hard is... it stays dark + all night." +% +QOTD: + "The marines and I have something in common; we're both looking for + a few good men!" +% +QOTD: + "The only real difference between men and women is that men are + crabby all month long." +% +QOTD: + "To hell with patience, I'm gonna kill me something!" +% +QOTD: + "Well, let's say she's friendly. Last year she was the Herpes + Poster Girl." +% +QOTD: + "What would the world be like without men? A lot of fat, + happy women." +% +QOTD: + "Whhoooooooeeeeeeeeeee, Elmer! Take a look at that purty young lady + over thar! Why, I'd walk a mile barefoot over barbed wire and broken + glass just to drive the truck that takes her panties to the cleaners!" +% +QOTD: + "Whip me, beat me, come all over me, tell me you love me. + Then get the fuck out." +% +QOTD: + "You might as well say "yes", the sheets are messy already." +% +QOTD: + I get girls because of who I am... a rapist. +% +QOTD: + I met her [his fiance] over lunch on Thursday. She had a firm + grip. He's a lucky man. +% +QOTD: + I own my own body, but I share. +% +QOTD: + I won't say he's unsavory, but for his birthday he bought himself + a pair of velcro gloves. +% +QOTD: + It *was* wonderfully polite of me. Usually I call the kind of + cretinous dipshit that pisses me off a ``fucking asshole.'' + -- Richard Sexton +% +QOTD: + Men come in four sizes -- small, medium, large, and "You're + going to put that thing *where*?" +% +QOTD: + My penis is better than corn, because corn doesn't squeal when + you stick those little prongs into it. + -- Mark-Jason Dominus +% +QOTD: + No, honey, I've never been circumcised; it's simply wear and tear. +% +QOTD: + Sex is like everything else. To get it done right, do it yourself. +% +QOTD: + Sex is the most fun you can have without laughing. +% +QOTD: + She began coming, making noises like a small animal in pain. + Ouch! Ow! My paw! Ouch!! +% +quickie, n.: + A moment's piece. +% +quickie, n.: + No sooner spread than done. +% +Radicalism: + The conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +randel, n.: + A nonsensical poem recited by Irish schoolboys as an + apology for farting at a friend. + -- Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure & + Preposterous Words +% +real buddy, n.: + Someone who'll go downtown and get two blowjobs, and come back + and give you one. +% +real class, adj.: + When you're by yourself, fart, and say "Excuse me." +% +Recursion n.: + See Recursion. + -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary +% +rejection, n.: + When you're masturbating and your hand falls asleep. +% +Robot, n.: + Someone who's been made by a scientist. +% +rodeo fuck, n.: + When you lean down and whisper in your lover's ear, "Honey, you're + the worst piece of ass I've ever had!". And then try to stay on + for seven seconds... +% +rugby, n.: + A sport requiring leather balls. +% +rugby, n.: + Elegant violence. + + (Rugby players eat their dead.) + (Blood makes the grass grow!) + (Support your local hooker! Play rugby!) + + [A "hooker" is part of the scrum. Thought you'd want to know. Ed.] +% +sadism, n.: + A sadist refusing to whip a masochist. +% +sadoequinecrophilia, n.: + Beating a dead horse. +% +San Diego: + Four million people, where you can't get a + good cheeseburger, no matter how hard you try. +% +San Francisco, n.: + Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse. +% +San Francisco: + A nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to tie my shoelaces there. +% +schnuffel, n.: + A dog's practice of continuously nuzzling in your crotch in mixed + company. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Schwiggle, n.: + The amusing rotation of one's bottom while sharpening a pencil. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +seminars, n.: + From 'semi' and 'arse', hence, any half-assed discussion. +% +Sex: + the thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the + most amount of trouble. + -- John Barrymore +% +Showerbath: +Natural venue for sexual adventures -- wash together, make love +together: only convenient overhead point in most apartments or hotel rooms +to attach a partner's hands. Don't pull down the fixture, however -- it +isn't weightbearing. See Discipline. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +small, adj.: + Is it in yet? +% +socialism: + You have two cows. Give one to your neighbour. +communism: + You have two cows. + Give both to the government. The government gives you milk. +capitalism: + You have two cows. You sell one cow and buy a bull. +fascism: + You have two cows. Give milk to the government. + The government sells it. +nazism: + You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows. +New Dealism: + You have two cows. The government shoots one cow, + milks the other, and pours the milk down the sink. +anarchism: + You have two cows. Keep them. Steal another. Shoot the government. +conservatism: + You have two cows. Freeze the milk. Embalm the cows. +% +spinster, n.: + A bachelor's wife. +% +spinster, n.: + Unlusted number. +% +Stockmayer's Theorem: + If it looks easy, it's tough. + If it looks tough, it's damn well impossible. +% +strapless evening gown, n.: + Bust truster. +% +stress, n.: + The confusion created when one's mind overrides the body's + desire to choke the living shit out of some asshole who + desperately needs it. +% +subpoena, n: + From the root "sub", below, and the Latin "poena" for male organ + or penis. Therefore, "below the penis" or "by the balls." +% +successful cunnilingus: + When you wake up the next morning with a face like a frosted doughnut. +% +Sudden Death Dating: + +Quote, female: + Am I worried about taking his last name? Forget it, + at this point I'll take his first name, too. +% +swallow, v.: + The (blew) bird of birth control. +% +T-shirt of the Day: + Head for the Mountains + -- courtesy Anheuser-Busch beer + +Followup T-shirt of the Day (on the same scenic background): + If you liked the mountains, head for the Busch! + -- courtesy someone else +% +T-shirt of the Day: + See Dick Drink... + See Dick Drive... + See Dick Die. + DON'T BE A DICK. +% +T-shirt of the Week: + I'm not excited, I'm cold! +% +tacky, adj.: + Serving grape kool-aid at religious functions. +% +tear leather: + To become excited, as in the sentence "Robin Hood tore + his leather jerkin' off." +% +tearing off a quicky: + Gunning the jump. +% +Texan: + A wet-back that didn't make Oklahoma. +% +The 357.73 Theory: + Auditors always reject expense accounts + with a bottom line divisible by 5. +% +The First Commandment for Technicians: + Beware the lightning that lurketh in the undischarged capacitor, lest + it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most untechnician-like + manner. +% +The New Right: + A javelin team that elects to receive. +% +THE THREE MOST COMMONLY-ASKED QUESTIONS AT DISNEYLAND: + (1) Where's the bathroom? + (2) What time does the parade start? + (3) Do you sell anything without that damn mouse on it? +% +The three rules of international air travel: + (1) Never fly on Aeroflot if you can possibly avoid it (this used + to be Braniff or Aeroflot). + (2) Never bet a whole lot of money on two little pairs unless you + know *exactly* what you're doing. + (3) Never sleep with anyone whose troubles are worse than your own. +% +The United States Army: + 194 years of proud service, unhampered by progress. +% +There's more than one way to skin a cat: + Way number 15 -- Krazy Glue and a toothbrush. +% +There's more than one way to skin a cat: + Way number 27 -- Use an electric sander. +% +There's more than one way to skin a cat: + Way number 32 -- Wrap it around a lonely frat man's pecker. +% +thorny: + A thailor at thea. +% +Thought: + Girls get minks the same way minks get minks! +% +three-bag ugly, adj: + That's when you put one bag over her head, one bag over your + head in case her's falls off, and one over the dog's to keep + it from howling. + +four-bag ugly, adj: + When you leave a bag by the door in case someone drops by. +% +Today's title: + Creative Violence in Sexual Relationships +% +tourist, n.: + A pretty girl in Oklahoma. +% +transvestite, n.: + Someone who likes to eat, drink, and be Mary. +% +transvestite, n.: + Someone who spends his junior year at college abroad. +% +"Trust me": + Get me, give me, buy me, do me. +% +"Trust me": + Los Angeles for "Fuck you, your mother, and the horse + she rode in on." +% +trust, n.: + Two cannibals having oral sex. +% +Unix, n.: + A computer operating system, once thought to be flabby and + impotent, that now shows a surprising interest in making off + with the workstation harem. +% +vagina, n.: + The box a penis comes in. +% +vaginal lubricant, n.: + A slitty slicker. +% +VD, n.: + The gift that keeps on giving. +% +Viennese Oyster: +Lady who can cross her feet behind her head, lying on her back, of course. +When she has done so, you hold her tightly round each instep +with your full hand and squeeze, lying on her full-length. Don't try to put +an unsupple partner into this position -- it can't be achieved by brute force. +You can get a very similar sensation -- unique rocking pelvic movement -- with +less expertise if she crosses her ankles on her tummy, knees to shoulders, and +you lie on her crossed ankles with your full weight. Why "Viennese" we don't +know. Tolerable for short periods only but gives tremendous genital pressure +for both. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +Virgin, n.: + An ugly third grader. +% +Virginia: + A group of beautifully mounted hunters galloping behind + baying hounds in pursuit of a union organizer. +% +WASP, n.: + Someone who gets out of the shower to take a piss. +% +Watership Down: + You've read the book. You've seen the movie. Now eat the stew! +% +wet dream, n.: + Overnight sensation. +% +Wethern's Law: + Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. +% +Why You Can't Run When There's Trouble in the Office: + No matter where you stand, no matter how far or fast you flee, + when it hits the fan, as much as possible will be propelled in your + direction, and almost none will be returned to the source. + -- John L. Shelton +% +Woman is: + finally screwing and your groin and buttocks and thighs ache like hell + and you're all wet and maybe bloody and it wasn't like a Hollywood + movie at all but Jesus at least you're not a virgin any more but is + this what it's all about? And meanwhile, he's asking "Did you come?" + -- Robin Morgan, "Sisterhood Is Powerful" +% +woman, n.: + An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and + having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. + -- Bierce +% +Zisla's Law: + If you're asked to join a parade, don't march behind the elephants. +% +ignoranus, n.: + A person who's both stupid and an asshole. +% +QFD: + Quelle fucking drag. "Jamie got stuck at Rome airport for +thirty-six hours and it was, like, totally QFD." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" diff --git a/fortunes/off/drugs b/fortunes/off/drugs new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6c6cf8 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/drugs @@ -0,0 +1,360 @@ +(1) Never give anything away for nothing. +(2) Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and + always make him wait). +(3) Always take back everything if you possibly can. + -- William S. Burroughs, on drug pushing +% +A friend with weed is a friend indeed. +% +A joint is just tea for two. +% +A life spent in search of the perfect hash brownie is a life well spent. +% +Acid -- better living through chemistry. +% +Acid absorbs 47 times its own weight in excess Reality. +% +"All flesh is grass" + -- Isaiah + +Smoke a friend today! +% + All he did was take the ball and run every time they called his +number -- which came to be more and more often, and in the Super Bowl Thomas +was the whole show. But the season is now over; the purse is safe in the +vault; and Duane Thomas is facing two to twenty for possession. Nobody really +expects him to serve time, but nobody seems to think he'll be playing for +Dallas next year either, and a few sporting people who claim to know how the +NFL works say he won't be playing for ANYBODY next year; that the Commissioner +is outraged at this mockery of all those Government-sponsored "Beware of Dope" +TV shots that dressed up the screen last autumn. + We all enjoyed those spots, but not everyone found them convincing. +Here was a White House directive saying several million dollars would be spent +to drill dozens of Name Players to stare at the camera and try to stop grinding +their teeth long enough to say they hate drugs of any kind... and then the best +running back in the world turns out to be a goddamn uncontrollable drugsucker. + But not for long. There is not much room for freaks in the National +Football League. Joe Namath was saved by the simple blind luck of getting +drafted by a team in New York City, a place where social outlaws are not +always viewed as criminals. But Namath would have had a very different trip +if he'd been drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +Being stoned on marijuana isn't very different from being stoned on gin. + -- Ralph Nader +% +Beware of a tall dark man with a spoon up his nose. +% +But these pills can't be habit forming; I've been taking them for years. +% +Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan. +% +Cocaine is nature's way of telling you you have too much money. +% +Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know -- I've been using it for years. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% +Cocaine's a joke! + (Who's got the next line?) +% +Cocaine: using tomorrow's energy today. +% +Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and +related hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, +entails dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take +into account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability +to influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The +history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that +can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken +for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preparations +are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful experience. + -- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD +% +Don't drop acid -- take it pass/fail. + -- Seen in a Ladies' Room at Harvard +% +Dope will get you through times of no money better that money will get +you through times of no dope. + -- Freewheelin' Franklin, "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" + [aka Gilbert Sheldon] +% + Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes of Harvard Medical School inhaled ether +at a time when it was popularly supposed to produce such mystical or +"mind-expanding" experiences, much as LSD is supposed to produce such +experiences today. Here is his account of what happened: + "I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination +to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the +thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal +march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a +sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for a moment. +The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all +human experience and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has +sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth +all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the +knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered +my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling +characters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. +The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): +`A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.'" + -- The Consumers Union Report: Licit & Illicit Drugs +% +Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route! +% +Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start +closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive +like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the music at top volume +and at least a pint of ether. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" +% +Falling in love makes smoking pot all day look like the ultimate in restraint. + -- Dave Sim, author of "Cerebus". +% +Give me libertines or give me meth. +% +Give me Librium or give me Meth. +% +Have a coke and a smile! + -- John DeLorean +% +Honest, officer, had I known my health was in jeopardy, why, I'd never have +lit one! +% +I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability +more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjunction +with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonder +child. + -- Dr. Albert Hoffman +% +I do not take drugs -- I am drugs. + -- Salvador Dali +% +I may kid around about drugs, but really, I take them seriously. + -- Doctor Graper +% +I shall come to you in the night and we shall see who is stronger -- a little +girl who won't eat her dinner or a great big man with cocaine in his veins. + -- Sigmund Freud, in a letter to his fiancee +% +I tell ya, drugs never worked out for me. The first time I tried smoking +pot I didn't know what I was doing. I smoked half the joint, got the +munchies, and ate the other half. + +Well, the first time I tried coke I was so embarrassed. I kept getting the +bottle stuck up my nose. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I would like to suggest that you not use speed, and here's why: it is +going to mess up your heart, mess up your liver, your kidneys, rot out +your mind. In general this drug will make you just like your mother +and father. + -- Frank Zappa +% +I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've +always worked for me. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +I've never had a problem with drugs; I've had problems with the police. + -- Keith Richards + +I never turn blue in anyone's bathroom. I think that's the height of bad +taste. + -- Keith Richards +% +If coke is a joke, I'm waiting around for the next line. +% +If you remember the 60's, you weren't there. +% +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 +% + Listen, Tyrone, you don't know how dangerous that stuff is. +Suppose someday you just plug in and go away and never come back? Eh? + Ho, ho! Don't I wish! What do you think every electrofreak +dreams about? You're such an old fuddyduddy! A-and who sez it's a +dream, huh? M-maybe it exists. Maybe there is a Machine to take us +away, take us completely, suck us out through the electrodes out of the +skull 'n' into the Machine and live there forever with all the other +souls it's got stored there. It could decide who it would suck out, +a-and when. Dope never gave you immortality. You hadda come back, every +time, into a dying hunk of smelly meat! But We can live forever, in a +clean, honest, purified, Electroworld. + -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" +% +LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand. +% +Marijuana is like Coors beer. If you could buy the damn stuff at a Georgia +filling station, you'd decide you wouldn't want it. + -- Billy Carter +% +Marijuana is nature's way of saying, "Hi!". +% +NO OPIUM-SMOKING IN THE ELEVATORS + -- sign in the Rand Hotel, New York, 1907 +% +Not that we needed all that stuff, but when you get locked into a serious +drug collection the tendency is to push it as far as you can. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" +% +Opiates are the religion of the upper-middle classes. + -- Debbie VanDam +% +Opium is very cheap considering you don't feel like eating for the next +six days. + -- Taylor Mead, famous transvestite +% +People who claim to know jackrabbits will tell you they are primarily +motivated by Fear, Stupidity and Craziness. But I have spent enough time in +jackrabbit country to know that most of them lead pretty dull lives; they are +bored with their daily routines: eat, fuck, sleep, hop around a bush now and +then... No wonder some of them drift over the line into cheap thrills once in +a while; there has to be a powerful adrenalin rush in crouching by the side of +a road, waiting for the next set of headlights to come along, then streaking +out of the bushes with split-second timing and making it across to the other +side just inches in front of the speeding front wheels. + Why not? Anything that gets the adrenalin moving like a 440 volt +blast in a copper bathtub is good for the reflexes and keeps the veins free +of cholesterol ... but too many adrenalin rushes in any given time-span has +the same bad effect on the nervous system as too many electro-shock treatments +are said to have on the brain: after a while you start burning out the +circuits. + When a jackrabbit gets addicted to road running, it is only a matter +of time before he gets smashed -- and when a journalist turns into a politics +junkie he will sooner or later start raving and babbling in print about things +that only a person who has Been There can possibly understand. + -- Hunter Thompson, "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail" +% +Pilots should avoid using illegal drugs. + -- AOPA's Pilot's Handbook, 1988 +% +Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs. +% +Reality is an obstacle to hallucination. +% +Reality is for people who can't deal with drugs. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Smuggling... It's not just a job, it's an adventure! + -- paid for by your local Colombian recruiting office +% +Special tonight, the best toot in town at prices you won't believe!! Also, the +finest dope, brought all the way from Columbia by spirited young adventurers. +All available tonight, as usual, in the graduate students' bullpen from 11:00 +pm on, usual terms and conditions. Faculty members especially welcome. +% +Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers. +% +Taking drugs in the 60's, I tried to reach Nirvana, but all I ever got were +re-runs of The Mickey Mouse Club. + -- Rev. Jim +% +Test for paraquat: + Take amount of grass used in one joint, and wash in 5 cc's + of water, agitating gently for 15 minutes. Strain out leaves, + leaving a brownish-yellow solution. Add 100 mg each of sodium + bicarbonate and sodium dithionite. If paraquat is present, + the solution will turn blue-green. +% +The best ways are the most straightforward ways. When you're sitting around +scamming these things out, all kinds of James Bondian ideas come forth, but +when it gets down to the reality of it, the simplest and most straightforward +way is usually the best, and the way that attracts the least attention. +Also, pouring gasoline on the water and lighting it like James Bond doesn't +work either.... They tried it during Prohibition. + -- Thomas King Forcade, marijuana smuggler +% + The radio was screaming: "Power to the People -- Right On!" John +Lennon's political song, ten years too late. "That poor fool should have +stayed where he was," said my attorney. "Punks like him only get in the +way when they try to be serious." + "Speaking of serious," I said. "I think it's about time to get +into the ether and the cocaine." + "Forget ether," he said. "Let's save it for soaking down the rug +in the suite. But here's this. Your half of the sunshine blotter. Just +chew it up like baseball gum." + I took the blotter and ate it. My attorney was now fumbling with +the salt shaker containing the cocaine. Opening it. Spilling it. Then +screaming and grabbing at the air, as our fine white dust blew up and out +across the desert highway. A very expensive little twister rising up from +the Great Red Shark. "Oh, Jesus!" he moaned. "Did you see what God just +did to us?" + -- Raoul Duke, "Rolling Stone", issue 95, Nov. 11, 1971 +% +The weed of crime bears bitter fruit... but the leaves are good to smoke! + -- The Shadow +% +Then there was LSD, which was supposed to make you think you could fly. +I remember it made you think you couldn't stand up, and mostly it was right. + -- P. J. O'Rourke +% +There's been no top authority saying what marijuana does to you. I +really don't know that much about it. I tried it once but it didn't do +anything to me. + -- John Wayne +% +There's no room in the drug world for amateurs. + -- Raoul Duke +% +They are cold-blooded. They are completely ruthless about protecting +what they have. The only thing they connect to is the money aspect of +life. Let's face it: That's the American way. + -- Jeffery M. Johnson, regional chairman of the District + of Columbia United Way, speaking of drug dealers. +% +Turn on, tune in, and take over. + -- Tim Leary +% + "We friends, yes?" The shoe shine boy put on his hustling smile +and looked into the Sailor's dead, cold, undersea eyes, eyes without a +trace of warmth or lust or hate or any feeling the boy had experienced +in himself or seen in another, at once cold and intense, impersonal and +predatory. + The Sailor leaned forward and put a finger on the boy's inner arm +at the elbow. He spoke in his dead junky whisper. "With veins like that, +Kid, I'd have myself a time!" + -- William Burroughs +% +We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the +drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit +lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible +roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all +swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a +hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was +screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?" + Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and +was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the +hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his +eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sungalsses. "Never mind," +I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great +Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point in mentioning the +bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough. + -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: + A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" +% +Whatever became of Strange de Jim? Well, he found a substitute for cocaine: +"You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrils as far as they +will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shredding hundred dollar bills." + -- Herb Caen +% +When I was young we didn't have MTV; we had to take drugs and go to concerts. + -- Steven Pearl +% +When one wants to get rid of an unsupportable pressure, one needs hashish. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +When your conscious becomes unconscious, you are drunk. +When your unconscious becomes conscious, you are stoned. +% +Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible. + -- late night industrial commercial much favored by druggies +% +Would you please have another look at my nose and put in that cocaine stuff.... + -- Adolf Hitler, quoted by Dr. Giesing in Nuremberg trial + testimony, 1947 +% +You notice that after Ginzburg admitted he had tried marijuana everyone got in +line to admit it, too. But you also notice they all said they "experimented" +with marijuana. The didn't "use" it; they "experimented" with it. Let me +tell you something -- Jonas Salk "experiments"; these guys were getting stoned! + -- Johnny Carson +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/ethnic b/fortunes/off/ethnic new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbd305e --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/ethnic @@ -0,0 +1,1092 @@ + (1) If it doesn't smell like chili, it probably isn't. + (2) If you catch an exploding manhole cover, you can keep it. + (3) Cabs driving on the sidewalk are not permitted to pick up passengers. + (4) It's bad manners to lie down inside someone else's chalk body outline. + (5) Don't lick food from a stranger's beard. + (6) Avoid paperwork for your next of kin by keeping dental records on you. + (7) Jon Gotti Always has the right of way. + (8) Yelling at cab drivers in English wastes your time and theirs. + (9) Remember: Regular hot dogs do not have fingernails. +(10) The city does not employ so called "Wallet Inspectors". + -- David Letterman, "Top Ten New York City Pedestrian Tips" +% +A 6'8", 280-pound Southerner walked into a NY bar, sat down next to a +patron, and said, "Ah'm big, and ah'm bad, and I *loves* to fuck Northern +women!" The guy was so terrified that he put down his beer and ran out +of the bar. + The Rebel moved over to the next guy and said, "Ah'm big and ah'm +bad and I *loves* to fuck New York women." The guy took one look at him, +blanched and ran out of the bar. + The man then went over to a short little guy with "Bronx" written +all over him. "Ah'm big and ah'm bad and I *loves* to fuck your sister." + The short guy looked him up and down and said, "I don't blame +you one bit. She's *got* to be an improvement on yours." +% +A fisherman from Maine went to Alabama on his vacation. He rented a boat, +rowed out to the middle of the lake, and cast his line, but when he looked +down into the water he was horrified to see a man wrapped in chains lying +on the bottom of the lake. He quickly rowed to shore and ran to the police +station. "Sheriff, sheriff," he gasped, there's a guy wrapped in chains, +drowned in the lake!" + "Now ain't that jest like a Yankee," drawled the sheriff, "to steal +more chain than he can swim with?" +% +A gourmet restaurant in Cincinnati is one where you leave the tray on +the table after you eat. +% +A lanky Texan was mad because Texas had just become the second largest state in +the Union, so he made up his mind to move to Alaska. He drove for three days +and three nights to get there and finally he came to what looked like the state +line. He halted his car and walked up to the border guard. "Hi, there! How +do I become a resident of this here biggest state?" demanded the Texan. + The guard looked him up and down and grinned. "Waal," he answered, +there are three things you gotta do to get in. First, drink down a quart of +110 proof corn liquor without blinkin'. Second, kill a grizzly bear, and +third, make love to an Eskimo woman." + "Sounds easy enough," said the Texan. "Where can I get a quart of +this here corn liquor?" + "Got one right here," replied the guard. + The Texan gulped down the whiskey without batting an eyelash. +"Now, do you happen to know where I can find me a grizzly?" + "Yep," answered the guard, "there's a big b'ar over that way, 'bout +a mile... lives in a cave on that cliff." + The Texan lurched merrily off. About an hour later he returned +with his clothes almost torn off and his face scratched and bloody. He was +smiling happily. "Now," he roared, "where's that damn Eskimo woman you +want killed?" +% +A little Mexican boy comes home from school one day and says to his grand- +father, "Granddaddy, today my teacher said that Pancho Villa, the bandit +used to raid towns around here! Did you ever know him?" + "Do *I* know Pancho Villa?" exclaims the man. "Why, boy, before +your father was born, I was riding into town on my horse. Suddenly, from +behind the bushes leaped Pancho with his six-guns drawn! He told me to get +down off the horse and to give him all my money. Then, he told me to scoop +some manure from the ground and eat it!" + "I refused at first, but Pancho had the guns, so I ate the shit. +And he started laughing so hard that it scared his horse into rearing up -- +I grabbed the guns from his hands! I said to Pancho, `Okay, Pancho, now +it's your turn -- you eat the shit!' I had the guns, so he ate the shit. + "And you ask me, child, if I know Pancho Villa, the bandit! Why, +we had *lunch* together!" +% + A man enters a pet shop, seeking to purchase a parrot. He points +to a fine colorful bird and asks how much it costs. + When he is told it costs 70,000 zlotys, he whistles in amazement +and asks why it is so much. "Well, the bird is fluent in Italian and +French and can recite the periodic table." He points to another bird +and is told that it costs 90,000 zlotys because it speaks French and +German, can knit and can curse in Latin. + Finally the customer asks about a drab gray bird. "Ah," he is +told, "that one is 150,000." + "Why, what can it do?" he asks. + "Well," says the shopkeeper, "to tell you the truth, he doesn't +do anything, but the other birds call him Mr. Secretary." + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +A man goes into a bar and begins to tell a Polish joke. The man sitting +next to him, a big hulking powerhouse, turns and says menacingly, "*I'm* +Polish." + He then calls out, "Ivan! Come over here and bring your brother." +Two men, bigger than the first, appear from the back room. + "Josef!" the man calls out, "come here a second, and bring Lendl +with you." Two more men appear, and all five men crowd around the man with +the joke. + "Now," says the first Polish man, "do you want to finish that joke?" + "Nah," says the man. + "Oh, no? And why not? I'm sure it was very funny," says the Polish +man, opening and closing his fist. "Are you scared?" + "No," replies the man. "I just don't feel like having to explain it +five times." +% + A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The +first thing he notices is that the arms are too long. + "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow +and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine." + "But the collar is up around my ears!" + "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a +little more ... that's it." + "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation. + "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you +go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly." + So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the +street. Reba and Florence see him go by. + "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!" + "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit." + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +A man is walking down the street when he sees a man with four arms, and +antennae coming out of his head. He goes up to him and says, "You're not +from around here, are you?" + "No," replies the man with the antennae. + "You know," continues the man, "I don't think you're an American, +either. In fact, I bet you don't even come from this planet!" + "Right again," says the man with four arms. "I'm from Mars." + "Well," says the man, "that's quite some configuration you've got +there, with those four arms and those antennae and everything." + "We Martians all have four arms and antennae." + "Well, that's just amazing," replies the man, "and how about that +big gold colored plate in the middle of your chest, what's that, do all +Martians have that?" + "Well, no," says the Martian. "Not the *goyim*." +% +A Mexican and a Texan worked together for a construction firm, and, +while they were good friends, they had a friendly rivalry over whose wife +was the better cook. One weekend, as the Texan's wife was out of town, the +Mexican invited the Texan to have supper with his family. + The Texan accepted, and that evening sat down to some the best stew +that he had ever eaten. + "Damn! That stew is fantastic!" he exclaimed to his host. "What +kind of meat is it?" + "Rabbeet stew," replied the Mexican. + "Rabbit?" replied the Texan. "There aren't any rabbits around here." + "Si, my freend, the rabbeets make the beeg noise, and I shoot theem." + "Rabbits don't make any noise..." + "Si, my freend, they say meeyow, meeyow!" +% +A New Yorker is riding down the road in his new Mercedes. So intent is he +on the cocaine in his hand he completely misses a turn and his car plunges +over the five-hundred-foot cliff to be smashed into pieces at the bottom. +As the on-lookers rush to the edge of the cliff they see him fifty feet +from the top of the cliff clinging to a stunted bush with all his strength. +"Dear Lord," he prays, "I never asked you for nothin' before, but I'm askin' +you now: Save me, Lord, save me." + Booms the Lord: "LET GO OF THE BRANCH." + "But Lord, if I do that, I'll fall!" + "TRUST ME, LET GO OF THE BRANCH." + "But Lord, I'm gonna fall and die..." + "TRUST ME TO SAVE YOU. LET GO OF THE BRANCH." + Okay, Lord, I'll trust you, here I... here I go!" And he falls +to his death. + "DUMB YANKEE." +% + A Pole, a Soviet, an American, an Englishman and a Canadian were lost +in a forest in the dead of winter. As they were sitting around a fire, they +noticed a pack of wolves eyeing them hungrily. + The Englishman volunteered to sacrifice himself for the rest of the +party. He walked out into the night. + The American, not wanting to be outdone by an Englishman, offered to +be the next victim. The wolves eagerly accepted his offer, and devoured him, +too. + The Soviet, believing himself to be better than any American, turned +to the Pole and says, "Well, comrade, I shall volunteer to give my life to +save a fellow socialist." He leaves the shelter and goes out to be killed by +the wolf pack. + At this point, the Pole opened his jacket and pulls out a machine gun. +He takes aim in the general direction of the wolf pack and in a few seconds +has killed them all. + The Canadian asked the Pole, "Why didn't you do that before the others +went out to be killed? + The Pole pulls a bottle of vodka from the other side of his jacket. +He smiles and replies, "Five men on one bottle -- too many." +% +A Scotsman clad in a kilt walks up to the counter in an Apothecary. From +his pocket he takes a plaid condom that has been heavily used, torn, patched, +sewn, and is currently split down one side. He asks the proprieter, "How much +to replace this, Ian?" The proprieter says, "Why, Angus, that'l be four +pence." Then the Scotsman asks, "How much to repair?" The prop. looks the +condom over carefully, and says "Three pence to repair." The Scotsman ponders +for a moment, then says, "I'll be back." + Later in the day, the Scotsman returns with a smile on his face and +says, "Ian, the Regiment has voted to repair!" +% +A sheriff arrived at the scene of the horrible accident just as his deputy, +all alone, was climbing down from the controls of a bulldozer. "Say, +Junior, what's goin' on?" asked the sheriff. + "A bus full of migrant workers went out of control and over the +cliff, and I just finished buryin' 'em," explained the deputy. + "Good work, boy," replied the sheriff. "Pretty gory work -- were +all of 'em dead?" + Junior nodded sadly and said, "Some of them said they weren't, but +you know how them Mex'cans lie." +% +A teacher announces to her class, "Children, the student who can name the +greatest man who ever lived will win a shiny red apple." + Immediately an Italian boy raises his hand. + "Yes, Tony?" + "Christopher Columbus!" says Tony. + "Well," says the teacher, "Christopher Columbus was a very great man, +but I don't think he was the greatest man who ever lived." + From the back of the room little Bernie Goldstein raises his hand. + "Yes, Bernie?" + "Jesus Christ", says Bernie. + "That is correct, Bernie," pronounces the teacher. "And here is +your apple." + When Bernie gets up to the front of the room to claim his prize, +the teacher says, "Bernie, given the fact that you're Jewish, I'm surprised +that you thought Jesus was the greatest man who ever lived." + "Well, actually," replies Bernie, "I do think Moses had the edge, +but business is business." +% +A Texan, impressing the hell out of a Bostonian with tales about the heroes +of the Alamo, commented, "I'll bet you never had anyone that brave around +*Boston*." + "Ever hear of Paul Revere?", snarled the Bostonian. + "Paul Revere?", pondered the Texan. "Isn't he the guy who ran for +help?" +% +Although a fifth-generation American, Father Sweeny was more Irish than most +of Erin's natives. He spoke with an Irish brogue which had mysteriously +appeared during his nineteenth year and he *hated* the English. Due to his +proclivity to belabor the British from his pulpit, complaints to his +superiors were not infrequent. He would blame anything evil or merely +inconvenient on the English people. If there was an act of terrorism, the +responsibility was promptly laid at the feet of the Brits. If there was a +natural disaster, undoubtedly the English government was an accessory to +the fact, if not outrightly culpable. Repeatedly, his superiors called him +on the carpet for his behavior. After a particularly vituperative +anti-British broadside, the Bishop instructed Father Sweeny to come straight +to his office; do not pass GO; do not collect two hundred dollars. Summing +up a humiliating and soul-marking reprimand, the Bishop ended with: "Next +week is Saint Patrick's Day. If you so much as *mention* the British, it's +your last sermon!" + +The following Sunday, as Father Sweeny spoke lovingly and eloquently of +Saint Patrick, and he made a reference to the last Passover celebrated by +Christ and His disciples. "Sure, an' you're all familiar with the tale. +You know that Our Lord sat at the table and told his disciples that one +among them would betray Him. As He looked around the table, He stopped at +Peter, the Rock, who said, `Not I, Lord!' He looked at Thomas, who doubted, +and Thomas said, `I could never do such a thing!' Then the Lord looked long +and hard at Judas Iscariot, who said, `Cor, bloimy, Guv'na, you couldn't +main may!'" +% +America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it +wags its tail, it knocks over a chair. + -- Arnold Joseph Toynbee +% +America is a melting pot. You know, where those on the bottom get burned, +and the scum rises to the top. + -- Utah Phillips +% + America, Russia and Japan are sending up a two year shuttle mission +with one astronaut from each country. Since it's going to be two long, lonely +years up there, each may bring any form of entertainment weighing 150 pounds +or less. The American approaches the NASA board and asks to take his 125 lb. +wife. They approve. + The Japanese astronaut says, "I've always wanted to learn Latin. I +want 100 lbs. of textbooks." The NASA board approves. The Russian astronaut +thinks for a second and says, "Two years... all right, I want 150 pounds of +the best Cuban cigars ever made." Again, NASA okays it. + Two years later, the shuttle lands and everyone is gathered outside +to welcome back the astronauts. Well, it's obvious what the American's been +up to, he and his wife are each holding an infant. The crowd cheers. The +Japanese astronaut steps out and makes a 10 minute speech in absolutely +perfect Latin. The crowd doesn't understand a word of it, but they're +impressed and they cheer again. The Russian astronaut stomps out, clenches +the podium until his knuckles turn white, glares at the first row and +screams: "Anybody got a match?" +% +[Americans] are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything +we allow them short of hanging. + -- Samuel Johnson + +America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its +tail it knocks over a chair. + -- Arnold Toynbee + +The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to +everybody and still nobody likes him. + -- Jim Samuels +% +An Aggie farmer was lifting his hogs, one by one, up to the branches of +his apple trees to graze on the apples. A Texas student walked by and +asked him, "Doesn't that take a lot of time?" + Replied the Aggie, "What's time to a hog?" +% +An American businessman in London was given special visitor's privileges at an +exclusive men's club. Striding in one afternoon, the American approached the +only other man in the lounge and tried to strike up a conversation. "Care +for a cigar?" he asked. + "No, thank you," the Englishman replied. "I tried smoking once and +didn't like it." + "Would you care to join me in the bar for a drink, then?" the +businessman asked. + "No, thank you. I tried drinking once and it didn't agree with me." + "Well, how about a game of billiards?" + "Sorry. I tried it once and couldn't seem to get the hang of it." + As the American started to turn away, the Englishman said, "But my +son will be here shortly, and I'm sure he would enjoy a game with you." + "Your son? An only child, I presume." +% +An American couple is in Paris, a much awaited trip, when suddenly the wife +dies of a heart attack. The husband decides to have her buried there as the +visit to France was something they had longed for for many years. All +arrangements are made when he suddenly realizes that he doesn't have a black +hat for the funeral. The hotel concierge tells him that what he wants is a +"chapeau noir." So off he goes to find a store open late. + First he meets a gendarme and in his fractured French asks, "M'sieur, +ou pouvais-je acheter un capeau noir?" + The policeman is a bit surprised but, after thinking a bit, gives our +friend directions. The store -- if that is what it is -- looks a little seedy +and run down, but the man behind the counter looks friendly so in goes our +hero. He speaks first: + "M'sieur, je veux acheter un capeau noir." + "Mais, monsieur, j'ai des capeaux rouges, des capeaux blancs, et des +capeaux marrons, mais pas des capeaux noires. Pourquoi avez vous besoin d'un +capeau noir?" + "Ma femme est morte." + "O Monsieur! Quelle beau sentiment!" +% + An American tourist went into a restaurant in a Spanish provincial +city and asked to be served the specialty of the house. When the dish +arrived he asked what kind of meat it contained. "These, senor," explained +the waiter in halting English, "are the cojones -- the, what you say, the +testicles -- of the bull killed in the ring today. + The tourist gulped but tasted the dish and found it delicious. +Returning the following evening, he asked for the same dish. When it was +served, he commented to the waiter, "But these -- these cojones -- are +much smaller than the ones I had yesterday." + "True, senor, but the bull -- he does not ALWAYS lose." +% +An American walks into an Irish pub around lunchtime, and finds the place +is completely filled and there are no chairs available, with the exception +of one -- seating a Chihuahua next to a woman. He very politely asks her +if she would mind placing her dog on the floor for a few minutes while he +got a quick bite to eat. + "I most certainly would!", the woman haughtily replies. "Little +Fifi *always* sits next to me at lunchtime and there she will stay!" + Whereupon, the American picks up the Chihuahua, throws it out of +an open window and takes the seat. + An Irishman, watching the whole encounter, walks over, taps the +American on the shoulder and says, "Mate, I guess I never will understand +you Americans. You drink your beer cold, drive on the right side of the +street, and you just threw the wrong bitch out the window!" +% + An Englishman, a Frenchman and an American are captured by cannibals. +The leader of the tribe comes up to them and says, "Even though you are about +to killed, your deaths will not be in vain. Every part of your body will be +used. Your flesh will be eaten, for my people are hungry. Your hair will be +woven into clothing, for my people are naked. Your bones will be ground up +and made into medicine, for my people are sick. Your skin will be stretched +over canoe frames, for my people need transportation. We are a fair people, +and we offer you a chance to kill yourself with our ceremonial knife." + The Englishman accepts the knife and yells, "God Save the Queen", +while plunging the knife into his heart. + The Frenchman removes the knife from the fallen body, and yells, +"Vive la France", while plunging the knife into his heart. + The American removes the knife from the fallen body, and yells, +while stabbing himself all over his body, "Here's your lousy canoe!" +% + An Israeli soldier was checking travelers' papers on a road, when a +man and a heavily pregnant woman on a donkey came by. "Your names please?" +said the soldier. + "My name is Mary," said the woman. + "And mine is Joseph," said the man. + "Oh," said the soldier, a little taken aback, "And where are you +going?" + "To Bethlehem." + "Your reason for going there?" + "To pay our taxes to the government." + "Tell me," said the soldier, "are you going to name the baby Jesus?" + "Of course not," said the woman, "What do you think we are, Puerto +Ricans?" +% +An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity +in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. + "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if +you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like +an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an +hour seems like a minute." + The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a +moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?" + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +As an Englishman, an Aussie and a Scotsman are sitting in a pub, quaffing +a few, three flies buzz down from the ceiling and lazily circle each drinker. +Suddenly "buzzzzzzzzplooop", each fly does a kamakazi dive into a different +glass. + The Englishman take a disgusted look at his pint, dips the fly out +with a spoon, flicks the fly over his shoulder, and drains the glass. + The Aussie notices the fly as he puts the glass to his lips. With +a quick puff he blows the bug out in a cloud of foam, and tosses the beer +down in one gulp. + Then, as they both look on, awestruck, the Scotsman gently grasps the +fly by its wings, lifts it out of his brew and shakes it off. Then, in a +firm voice he speaks to the fly: "There y'are now laddie, safe and sound. +NOW SPIT IT OOOOT!" +% +"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." +% +Back in the good ole days in Texas, when stagecoaches and the like was +popular, there were three people in a stagecoach one day: a true red- +blooded born and bred Texas gentleman, a tenderfoot city-slicker from +back East, and a beautiful and well-endowed Texas lady. The city-slicker +kept eyeing the lady, and finally he leaned forward and said, "Lady, I'll +give you $10 for a blow job." + +The Texas gentleman looked appalled, pulled out his pistol, and +killed the city-slicker on the spot. The lady gasped and said, "Thank +you, suh, for defendin' mah honor!" + +Whereupon the Texan holstered his gun and said, "Your honor, hell! +No tenderfoot is gonna come 'round here raisin' the price of women in Texas!" +% +Bernard was a young eighty-three, not a gomer, and able to talk. He'd been +transferred from MBH (Man's Best Hospital), the House's Rival. Founded in +Colonial times by the WASPs, the insemination of MBH by non-WASPs had taken +place only mid-twentieth century with the token multidextrous Oriental +surgeon, and finally, with the token red-hot internal-medicine Jew. Yet, +MBH was still Brooks Brothers, while the House was still the Garment District. +For Jews at MBH the password was "Dress British, Think Yiddish." It was +rare to get a TURF from the MBH to the House, and the Fat Man was curious: +"Bernard, you went to the MBH, they did a great work-up, and you told them, +after they got done, you wanted to be transferred here. Why?" + "I rilly don't know," said Bernard. + "Was it the doctors there? The doctors you didn't like?" + "The doctus? Nah, the doctus I can't complain." + "The test or the room?" + "The tests or the room? Vell, nah, about them I can't complain." + "The nurses? The food?" asked Fats, but Bernard shook his head no. +Fats laughed and said, "Listen , Bernie, you went to the MBH, they did this +great workup, and when I asked you why you came to the House of God, all you +tell me is, 'Nah, I can't complain.' So why did you come here? Why, Bernie, +why?" + "Vhy I come heah? Vell, said Bernie, "Heah I can complain." + -- House of God +% +Bingo, gas station, hamburger with a side order of airplane noise, +and you'll be Gary, Indiana. + -- Jessie, "Greaser's Palace" +% +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. +% +California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange. + -- Fred Allen +% +Californians are a strange people. They'll put every chemical known to God +and man up their nostrils and then laugh at you for putting sugar in your +coffee. +% +"Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target +Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." +% +Calvin: "I wonder where we go when we die." +Hobbes: "Pittsburgh?" +Calvin: "You mean if we're good or if we're bad?" +% +Canada is so square even the female impersonators are women. + -- From the movie "Outrageous" +% +Chicago has journalists' bars, ethnic bars, neighborhood bars, even midget +bars, hundreds, maybe thousands of bars, on on every neighborhood block. +I was drinking on afternoon in O'Rourke's, a bar on the Near North side. +It was dark and empty, which suited my mood. A fat, stubble-bearded, +middle-aged man waddled in, took the stool next to mine, and ordered a +beer. He was completely unremarkable, except that he was dressed, head +to toe, in a white-lace wedding gown. After a silence, I said, "Been to +a wedding?" + He brushed back his veil, rustled his petticoats and said, "Uh... +yeah." + He silently finished his drink and left. The bartender said, "You +know, even the transvestites in this town have five o'clock shadows." +% +Chicagoan: "So, where're you from?" +Hoosier: "What's wrong with Indiana?" +% +"Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day." +% +Dallas still lives. God MUST be dead. +% +France is a country where the money falls apart and you can't tear +the toilet paper. + -- Billy Wilder +% +How can you say that the world isn't Jewish, when the sun's real name is Sol? +% +How should they answer? + -- Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby) in reply to the question + "Why do Jews always answer a question with a question?" +% +I am America's child, a spastic slogging on demented +limbs drooling I'll trade my PhD for a telephone voice. + -- Burt Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance" +% +I grew up in an Italian family, you know, the strange thing about +Italians -- they're so Jewish. + -- Kay Ballard +% +I have just enough white in me to make my honesty questionable. + -- Will Rogers +% +I know why the sun never sets on the British Empire -- God wouldn't trust +an Englishman in the dark. + -- Duncan Spaeth +% +I married an Italian girl; the way you marry an Italian girl in my family +is to bring a New Yorker home first. +% +I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come +into my neighborhood after dark. + -- Dick Gregory +% +I was 15 years old before I found out that "damn yankee" was two words. +% +If God had meant for Texans to ski he would have made bullshit white. +% +If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell, I'd sell the plantation +and go home. + -- Eugene P. Gallagher +% +If there really was a Jewish conspiracy to run the world, my rabbi would +have let me in on it by now. I contribute enough to the shule. + -- Saul Goodman +% +If you live in New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +In the romantic days of Warsaw, Viennese whores were known for their +beauty and delicacy. A gallant officer picked up one such lady of the +evening, who took him to her apartment. They made delicious love all +evening before drifting to sleep in each others' arms. In the morning +the man dressed, staring into a full-length mirror. The lady lay in her +bed watching him. Finally, she said softly, + "Didn't you forget something?" + "What did I forget?" asked the officer. + "You forgot about the money," said the lady. + "Oh, no," said the man, standing at ramrod attention. "A Polish +officer never accepts money." +% +Israeli prime minister Shamir invited the Pope to play a round of golf. Since +the Pope hadn't the faintest of an idea how to play, he convened the college of +cardinals to ask their advice. "Call Arnold Palmer," they suggested, "make him +a cardinal and let him play in your place. Tell Shamir you couldn't make it." + Honored by His Holiness' request, Palmer agreed to represent him. +When he returned from the match, the Pope asked him how he had done. "I came +in second," Palmer replied. + "You mean to tell me Shamir beat you?" + "No, Your Holiness. Rabbi Nicklaus did." +% +It seems that a Scotsman and an Irishman walked into a bar. The Scot +immediately singled out the bartender and proclaimed that drinks were +on the house, and that he expected him to serve only his best. The next +day, the headlines read: Irish Ventriloquist Beaten to Death Behind Bar. +% + It was in a bar in midtown Manhattan and the Frenchman and the +American were talking about love over some dry Martinis. "Deed you know, +sir," the Frenchman said, "that een my country thair are 79 different +ways how to make the REAL, passionate luff?" + "Do tell?" said the American. "Well, that's amazing. In this +country there's only one." + "Just one?" the Frenchman said, condescendingly. "And what eez +that?" + "Well, there's a man and a woman, and --" + "Sacre bleu!!" exclaimed the Frenchman. "Numbair 80!" +% +It was the first day of a new term at Princeton, and a Texas A&M freshman +was learning his way around the campus. Stopping a distinguished looking +upperclassman, he inquired, + "Say, buddy, can you tell me where the library is at?" + "My good fellow," came the reply, "at Princeton we do not end our +sentences with a preposition." + "All right," said the freshman, "can you tell me where the library +is at, asshole?" +% + It's midnight. The old man is awake, nervously pacing the floor, as +his 20-year-old son comes in. + "Whatta you mean? You staya out alla night, you runna around widda +bums. Whatta you trying to do?" + "Papa, don't talk like that," replies the boy. + "Who-a you, tella me notta talka like that? You no work, you +chase-a bad women, whatta become of you?" + "Papa, *please* don't talk like that." + "Don'ta talka like that? Whatta you mean? Why shouldn't I talka +likka that?" + "Papa, we're not Italian." +% +It's not a sin not to be Irish, but it is a great shame. + -- Sean O'Huiginn +% + "Jean, what is this attraction between Catholic girls and Jewish men?" + "You really want to know?" + "Yeah." + "Well, Carol, Jewish men are great in bed... right, Bob? And Catholic +girls fuck like bunnies." +% +Jews always know two things: suffering and where to find great Chinese food. + -- From the movie "My Favorite Year". +% +Kansas, where the men are men, the sheep are scared and the women are grateful. +% +Living in Hollywood is like living in a bowl of granola. What ain't +fruits and nuts is flakes. +% +Morris had been down on his luck for months, and, though not a devoutly +religious man, had begun to visit the local synagogue to ask God's help. +One week, out of desperation, he prayed, "God, I've been a good and decent +man all my life. Would it be so terrible if You let me win the lottery +just once?" + The despondent fellow returned week after week. One day, Morris, +nearly hopeless now, prayed, "God, I've never asked You for anything before. +I just want to win one little lottery." + "As he dejectedly rose to leave, God's voice boomed, "Morris, at +least meet Me halfway on this. Buy a ticket!" +% +Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile. +Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures. One day, +without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation. In +an instant, armed troops surround Murray and Esther and hustle them off to +prison. + They can't prove who they are because they've left their passports +in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day and night to get +them to name their contacts in the liberation movement... Finally they're +hauled in front of a military court, charged with espionage, and sentenced +to death. + The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where they'll +be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them if they have +any last requests. Esther wants to know if she can call her daughter in +Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not possible, and turns to +Murray. + "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he +spits in the sergeants face. + "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble." + -- Arthur Naiman +% +Naches (rhymes with Bach' us, with "Bach" pronounced like the composer) +is what every Jewish parent wants from their children, lots of good +returns, good grades, good spouse, good grandchildren. + +So, now that you all understand naches, the joke: + +Two Jewish women are sitting having coffee. + "So, how's your daughter?" + "Oh, Rachel! She's fine, she just married a dentist!" + "Really? Isn't she the one that married the lawyer?" + "Yes, that's my Rachel." + "That's... that's nice. But isn't she the same one that married + the doctor?" + "Yes, that's her!" + "But didn't she marry a bank executive before that?" + "Yes, yes!" + "Ahhh. So much naches from one child!" +% +New Jersey is not the armpit of the nation; it's the asshole of the universe. + -- Jonathan Michael Smith +% +Now a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient +tribes of Judea ... but you and I know what a Jew is -- one who killed +Our Lord ... A lot of people say to me "Why did you kill Christ?" What +can I say? It was an accident. It was one of those parties that got out +of hand, you know... We killed him because he didn't want to become +a doctor, that's why we killed him. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +On an isolated stretch of beach near Cannes, a beautiful French girl threw +herself into the sea and drowned despite a young man's attempt to save her. +The man dragged the half-nude body ashore and left it on the sand while he +went to notify the authorities. Upon his return, he was horrified to find +a man making love to the corpse. + "Monsieur, monsieur," he shouted, "that woman is dead, +that woman is dead!" + "Sacre bleu," exclaimed the man, springing up. +"I thought she was an American!" +% + On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in +receipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day's +income was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than +$283 on the desk before the cashier. + "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. That +route never brought in money like this! What happened?" + "Well, after three days on that cockamamy route, I figured +business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and +worked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!" +% +On one hot dusty day in 1860, a lone Mexican bandit crossed the border into +Texas. After robbing a small bank and shooting up the town, he led the posse +on a merry chase through the desert. On the sixth day of the chase he was +apprehended. + Sheriff-to-interpreter: "Ask him where the money is." + Interpreter-to-bandit: "He wants to know where you hid the money." + Bandit-to-interpreter: "I'll never tell, never!" + Interpreter-to-sheriff: "He says he'll never tell, senor." +At this point, the sheriff loses his cool. His town has been shot up, his +bank robbed, he's spent a week in the desert tracking this guy, and now he +says he'll never tell. So he takes his pistol, jams it under the bandits' +chin, and, with the veins standing out on his neck, screams "Tell him to tell +me where the money is, or I'm gonna blow his brains all over the desert!" + Interpreter-to-bandit: "He says if you don't tell him where the + money is right now, he will kill you here." + Bandit-to-interpreter: "Do not kill me, senor, the money is hidden + under the big tree at the pass!" + Interpreter-to-sheriff: "He says you ain't got the balls..." +% +Ona day Ima gonna to Detroit to a bigga hotel. Ina morning I go down to +eat breakfast. I tella waitress I wanna two piss's toast. She bringa me +only one piss. I tella her I wanna two piss ona my plate. She says you +better no piss on the plate, you sonna bitch. I don't even know the lady +and she call me sonna bitch. Later I go out to eat at the bigga restaurant. +The waitress bring me a spoon and a knife but no fock. I tell her I wanna +fock. She tells me everone wanna fock. I tell her "you no understand", I +wanna fock on the table. She say you better not fock on the table, you +sonna bitch. So I go back to my room ina hotel and there isa no shits ona +my bed. I calla the manager and tella him I wanna shit. He tella me to go +to the toilet. I say "you no understand", I wanna shit on the bed. He say +you better no shit ona bed, you sonna bitch. I go to check out and the man +at the desk say "peace to you". I say piss on you too, you sonna bitch. I +gonna back to Italy. +% +One day on a busy street corner a huge, burly looking man walked up to a police +officer and asks, "Thcuse me offither, can you tell me where thidee-thid, and +thacramento ith?" + The police officer didn't reply at all, but just looked away. + The large man then asked again, but still no reply. After a few more +attempts which the police officer studiously ignored, the frustrated man +walked away. An onlooking pedestrian then walked up to the officer and asked, +"Officer, why didn't you tell that man where thirty-third and Sacramento was?" +The police officer replied, + "Thure, thure, and dit the thit ticked out of me!" +% +One of my favorite jokes, a telling commentary on Jewish mothers' capacity +to lay on guilt, involves the mother who gave her son two neckties on Chanuka. + The boy hurried into his bedroom, ripped off the tie he was wearing, +put on one of the ties his mother had brought him, and hurried back. "Look, +Mama! Isn't it gorgeous?" + "Mama asked, 'What's the matter? You don't like the other one?'" + -- Leo Rosten, "Hooray For Yiddish" +% +One of the first things schoolchildren in Texas learn is how to +compose a simple declarative sentence without the word "shit" in it. +% +One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God create +goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "somebody has to buy retail." + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +Our readers ask, "Why don't more WASPs go to orgies?" Well, it's really +quite simple. They don't want to have to write all those thank-you notes. +% + Rosenberg wanted to leave the country. + "And what is *your* reason?" asks the official at the Passport Office. + "I am told a pogrom is being prepared against the Jews and the +barbers," replies Rosenberg. + "Why the barbers?" + "Everybody asks that question. That's why I want to leave." +% +Rumour has it that the intrepid New Zealanders have finally discovered +two new uses for sheep. Meat and wool. +% + +Cleveland still lives. God MUST be dead. +% +Save Soviet Jewry -- Win Valuable Prizes!!!! +% +Shamus: A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the +temple, and makes sure everything is in working order. A shamus is at +the bottom of the pecking order of synagog functionaries, and there's +a joke about that: + +A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the middle of a +service, + "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" +The cantor, not to be bested, also cries out, + "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" +The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, + "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" +The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, + "Look who thinks he's nobody!" +% +So this traveling salesman got an audience with the Pope. + "Hey, father," he said, "have you heard the joke about the two +Polacks who --" + "My son," the Pope reminded him, "I'm Polish." +The salesman thought for a moment. + "That's okay, Father," he said. "I'll tell it very slowly." +% +Social interaction can be fatal. Come to Irvine and live forever. +% +State license plates we'd like to see: + + NEVADA MASSACHUSETTS + LVME 10DR OW-A CAH +LAND OF 10,00 ELVIS IMPERSONATORS THE GOOFY ACCENT STATE + + HAWAII WISCONSIN + L-O HA CHEDDAR +FRUITY UMBRELLA COCKTAIL WONDERLAND EAT CHEESE OR DIE +% +State license plates we'd like to see: + + ALABAMA ARIZONA + IC1 NOW 120 F +THE UFO SIGHTING STATE THE HEAT PROSTRATION STATE + + CONNECTICUT MISSISSIPPI + 5:36 EXP 4I4S2PS +WHERE THE SMART NY WORK FORCE LIVES THE MOST OFTEN MISSPELLED STATE + + TEXAS FLORIDA + 1-2-3 HIKE ZON KED + PLAY FOOTBALL OR DIE AMERICA'S DRUG DEALER +% +State license plates we'd like to see: + + MICHIGAN CALIFORNIA + 4-GET 74-77 EGO-MN-E-X +EMBARRASSED HOME STATE OF GERALD FORD THE SERIAL KILLER STATE + + NORTH CAROLINA NEW JERSEY + WL-GOLLY ARG GGH +HOME OF GOMER, GOOBER AND JESSE HELMS FIRST IN TOXIC WASTE + + KANSAS WASHINGTON DC + TOTO -2 $10000000 ETC +THE NOT MUCH SINCE THE WIZARD OF OZ WASTING YOUR MONEY SINCE 1810 + MOVIE STATE +% +Texas is Hell on woman and horses. + -- Wayne Oakes +% +The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish child, +was propounded to me by my father: + + "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?" +I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity gave up. + "A herring," said my father. + "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!" + "So hang it there." + "But a herring isn't green!" I protested. + "Paint it." + "But a herring isn't wet." + "If it's just painted it's still wet." + "But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, + "a herring doesn't whistle!!" + "Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it hard." + -- Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish" +% +The Israelis are the Doberman pinschers of the Middle East. They +treat the Arabs like postmen. + -- Franklyn Ajaye +% +The president publicly apologized today to all those offended by his brother's +remark, "There's more Arabs in this country than there is Jews!". Those +offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers. + -- Channel 11 News, Baltimore, on Billy Carter +% + The Soviet pre-eminence in chess can be traced to the average +Russian's readiness to brood obsessively over anything, even the arrangement +of some pieces of wood. Indeed, the Russians' predisposition for quiet +reflection followed by sudden preventive action explains why they led the +field for many years in both chess and ax murders. It is well known that as +early as 1970, the U.S.S.R., aware of what a defeat at Reykjavik would do to +national prestige, implemented a vigorous program of preparation and +incentive. Every day for an entire year, a team of psychologists, chess +analysts and coaches met with the top three Russian grand masters and +threatened them with a pointy stick. That these tactics proved fruitless +is now a part of chess history and a further testament to the American way, +which provides that if you want something badly enough, you can always go to +Iceland and get it from the Russians. + -- Marshall Brickman, Playboy, April, 1973 +% +The Soviet Union, which has complained recently about alleged anti-Soviet +themes in American advertising, lodged an official protest this week +against the Ford Motor Company's new campaign: "Hey you stinking, fat +Russian, get off my Ford Escort." + -- Dennis Miller +% +The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to +everybody and still nobody likes him. + -- Jim Samuels +% +The white race is the cancer of history. + -- Susan Sontag +% +The yankees, son, are up north. The damnyankees are down here. +% +The young Georgia miss came to the hospital for a checkup. + "Have you been X-rayed?" asked the doctor. + "Nope," she said, "but ah've been ultraviolated." +% +Then there was the Scot that wanted to rob a jewelry store -- he tossed a +brick through the show window and ran off with a king's ransom. They +caught him when he came back for the brick. +% +There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess -- and there are few +mistakes they have ever avoided. + -- Winston Churchill, Parliament, August, 1945 +% + There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that +someone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew named +Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or +Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that +every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is +this? + Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for +centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think you +can find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it's +forbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster +-- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don't +even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover +why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance. + -- Arthur Naiman +% +There was an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Newfoundlander sitting in +a bar having a few drinks together. + The Englishman turns to the Frenchman, "So tell me, what do you do to +drive your wife wild in bed?" + "Well", replies the Frenchman, "After we make love, I go out to the +garden and pick some roses. Then I take the petals off and put them all over +her body. then I gently blow them off with a soft, even breath, and that drives +her wild with desire." + "Interesting," the Englishman replies. "After my wife and I make love +I massage baby oil gently all over her body -- that works for me!" +Then the pair turn to the Newfie and ask him what he does. + "Well...", he says, "when me and the old lady are through, I jump +out of bed and wipe my dick off on the curtain. And that REALLY drives +her wild." +% +Three fine Irish lads, O'Rourke, O'Malley and O'Donnell, worked together at +the local brewery. One day, as fate would have it, O'Rourke fell into one +of the beer vats and drowned. O'Malley and O'Donnell, completely crestfallen, +had to break the news to his wife. + They went 'round the Widow O'Rourke's house and informed her that her +poor dear Patrick had drowned in a beer vat that very day. Choking back her +tears, she asked them "Tell me now, did me poor Patty suffer much?" + "I don't think so," replied O'Donnell. "He climbed out twice to take +a piss." +% +Three women and Feldstein were brought before the presiding judge. +The women had been arrested for soliciting and he'd been was arrested for +selling ties without a license. "What do you do for a living?" the judge +asked, pointing at the first girl. + "Your honor, I'm a model," she replied. + "Thirty days," was the sentence. The judge turned to the second +girl. "What do you do for a living?" he asked. + "Your honor, I'm an actress." + "Thirty days." Then he turned to the third girl. "And how about +you?" he demanded. + "Well, your honor, I'm a prostitute. I'm not proud of it, but it's +the only way I can support my mother and my children since my husband's been +laid off." + "For telling the truth," he said, "I'm going to suspend sentence. +Furthermore, here's $100 to help your family out." Now he turns to Feldstein, +arrested for selling ties illegally. "And you," he said, "what do you do +for a living?" + "Your honor, I'm a prostitute. I'm not proud..." +% +Tourist to New Yorker: + "Pardon me, sir, do you know what time it is, or should I + just go fuck myself?" +% +Two Englishmen struck up a conversation with an American in the club +car of a train headed east out of Chicago. + "I say," queried the younger Englishman, "have you ever been to +London?" + The American laughed. "It was my home for two years during the war," +he said. "Had some of the wildest times of my life in that old town." + The older Englishman, a little hard of hearing, asked, "What did +he say, Reggie?" + "He said he's been to London, father," the younger Englishman +replied. + After a little lull in the conversation, the young man asked, "You +didn't, by any chance, meet a Hazel Wimbleton in London, did you?" + The American almost fell off his chair. "Hot Pants Hazel!" he +exclaimed. "My God, I shacked up with that horny broad for three months +just before I came back to the States!" + "What did he say, Reggie?" the older Englishman wanted to know. + "He says he knows Mother," the younger Englishman responded. +% +Two Finns and a penguin are sitting on the front porch of a large house. The +penguin is dripping in sweat; his owner looks down and says to the other Finn, +"Hey Urho, I want that you should take the penguin to the zoo, okay?" The +owner then runs off to the sauna. When he gets out of the sauna, he looks +up at the porch, and sure enough, there is Urho and the penguin, sweating +away. So he yells out "Hey, Urho, I thought I told you to take the penguin to +the zoo, I did." And Urho yells back "Yup, and tomorrow we're going to +the movies!" +% +Two friends, an Italian boy and a Jewish boy, come of age at the same time. +The Italian boy's father presents him with a brand-new pistol. On the other +side of town, at his Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish boy receives a beautiful gold +watch. + The next day, in school, the two boys are showing each other what +they got. It turns out that each boy likes the other's present better, and +so they trade. + That night, the Italian boy is at home and his father sees him +looking at his new watch. "Where did you getta thatta watch?" he asks. + The boy explains the trade, and the father blows his top. "Whatta +you? Stupidda boy? Whatsa matta you!" + "Somma day, you maybe gonna getta married. Then maybe somma day +you gonna comma home and finda you wife inna bed with another man. Whatta +you gonna do then? Looka atta you watch and say, `How longa you gonna be?'" +% +Two Russian friends happen to meet in Red Square. One of them says, "By +the way, did you hear that Romanov died?" + "No," replied the other, "I didn't even know he'd been arrested!" +% +Two Swedish guys get of a ship and head for the nearest bars. Each one +orders two vodkas and immediately downs them. They they order two more +and once again quickly throw them back. They then order two more. When +they arrive, one of them picks up his glass, and, turning to the other, +toasts him, "Skoal!" + The other turns to the first man and scolds, "Hey! Did you come +here to screw around, or did you come here to drink?" +% +Very few blacks will take up golf until the requirement for plaid pants is +dropped. + -- Franklyn Ajaye +% +W. Lafayette may not be the asshole of the universe... + but you sure as hell can see it from there! +% +We Americans, we're a simple people... but piss us off, and we'll bomb +your cities. + -- Robin Williams +% +When they tell me to stick it where the sun don't shine, I put it in Oregon. +% +World War III is about to break out, but hidden somewhere in Switzerland, +a small group of international statesmen are trying to avert disaster. +The key members of this group are the representatives from Moscow, Bonn, and +Jerusalem, who, despite their personal enmity, manage to forge a peaceful +settlement, at the last moment. As the treaty is signed, and the war +postponed, almost entirely through the efforts of those three men, an angel +appears. "The earth is saved through the efforts of these three men! +Therefore, I will grant each of them their heart's desire!" + So, the angel asks the German for his wish, and the German, recalling +the nearness of their disaster, and perceiving the cause to have been the +Russians, immediately says "I wish there were no more Russians!" And God +said, "It will be done." + The angel asks the Russian for his wish, which, of course, is "*I* +wish there were no more Germans!" Replies the angel, "It will be done." + So the angel asks the Jew for his wish. The Jew is in a state of +shock. "Will you really grant the German's wish?" he asks, and the angel +avers. "And the Russian's, too?" The angel avers yet again. Then the Jew +thinks a moment, leans back and says, "In that case, I think I'd like a small +cup of coffee." +% +You always introduce the younger person to the older person, using the +wording: "Miss Brown, I'd like to introduce you to an older person" +(unless her name is not "Miss Brown"). If you do not know a person's +age, ask for a driver's license and a major credit card. If you are +introduced to a member of a minority group, use the "high-five" style +handshake, followed by a remark designed to show you don't mind a bit, +such as "I see you are a (name of a minority group)! Good!" + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +You are now in Atlanta, Georgia. Please set your clocks back 200 years. +% +You can bring men from other parts of the world who are sane. And you +know what happens? At the very moment they cross those mountains... +they go mad. Instantaneously and automatically, at the very moment +they cross the mountains into California, they go insane. + -- Quentin Genter +% +You've got to pity New Mexico... so far from heaven and so close to Texas. +% +Roumanian-Yiddish cooking has killed more Jews than Hitler. + -- Zero Mostel +% +To a Californian, the basic difference between the people and the pigeons +in New York is that the pigeons don't shit on each other. + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +Q: Why is it that Mexico isn't sending anyone to the '84 summer games? +A: Anyone in Mexico who can run, swim or jump is already in LA. + diff --git a/fortunes/off/fortunes b/fortunes/off/fortunes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a02f794 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/fortunes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +Obviously the only rational solution to your problem is suicide. +% +You will be dead within a year. +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/hphobia b/fortunes/off/hphobia new file mode 100644 index 0000000..48159a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/hphobia @@ -0,0 +1,405 @@ +A '49er walked into the saloon at Bloody Gulch. He'd been prospecting for +more than a year. + "Hey! Y'got any wimmen around here?" + "Nope," the bartender replied, "But there's George in the back room." + "I don't go for that kind of thing," the prospector scowled. He +downed his drink and left disgustedly. +A few months passed before the miner found his way down the mountain again. +He stumbled into the tavern and asked the bartender, "Any wimmen pass through +this part of town?" + "Nope. Nary a one. But we still got George in the back room." + Angry, the miner shouted, "I told you I don't go for that kind of +thing," and turned on his heel and left. + Within a year he came back from his mine again. With a wild look on +his face he re-entered the saloon. Leaning over the bar he whispered to the +bartender, "If I was to go into the back room with George, how many people +'round here would know?" + "Oh," the bartender said, scratching his chin, "'bout seven, I guess." + "Seven!?" + "Yep. You, me, George, and the four men holdin' him down. You see, +George don't go for that kind of thing neither." +% +A genius is a queer who can whistle while he works. + -- Bobby Knight +% +A huge Rambolike fellow walked into a tavern and took a seat in the middle of +the bar. After downing a double in one gulp, he glared at the six men to his +right and said, "You're all no-good motherfuckers. Anyone have a problem with +that?" + When no one said a word, the brawny fellow ordered another whiskey, +downed it in one gulp, turned to the five men on his left and said, "You're +all cocksuckers. Anyone have a problem with that?" + Everybody on the left stared silently into his drink. Suddenly, a man +on the right stood up and started walking toward the big guy. "Hey, asshole!" +the thug bellowed. "You got a problem with what I said?" + "No problem at all," came the reply. "I was just sitting at the wrong +end of the bar." +% +A lisping fag fell off a pleasure yacht and began to scream. "Help! Help, I +can't thwim!" One of the other passengers heard the caterwauling and leaned +over the rail, remarking, "Really, there's no need to scream. Just reach out +and grab that buoy near you." To which the floundering sodomite answered, +"Buoy! Oh, thith ith no time for thekth, you degenerate... I'm dwowning!" +% +A man rushed into a bar and breathlessly asked the bartender to pour him +three straight scotches. The bartender complied, and watched as he downed +them one after another. + "Why three scotches?" the bartender asked as he paused for breath. + "Well, to be honest, I'm celebrating my first blow-job." + "Hell, congratulations, the next one's on me." + "No, thanks," the young man replied, "if the first three didn't get +the taste out of my mouth, I don't think another one will." +% + A man walks into a bar and orders 3 shots and 3 beers. The +bartender, seeing that the man is distraught, asks what the problem is. + "I just found out that my brother is gay", he replies. + About a week later, the same man walks in and orders 6 shots and +6 chasers. So the bartender inquires, "What's wrong this time?" + To which the man says, "I just found out that two of my brothers +are lovers." + Another week goes by and the man comes back to the bar and orders +NINE shots and NINE beers. The bartenders says "Damn, boy, doesn't anyone +in your family like pussy?" + "Yeah. Me and my sister." +% +A ten-year-old kid came home from school one day, and when his mom +asked how was school he says: "Gee, great, mom. I got laid!" + She's shocked and sends him upstairs, where his dad finds him after +work. "Mommy told me about your day at school, Billy, and I think we men +should keep it a secret. Women just don't understand these things." + So every night Dad goes up to Billy's room after Mom tucks him in: +"You get laid today, Billy?" + "Yeah, Dad." + "How was it?" + "Real neat, Dad, I liked it a lot." + "Good Boy!". + A month later: "You get laid today?" + "No, Dad." + "No? How come?" + "Gee, Dad, my ass is getting really sore." +% +A young man walks into a bus station, and goes into the men's room to relieve +himself. When he steps in he sees a leprechaun with the most enormous penis +he has ever seen. As he urinates, he cannot avoid spying on the giant member +of the tiny man dressed in green. The leprechaun zips up and the man asks him +if he is indeed a real leprechaun. + The little man says, "Aye, me laddie, I'm a leprechaun, and I can +grant you three wishes." + "Oh, wow!" comes the reply, "What do I need to do?" + "Well, havin' such a large cock makes it a bit awkward with the +ladies, the thing not fittin' and all... I'll grant you your three wishes +if you wouldn't mind suckin' me dick 'til I come." The man is a bit taken +aback, but agrees, realizing that the three wishes will be priceless. After +the tiny fellow has come, he starts to walk away. + The man exclaims, "Hey, what about my three wishes?" + Replies the leprechaun, "How old are you, me boy?" + "25." + "Aren't you a wee bit old to be believin' in leprechauns?" +% +Another stupid gay joke!!! + You see, this gay man walks into a Texas bar and orders a strawberry +daquiri. The bartender looks him over with amusement and says: "We don't +serve your kind, buddy, why don't you get out of here before the boys come +in and kick your ass?" + The guy whimpers a little and lisps, "Pleasse misssture I am soooo +thurstay...." + Well, the bartender feels somewhat sorry for him and hands him a beer +on the house on the condition that he drink it in the back and leave as soon +as he's done. A little while later, a hulking cowboy walks in and up to the +bar. He slams his fist on the bar and hollers, "I'm so thirsty, I could +lick the sweat off of a bulls' balls!" + From the back of the bar comes the cry... "Moo, moo, buckaroooooo!!!" +% + Bubba, Jim Bob, and Leroy were fishing out on the lake last November, +and, when Bubba tipped his head back to empty the Jim Beam, he fell out of the +boat into the lake. Jim Bob and Leroy pulled him back in, but as Bubba didn't +look too good, they started up the Evinrude and headed back to the pier. + By the time they got there, Bubba was turning kind of blue, and his +teeth were chattering like all get out. Jim Bob said, "Leroy, go run up to +the pickup and get Doc Pritchard on the CB, and ask him what we should do". + Doc Pritchard, after hearing a description of the case, said "Now, +Leroy, listen closely. Bubba is in great danger. He has hy-po-thermia. Now +what you need to do is get all them wet clothes off of Bubba, and take your +clothes off, and pile your clothes and jackets on top of him. Then you all +get under that pile, and hug up to Bubba real close so that you warm him up. +You understand me Leroy? You gotta warm Bubba up, or he'll die." + Leroy and the Doc 10-4'ed each other, and Leroy came back to the +pier. "Wh-Wh-What'd th-th-the d-d-doc s-s-say L-L-Leroy?", Bubba chattered. + "Bubba, Doc says you're gonna die." +% + Elroy stared at Barb and then leaned quietly over to Shake Tiller +and stuck out his hand. "Son," he said. "Tell the truth. It ain't better +than fried chicken, is it?" + Shake looked solemnly at Elroy, clasping his hand, and said: + "I got to be dead honest, Roy." + And Elroy said yeah, lay it on him. + Shake said slowly, "For a Lesbian who gave up the only real love she +ever knew -- Sister Francis at Our Lady of Victory -- and for a person who +can't make it any more with nothing but an electric toothbrush, she's the +finest I've ever had." + -- Dan Jenkins, "Semi-Tough" +% +Everyone: "Australia, Australia, Australia, Australia, we love you, + Amen!" +Bruce: "Another two! (Bottles opening.) Any questions?" +Bruce: "New-Bruce, are you a Poofter?" +Bruce: "Are you a Poofter?" +New-Bruce: "No!" +Bruce: "No. Right, I just want to remind you of the faculty rules: + Rule One!" +Everyone: "NO POOFTERS!" +Bruce: "Rule Two, no member of the faculty is to maltreat the Abbos + in any way at all -- if there's anybody watching. Rule Three?" +Everyone: "NO POOFTERS!" +Bruce: "Rule Four, now this term, I don't want to catch anybody not + drinking. Rule Five..." +Everyone: "NO POOFTERS!" +Bruce: "Rule Six, there is NO... Rule Six. Rule Seven..." +Everyone: "NO POOFTERS!" +Bruce: "Right, that concludes the readin' of the rules, Bruce. This + here's the wattle, the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a + bottle, you can hold it in your hand. Amen! + -- Monty Python +% +Female ballet dancers are the bravest girls around. Who else would take a +flying leap into the arms of a homosexual and expect to be caught? + -- Rita Rudner +% +For months the loving newlywed had asked his blushing bride to perform oral +sex on him, but to no avail. His sweet entreaties never worked, for she was +simply too innocent and inexperienced to even *think* of such a thing, let +alone attempt it. But a year of gentle persistence finally paid off, and +one night his darling nervously but lovingly performed the act. When it was +over, she looked deeply into his eyes, blushed, and asked, "How was I, +sweetheart?" + He looked at her and replied, "How should I know -- I'm no cocksucker!" +% +He was so gay he'd never lean his ass on a baseball bat -- scared it'd get +serious. +% + "Hello, Police Department." + "This is Thomas Parrish, 903 Sylvester Court. I've just been sexually +molested by a pervert, right here in my own home. It was horrifying!" + "Just remain calm, sir, and tell me about it." + "Well, the man came in the window wearing a ski mask. I was napping +on the bed, in just my pajamas, and the TV set was on so I didn't hear anything. +Suddenly he had his great big old callused hand over my mouth, holding me down. +I tried to scream... he was pulling my pants off. I was so frightened! He +held a knife to my throat and undressed so quickly. What could I do? I +couldn't stop him. He was huge. A great, hairy, beefy man, more than fifty +pounds heavier than I am, and hung like... Oh! it was terrible. He had an +erection, and he knelt on my shoulders and forced the awful thing down my +throat; forced me to suck it. Yes, officer! There was no escaping this man. +Finally, when I thought I would faint, he got off me and turned me over on +my tummy, forcing my legs apart with his knees, and oh! I'm so embarrassed to +say it, he put that huge thing... It must have been a foot long, and I don't +know how thick... into my... Just a minute." + "What's the matter, mister?" + "Listen, I have to hang up now, he's getting out of the shower." +% +HEY KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: + A great way to prevent the tragedy of unwanted pregnancy is to +become a homosexual. Every year, millions of young men and women, just +like you, are making the clean change to worry-free homosexuality. +They're having more sex than ever, and more fun than ever. Send 50 cents +today for my leaflet "Gay sexual techniques". Be sure to specify the +male or female edition. +% +If God doesn't destroy San Francisco, He should apologize to Sodom and +Gomorrah. +% +In a recent survey on why some men are homosexual, 82 percent of the gay +chaps responding said that either genetics or home environment was the +principal factor. The remaining 18 percent revealed that they had been +sucked into it. +% +In San Francisco, Halloween is redundant. + -- Will Durst +% + Liberace was at heaven's gate when Saint Peter told him that he'd been +disqualified from entering. + Stunned, Liberace asked, "Why?" + "Our records show that you once ate a parakeet," Saint Peter answered. + "I never did that," Liberace replied. "Can't you check your records? +They *must* be wrong!" + "It says right here that on August 15, 1981, you ate a chartreuse +parakeet with black trim." + "Hey, listen, you must be thinking of Ozzy Osbourne, " Liberace +replied. "Now, I might have had a cockatoo..." +% +Little Boy Blew... he needed the money. +% +One fall day, two men were out in the woods hunting. Feeling a sudden need +to relieve himself, George went over to a nearby clump of bushes, unzipped +his fly, and started in when a poisonous snake lunged out of the bushes and +bit him on his penis. Hearing George's howl of pain and fright, his friend +Fred came running up and told him to lie still while he used the radio to +call a doctor. + "There's only one way to save your friend's life," said the doctor +gravely. "If you cut a shallow 'X' over the bite and then suck as much of +the poison out as you can, he'll probably be okay, but otherwise there's not +much hope." + Hearing Fred's footsteps, George rose weakly up on one elbow and +cried out, "Fred, what'd he say? What did the doctor say?" + "George, old friend," said Fred sadly, "he said you're gonna die." +% +Out on the great American desert one day, a bald eagle reached a +state of great libidal distress. Pickings were slim, but in time, he saw a +dove flying by. "Better than nothin'", he muttered (birds in jokes can mutter) +and swooped down, grabbed the dove and flew to his nest. Feathers flew, and +eventually the dove tottered to the edge of the cliff and shouted (yes, they +shout, too): + "I'm a dove! I've been loved! And I LIKE it!" + Well, this took care of the old boy for a while but soon enough he +was at it again. All he could find was a lark, so away he went, and feathers +flew and soon the lark tottered to the edge of the cliff and shouted: + "I'm a lark! I've been sparked! And I LIKE it!" + As you can guess, some time later our friend was again in need of +amor... lib... you know! This time, all that happened by was... a duck! +So down he swooped, and feathers flew, and the next thing seen is the duck +tottering to the cliffside and shouting: + "I'M A DRAKE! THERE'S BEEN A MISTAKE! AND I DON'T LIKE IT!!! +% + Sam Lefkovitz is having an intimate party to celebrate his thirty +immensely profitable years in the construction business. + "You know," he laments to his friends, "over the years I have +constructed dozens of enormous projects in and around this city, but +am I known as Sam the Builder? No. + And over the years I have contributed literally millions of +dollars to charitable causes of one sort or another, but am I called +Sam the Philanthropist? No sir! + But suck one little cock..." +% +The most difficult thing about surviving AIDS is trying to convince +your parents that you're Haitian. +% +The new rooster caused a great stir in the barnyard. From resplendent comb +to defiant spurs, he was the picture of young bantamhood. Almost immediately +upon arrival, he was greeted by and elderly rooster who took him behind the +barn and whispered in his ear: "Young fellow, I'm long past my prime. All I +want now is peace and solitude. So you take over right now as ruler of the +roost with my blessings." + The newcomer did just that. He went about his squirely duties as only +a young rooster could. After several days, however, the elder rooster again +took the young champion behind the barn. "Kid," he said, "the hens are after +me for giving up my position so readily. So why don't we have a race, say, +ten laps around the farmhouse? The winner becomes undisputed keeper of the +henhouse and the hens will stop nagging me. + The young rooster, with only contempt for his elder, agreed. +Surprisingly, the older one jumped off to an early lead. His counterpart, +weakened by the activities of the previous week, was never quite able to +overtake him. As they rounded the barn for the fourth time, the elder rooster +maintained a formidable lead. + Suddenly, a shotgun blast rang out. The young rooster fell in the +dust, his plumage riddled with buckshot. + "Dammit, Emmy," said the farmer. "That's the last rooster we buy +from Ferguson. Four of 'em this month, and every one's been queer." +% +The San Francisco police are nothing if not sensitive to the mood of the +community. The word is that Dirty Harry has been replaced by Bitchy Gerald. +% +The warden of the De Luxington preparatory school for boys was holding a +hearing. The lad before his desk, a very popular young fellow, was angrily +accusing one of his schoolmates of having assaulted him sexually. + "I must warn you, m'boy, this is a very serious charge, the warden +said. + "I don't care. I tell you it is true. He raped me, warden." The +youth pointed to another, somewhat larger boy smirking in the corner. +"That's him, sir, the one who forced me to do all those crimes against +nature. The bully!" + "Now tell me, son, as closely as you can, when this happened." + "Sir, two weeks ago on Wednesday at 4:00, then at 7:00 that same +evening, on Friday, twice on Saturday, two times on Monday, once on +Wednesday, and then he met that bitch Roy and he hasn't touched me since." +% +Then there was the girl whose boyfriend didn't smoke, drink or +swear, and never, ever made a pass at her. He also made his own dresses. +% +There is a new model of car being sold in San Francisco -- the pervertible. +The top doesn't go down, but the driver does. +% + This guy is taking a leak in a public men's room when a man enters +with his arms held out from his sides, bent at the elbows with his hands +dangling awkwardly, and comes over to him. + "Would you do me a favor and unzip my fly?" he asks. + Figuring the man to be a poor cripple, perhaps an accident victim, +the guy obliges, not without a flush of embarrassment when the man next +requests that he take out his prick and hold it in the appropriate position. + "Shake it off" is the next instruction, then "zip me up," and the +guy follows orders, wincing at his own embarrassment and at the shame of +being so helpless. + "Say, thanks," says the man, flouncing to the door. "I can't do a +*thing* 'til my nails dry!" +% + Two gay guys, Larry and Phil, were driving down the highway when they +were rear-ended by a huge semi. Somewhat shaken, they maneuvered over to the +side of the road, where Phil instructed Larry to get out and confront the truck +driver. "Tell him we're going to sue, sue, sue!" he shrieked. + Obligingly, Larry got out and went around to the cab of the truck to +deliver this message to the huge, burly driver, whose response was to snarl, +"Ah, why doncha suck my cock." + "Phil," said Larry, coming back to their car, "I think we're going +to be able to settle out of court." +% +Two gentlemen met at the club after a long absence and talked. + "Did you hear about Chumley?", one asked. + "No, old man, what about him?" + "Last seen in Africa, you know." + "No, I didn't." + "Yes. Appalling. Ran off with a gorilla. Fallen in love." + "Queer." + "Not Chumley. Female gorilla." +% +Two men and a woman were stranded on a desert island -- + +Two weeks later, the woman was so ashamed of what she had been doing, +she committed suicide. + +Two weeks later, the men were so ashamed of what they had been doing, +they buried her. + +Two weeks later, the men were so ashamed of what they had been doing, +they dug her back up. +% +Visiting a lawyer for advice, the wife said, "I want you to help me obtain a +divorce. My husband is getting a little queer to sleep with." + +What do you mean?" asked the attorney. "Does he force you to indulge +in unusual sex practices?" + +"No, he doesn't," replied the woman, "and neither does the little queer." +% +Well, it seems that there was this traveling saleswoman whose car broke +down, late at night, in the middle of a torrential downpour. Hoping to +find a phone she ran to a nearby farmhouse. When she was unable to find +a garage still open, the farmer told her that, while they were short of +beds, she could sleep with his daughter. The daughter proved to eighteen +and beautiful. So they went to bed, and shortly afterward, the saleswoman +rolled over toward the daughter and said, "Dear, I'm sure that you're aware +that some women like... to be with... other women. Let me be frank..." + "No!" interrupted the daughter, sternly. "This time *I* want to +be Frank!" +% + WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU MEET A QUEER PERSON: + HINTS FOR HETEROSEXUALS + + +1. Do not run screaming from the room. This is rude. + +2. If you must back away, do so slowly and with discretion. + +3. Do not assume she/he is attracted to you. + +4. Do not assume he/she is not attracted to you. + +5. Do not assume that you are not attracted to her/him. + +6. Do not expect him/her to be as excited about meeting a straight + person as you may be about meeting a queer person. + -- ae606@freenet.carleton.ca (Victoria Edwards) + [soc.women.lesbian-and-bi] +% +Women's Libbers are OK. I just wouldn't want my sister to marry one. +% +You'll be a guest at a gay party that will have important consequences for you. +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/knghtbrd b/fortunes/off/knghtbrd new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2bcea58 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/knghtbrd @@ -0,0 +1,59 @@ + red dye causes cancer, haven't you heard? (; + fucking everything causes cancer, haven't you heard? + => + no, that causes aids +% + Europe Passes Pro-spam Law + I though only Americans were that fucking stupid => + apparently americans are quite naive :) +% +// Minor lesson: don't fuck about with something you don't fully understand + -- the dosdoom source code +% +"I am ecstatic that some moron re-invented a 1995 windows fuckup." + -- Alan Cox +% + Exactly how much of a PITA is this in C? + It's written in C++. + Hence my question. + I could do something like it in C. Anyone who saw the results + would think I was either a genius or out of my fucking mind. + They'd be right on either count. +% + *sigh* My todo list is like the fucking energizer bunny + It keeps growing and growing and growing and ... +% + It is when the example source won't compile ... +<``Erik> then you fucked something up + Nope, I followed their instructions +<``Erik> that may've been your problem :} +% + that's *IT*. I'm never fucking attempting to install redhat + again. + this is like the 10th fucking machine on which the installer has + imploded immediately after I went through the hell of their + package selection process. + Sammy: just use debian and never look back + timball: debian iso's are being written at this very moment. +% + these stupid head hunters want resumes in ms word format + can you write shit in tex and convert it to word? + \converttoword{shit} +% + who gives a shit about US law + anyone living in the US. +% + this is college course in formal logic + knghtbrd: i hate that shit, much prefer fuzzy logic :) + kev: fuzzy logic tickles. + knghtbrd: lol + knghtbrd: fuzzy logic is so cool, it models the world really well +% +* knghtbrd ponders how to scare the living shit out of 87 people at once.. + AHH! I can do it in 3 words!: + Microsoft Visual COBOL. +% + linux takes shit and turns it into something useful. + windows takes something useful and turns it into shit +% + Fuck, I can't compile the damn thing and I wrote it ! diff --git a/fortunes/off/limerick b/fortunes/off/limerick new file mode 100644 index 0000000..17177ec --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/limerick @@ -0,0 +1,6370 @@ + 1/3 + /\(3) + | 2 1/3 + | t dt cos(3 * PI / 9) = ln (e ) + | + \/ 1 + +The integral of t squared, dt +From 1 to the cube root of 3 + Times the cosine + Of 3 PI over nine +Is the log of the cube root of e +% + (1/2) + / 3 + | 3 1 3 x PI (1/2) + | t dt - cos (------) = ln(e ) + / 1 2 9 + +The integral, from one to root three, +Of t to the third dt, + Times half the cosine + Of 3 pi over nine +Is the log of the square root of e. +% + 1/2 + 12 + 144 + 20 + 3(4) 2 + ---------------------- + 5(11) = 9 + 0 + 7 + +A dozen, a gross and a score, +Plus three times the square root of four, + Divided by seven, + Plus five times eleven, +Equals nine squared plus zero, no more! +% +A bad little girl in Madrid, +A most reprehensible kid, + Told her Tante Louise + That her cunt smelled like cheese, +And the worst of it was that it did! +% +A bather whose clothing was strewed +By breezes that left her quite nude, + Saw a man come along + And, unless I'm quite wrong, +You expected this line to be lewd. +% +A beat schizophrenic said, "Me? +I am not I, I'm a tree." + But another, more sane, + Shouted, "I'm a Great Dane!" +And covered his pants leg with pee. +% +A beautiful belle of Del Norte +Is reckoned disdainful and haughty + Because during the day + She says: "Boys, keep away!" +But she fucks in the gloaming like forty. +% +A beautiful lady named Psyche +Is loved by a fellow named Ikey. + One thing about Ike + The lady can't like +Is his prick, which is dreadfully spikey. +% +A beetling young woman named Pridgets +Had a violent abhorrence of midgets; + Off the end of a wharf + She once pushed a dwarf +Whose truncation reduced her to fidgets. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A big-bosomed Bunny named Gression +Sold cigars at a key-club concession. + When she swiveled about + Even strong men cried out, +For her costume did not keep her flesh in. +% +A bisexual chap name of Lunt +Taught himself an unusual stunt. + He could peel back his spout + Turn the skin inside out +Like a glove, to be used as a cunt! +% +A bobby of Nottingham Junction +Whose organ had long ceased to function + Deceived his good wife + For the rest of her life +With the aid of his constable's truncheon. +% +A broken-down harlot named Tupps +Was heard to confess in her cups: + "The height of my folly + Was fucking a collie -- +But I got a nice price for the pups." +% +A burlesque dancer, a pip +Named Virginia, could peel in a zip; + But she read science fiction + And died of constriction +Attempting a Moebius strip. + -- Cyril Kornbluth, "The Unfortunate Topology" +% +A busy young lady named Gloria +Was had by Sir Gerald du Maurier + And then by six men, + Sir Gerald again, +And the band at the Waldorf-Astoria. +% +A cabin boy on an old clipper +Grew steadily flipper and flipper. + He plugged up his ass + With fragments of glass +And thus circumcised his old skipper. +% +A cautious young fellow named Lodge, +Had seatbelts installed in his Dodge. + With his date all strapped in + He committed a sin +Without even leaving the garage. + -- "A Boy and His Dog" +% +A cautious young fellow named Tunney +Had a whang that was worth any money. + When eased in half-way, + The girl's sigh made him say, +"Why the sigh?" "For the rest of it, honey." +% +A certain young man, it was noted, +Went about in the heat thickly-coated; + He said, "You may scoff, + But I shan't take it off; +Underneath I am horribly bloated." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A certain young person of Ghent, +Uncertain if lady or gent, + Shows his organs at large + For a small handling charge +To assist him in paying the rent. +% +A certain young sheik of Algiers +Said to his harem, "My dears, + Though you may think it odd of me, + I'm tired of just sodomy +Let's try straight fucking." (loud cheers!) +% +A chap down in Oklahoma +Had a cock that could sing La Paloma, + But the sweetness of pitch + Couldn't put off the hitch +Of impotence, size and aroma. +% +A charmer from old Amarillo, +Sick of finding strange heads on her pillow, + Decided one day + That to keep men away +She would stuff up her crevice with Brillo. +% +A chippy who worked in Black Bluff +Had a pussy as large as a muff. + It had room for both hands + And some intimate glands, +And was soft as a little duck's fluff. +% +A clergical student named Simms +Hums liturgical tunes while he rims: + A nice piece of ass + Gets the B-Minor Mass ... +All the others get Anglican hymns. +% +A clerical student named Pryne +Through pain sought to reach the divine: + He wore a hair shirt, + Quite often ate dirt, +And bathed every Friday in brine. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A clever young man named Eugene +Invented a jack-off machine. + On the twenty-third stroke + The fuckin' thing broke +And beat both his balls to a cream. +% +A cocksucking steno named Beeman +Remarked as she swallowed my semen : + "On my minuscule salary + I must watch every calorie, +So I get `ahead' eating you he-men!" +% +A computer called Illiac4 +Had a rather tough bug in its core. + It chewed up its cards + And spewed yards and yards +Of illegible tape on the floor. +% +A computer, to print out a fact, +Will divide, multiply, and subtract. + But this output can be + No more than debris, +If the input was short of exact. + -- Gigo +% +A contortionist hailing from Lynch +Used to rent out his tool by the inch. + A foot cost a quid -- + He could and he did +Stretch it to three in a pinch. +% +A corpulent maiden named Kroll +Had a notion exceedingly droll: + At a masquerade ball, + Dressed in nothing at all, +She backed in as a Parker House roll. +% +A couple was fishing near Clombe +When the maid began looking quite glum, + And said, "Bother the fish! + I'd rather coish!" +Which they did -- which was why they had come. +% +A cowhand way out in Seattle +Had a dooflicker flat as a paddle. + He said, "No, I can't fuck + A lamb or a duck, +But golly! it just fits the cattle." +% +A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison +And had an affair with a Saracen. + She was not oversexed, + Or jealous or vexed, +She just wanted to make a comparison. +% +A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison +And had an affair with a Saracen. + She was not oversexed, + Or jealous or vexed, +She just wanted to make a comparison. +% +A CS student named Lin +Had a prick the size of a pin + It was no good for girls + But just great for squirrels +Who squealed with delight with it in. +% +A cute little twerp from Samoa +Had a cock of one inch and no moa. + It was good for keyholes + And debutantes' peeholes +But not worth a damn on a whoa. +% +A daredevil skater named Lowe, +Leaps barrels arranged in the snow, + But is proudest of doing, + Some incredible screwing, +Since he's jumped thirteen girls in a row! +% +A deep-throated virgin named Netty +Was sucking a cock on the jetty. + She said, "It tastes nice, + Much better than rice, +Though not quite as good as spaghetti." +% +A delighted, incredulous bride +Remarked to her groom at her side : + "I never could quite + Believe till tonight +Our anatomies would coincide." +% +A dentist, young doctor Malone, +Got a charming girl patient alone, + And, in his depravity, + Filled the wrong cavity. +God, how his practice has grown. +% +A despairing old landlord named Fyfe, +With a frigid and quarrelsome wife, + Let his third-story front, + To a willing young cunt, +Who supplied him a new lease on life! +% +A desperate spinster from Clare +Once knelt in the moonlight all bare, + And prayed to her God + For a romp on the sod-- +'Twas a passerby answered her prayer. +% +A distinguished professor from Swarthmore +Got along with a sexy young sophomore. + As quick as a glance + He stripped off his pants, +But he found that the sophomore'd got off more. +% +A do-it-yourselfer named Alice, +Used a dynamite stick for a phallus. + She blew her vagina + To South Carolina, +And her tits landed somewhere in Dallas. + +A cute friend of hers, Fanny Hill, +Used two dynamite sticks for a dil. + They found her vagina, + In South Carolina, +And part of her ass in Brazil. +% +A doctoral student from Buckingham +Wrote his thesis on cunts and on fucking'em. + But a dropout from paree + Taught him Gamahuchee +So he added a footnote on sucking 'em. +% +A dolly in Dallas named Alice, +Whose overworked sex is all callous, + Wore the foreskin away + On uncircumcised Ray, +Through exuberance, tightness, and malice. +% +A dozen, a gross, and a score, +Plus three times the square root of four, + Divided by seven, + Plus five times eleven, +Equals nine squared plus zero, no more. +% +A dreary young bank clerk named Fennis +Wished to foster an aura of menace. + To make people afraid + He wore gloves of grey suede +And white footgear intended for tennis. + -- Edward Gorey, "Amphigorey" +% +A dulcet-voiced callgirl named Shedd, +Who's cultured, well-spoken, well-bred, + Had achieved some renown + For her tone going down-- +There's a nice civil tongue in her head. +% +A fair-haired young damsel named Grace +Thought it very, very foolish to place + Her hand on your cock + When it turned hard as rock, +For fear it would explode in your face. +% +A farmer I know named O'Doole +Had a long and incredible tool. + He can use it to plow, + Or to diddle a cow, +Or just as a cue-stick at pool. +% +A fellatrix's healthful condition +Proved the value of spunk as nutrition. + Her remarkable diet + (I suggest that you try it) +Was only her clients' emission. +% +A fellow whose surname was Hunt +Trained his cock to perform a slick stunt: + This versatile spout + Could be turned inside out, +Like a glove, and be used as a cunt. +% +A fisherman off of Cape Cod +Said, "I'll bugger that tuna, by God!" + But the high-minded fish + Resented his wish, +And nimbly swam off with his rod. +% +A foolish geologist from Kissen +Just didn't know what he was missin', + By studying rock + And neglecting his cock, +And using it merely for pissin'. +% +A Frenchman who lived in Alsace +Had sex with a virgin named Grace. + When he popped her cherry, + She made things hairy +By bleeding all over his face. +% +A gay young prince from Morocco +Made love in a manner rococo. + He painted his penis + To resemble a venus +And flavored his semen with cocoa. +% +A geneticist living in Delft +Scientifically played with himself, + And when he was done + He labeled it: son, +And filed him away on a shelf. +% +A gentleman, otherwise meek, +Detested with passion the leek; + When offered one out + He dealt such a clout +To the maid, she was down for a week. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A german composer named Bruckner +Remarked to a lady while fuckener : + "Less lento, my dear, + With your cute little rear; +I like a hot presto when muckener!" +% +A gift was delivered to Laura +From a cousin who lived in Gomorrah; + Wrapped in tissue and crepe, + It was peeled, like a grape, +And emitted a pale, greenish aura. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A gifted young fellow from Sparta +Was widely renowned as a farta'. + He could fart anything + From "Of Thee I Sing," +To Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." +% +A girl camper once had an affair +With a fellow all covered with hair. + When she gave him his hat + She realized that +She'd been had by Smokey the Bear. +% +A girl of the Enterprise crew +Refused every offer to screw. + But a Vulcan named Spock + Crawled under her smock, +And now she is eating for two. +% +A girl of uncertain nativity +Had an ass of extreme sensitivity + While she sat on the lap + Of a German or Jap, +She could sense Fifth Column activity. +% +A graduate student named Zac +Was said to be great in the sack. + An inch of his boner + Put girls in a coma +And two gave them epileptic attacks. +% +A greedy young lady from Sidney +Liked it in up to her kidney, + Till a man from Quebec + Shoved it up to her neck-- +He really diddled her, didn' he? +% +A green-thumbed young farmer from Leeds +Once swallowed a package of seeds. + In a month, his ass + Was covered with grass +And his balls were grown over with weeds. +% +A guest in a household quite charmless +Was informed its eccentric was harmless: + "If you're caught unawares + At the head of the stairs, +Just remember, he's eyeless and armless." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A habit depraved and unsavory +Held the bishop of Bingham in slavery. + Midst screeches and howls, + He deflowered young owls, +Which he kept in an underground aviary. +% +A habit obscene and bizarre, +Has taken a-hold of papa. + He brings home young camels + And other odd mammals, +And gives them a go at mama. +% +A hacker who screwed a mag tape +Was caught and convicted of rape. + To jail he did go, + From which, to his woe +He couldn't get out with ESC. +% +A hacker-turned-pervert named Fisk +Made love to the drive of his disk. + The thing circumsized him, + Which rather surprised him. +He wasn't aware of *that* risk. +% +A handsome young rodent named Gratian +As a lifeguard became a sensation. + All the lady mice waved + And screamed to be saved +By his mouse-to-mouse resuscitation. +% +A happy old hooker named Grace +Once sponsored a cunt-lapping race. + It was hard for beginners + To tell who were winners : +There were cunt hairs all over the place. +% +A hardware debugger named Court +Shoved his tool in an Ethernet port. + But its buffer array + Only handled 1K, +So the port's driver cut it off short. +% +A haughty young wench of Del Norte +Would fuck only men over forty. + Said she, "It's too quick + With a young fellow's prick; +I like it to last, and be warty." +% +A headstrong young woman in Ealing +Threw her two weeks' old child at the ceiling; + When quizzed why she did, + She replied, "To be rid +Of a strange, overpowering feeling." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A hearty young fellow named Yost +Once had an affair with a ghost. + At the height of the spasm + The poor ectoplasm +Cried, "Goodie, I feel it ... almost." +% +A hidebound young virgin named Carrie +Would say, when the fellows got hairy : + "Keep your prick in your pants + Till the end of this dance--" +Which is why Carrie still has her cherry. +% +A highly aesthetic young Jew +Had eyes of a heavenly blue; + The end of his dillie + Was shaped like a lilly, +And his balls were too utterly two! +% +A highway patrol buff named Claire, +Once screwed half a troop on a dare, + And her parts grew so hot, + There was steam on her twat, +So they nicknamed her Smokey the Bare! +% +A horny young fellow named Reg, +Was jerking off under a hedge. + The gardener drew near + With a huge pruning shear, +And trimmed off the edge of his wedge. +% +A huge-organed female in Dallas, +Named Alice, who yearned for a phallus, + Was virgo intacto, + Because, ipso facto, +No phallus in Dallas fit Alice. +% +A joker who haunts Monticello +Is really a terrible fellow. + In the midst of caresses + He fills ladies dresses +With garter snakes, ice cubes, and jello. +% +A lacklustre lady of Brougham +Weaveth all night at her loom. + Anon she doth blench + When her lord and his wench +Pull a chain in the neighbouring room. +% +A lad from far-off Transvaal +Was lustful, but tactful withal. + He'd say, just for luck, + "Mam'selle, do you fuck?" +But he'd bow till he almost would crawl. +% +A lad of the brainier kind +Had erogenous zones in his mind. + He got his sensations, + By solving equations, +(Of course, in the end, he went blind.) +% +A lad, at his first copulation, +Cried, "What a sensation! Inflation, + Gyration, elation + Throughout the duration, +I guess I'll give up masturbation." +% +A lady born under a curse +Used to drive forth each day in a hearse; + From the back she would wail + Through a thickness of veil: +"Things do not get better, but worse." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A lady both callous and brash +Met a man with a vast black moustache; + She cried, "Shave it, O do! + And I'll put it with glue +On my hat as a sort of panache." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A lady from Kalamazoo +Once found she had nothing to do, + So she sat on the stairs + And she counted her hairs: +4,302. +% +A lady from Old Little Rock +In fidelity took little stock, + And deserted her man + In the streets of Japan +For a boy with a prehensile cock. +% +A lady removing her scanties, +Heard them crackle electrical chanties. + Said her beau, "Have no fear, + For the reason is clear: +You simply have amps in your panties. +% +A lady stockholder quite hetera +Decided her fortune to bettera: + On the floor, quite unclad, + She successively had +Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, et cetera... +% +A lady was seized with intent +To revise her existence misspent. + So she climbed up the dome + Of St. Peter's in Rome, +Where she stayed through the following Lent. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A lady who signs herself "Vexed" +Writes to say she believes she's been hexed: + "I don't mind my shins + Being stuck full of pins, +But I fear I am coming unsexed." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A lady with features cherubic +Was famed for her area pubic. + When they asked her its size + She replied in surprise, +"Are you speaking of square feet, or cubic?" +% +A lady, while dining in Crewe, +Found an elephant's whang in her stew. + Said the waiter, "Don't shout + Or wave it about +Or the others will ask for one, too." +% +A lass at the foot of her class +Asked a brainier chick how to pass. + She replied, "With no fuss + You can get a B-plus, +By letting the prof pat your ass." +% +A lecherous barkeep named Dale, +After fucking his favorite female, + Mixed Drambuie and scotch + With the cream in her crotch +For a lustier, Rusty-er Nail. +% +A licentious old justice of Salem +Used to catch all the harlots and jail 'em. + But instead of a fine + He would stand them in line, +With his common-law tool to impale 'em. +% +A limerick packs laughs anatomical +Into space that is quite economical. + But the good ones I've seen + So seldom are clean, +And the clean ones so seldom are comical. +% +A linguist thought it a farce +That memory space was so sparse. + One day they increased it. + Said he as he seized it: +"At last! Enough core for the parse". +% +A lonely young lad of Eton +Used always to sleep with the heat on, + Till he ran into a lass + Who showed him her ass -- +Now they sleep with only a sheet on. +% +A lovely young diver named Nancy, +Wore a bikini bottom quite chancy, + The fish of Bonaire, + Watched her Derriere, +And the sea fans all tickled her fancy. +% +A lovely young maid from St. Jude +Once rode through the streets in the nude. + The police cried, "Whatam-- + Agnificent bottom" +And slapped it as hard as they cude. +% +A lusty young maid from Seattle +Got pleasure by sleeping with cattle; + Till she found a bull + Who filled her so full +It made both her ovaries rattle. +% +A lusty young woodsman of Maine +For years with no woman had lain, + But he found sublimation + At a high elevation +In the crotch of a pine -- God, the pain! +% +A madam who ran a bordello +Put come in her pineapple jello, + For the rich, sexy taste + And not wanting to waste +That greasy kid stuff from a fellow. +% +A maestro directing in Rome +Had a quaint way of driving it home. + Whoever he climbed + Had to keep her tail timed +To the beat of his old metronome. +% +A maiden who lived in Virginny +Had a cunt that could bark, neigh and whinny. + The horsey set rushed her, + But success finally crushed her +For her tone soon became harsh and tinny. +% +A maiden who travelled in France +Once got on a train, just by chance. + The engineer fucked her, + The conductor sucked her, +And the fireman came in his pants. +% +A maiden who wrote of big cities +Some songs full of love, fun and pities, + Sold her stuff at the shop + Of a musical wop +Who played with her soft little titties. +% +A major, with wonderful force, +Called out in Hyde Park for a horse. + All the flowers looked round, + But no horse could be found; +So he just rhododendron, of course. +% +A man was once heard to boast, +That he received a parcel by post, + It contained, so we heard, + A magnificent turd, +And the balls of his grandfather's ghost. +% +A marine being sent to Hong Kong +Got a doctor to alter his dong. + He sailed off with a tool + Flat and thin as a rule - +When he got there he found he was wrong. +% +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 mathematician named Klein +Thought the Mobius band was divine. + Said he, "If you glue + The edges of two, +You'll get a weird bottle like mine! +% +A middle-aged codger named Bruin +Found his love life completely in ruin, + For he flirted with flirts + Wearing pants and no skirts, +And he never got in for no screwin'. +% +A milkmaid there was, with a stutter, +Who was lonely and wanted a futter. + She had nowhere to turn, + So she diddled a churn, +And managed to come with the butter. +% +A mortician who practised in Fife +Made love to the corpse of his wife. + "How could I know, Judge? + She was cold, did not budge-- +Just the same as she'd acted in life." +% +A nasty old drunk in Carmel +Thinks it funny to piss in the well. + He says, "Some don't favor + That unusual flavor, +But I don't drink the stuff -- what the hell!" +% +A nervous young fellow named Fred +Took a charming young widow to bed. + When he'd diddled a while + She remarked with a smile, +"You've got it all in but the head." +% +A new dramatist of the absurd +Has a voice that will shortly be heard. + I learn from my spies + He's about to devise +An unprintable three-letter word. +% +A new dramatist of the absurd +Has a voice that will shortly be heard. + I learn from my spies + He's about to devise +An unprintable three-letter word. +% +A newly-wed man of Peru +Found himself in a terrible stew: + His wife was in bed + Much deader than dead, +And so he had no one to screw. +% +A newlywed couple from Goshen +Spent their honeymoon sailing the ocean. + In twenty-eight days + They got laid eighty ways -- +Imagine such fucking devotion! +% +A notorious whore named Ms. Hearst, +In the pleasures of men was well-versed. + Reads the sign o'er the head + Of her well-rumpled bed +"The customer always comes first." +% +A novice was told by the Abbot: +"Consider the goat and the rabbit. + While they roll in the hay + You just stay home and pray. +You've got to get out of that habit." +% +A nudist resort at Benares +Took a midget in all unawares. + But he made members weep + For he just couldn't keep +His nose out of private affairs. +% +A nurse motivated by spite +Tied her infantine charge to a kite; + She launched it with ease + On the afternoon breeze, +And watched till it flew out of sight. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A pansy who lived in Khartoum +Took a lesbian up to his room. + They argued all night + Over who had the right +To do what, with which, and to whom. +% +A passionate red-haired girl +When you kissed her, her senses would whirl, + And her twat would get wet, + And would wiggle and fret, +And her cunt-lips would curl and unfurl. +% +A pathetic old maid of Bordeaux +Fell in love with a dashing young beau. + To arrest his regard + She would squat in his yard +And longingly pee in the sneaux. +% +A petulant man once said, "Pish, +Your cunt is as big as a dish." + She replied, "Why, you fool, + With your limp little tool, +It's like driving a pin with a fish." +% +A physical fellow named Fisk +Could screw at a rate very brisk. + So fast was his action + The Fitzgerald contraction +Would shrink up his rod to a disk. +% +A pious old woman named Tweak +Had taught her vagina to speak. + It was frequently liable + To quote from the Bible, +But when fucking -- not even a squeak! +% +A pious young lady named Finnegan +Would caution her friend, "Well, you're in again; + So time it aright, + Make it last through the night, +For I certainly don't want to sin again!" +% +A pious young lady of Chichester +Made all of the saints in their niches stir + And each morning at matin + Her breast in pink satin +Made the bishop of Chichester's breeches stir. +% +A playful young chemist named Byrd +Had an urge that could not be deferred. + So to irritate Knox + He shit in his sox, +And plastered the walls with his turd. +% +A plumber whose name was John Brink +Plumbed the cook as she bent o'er the sink. + Her resistance was stout, + And John Brink petered out, +With his pipe-wrench all limber and pink. +% +A potter who lived in Bombay +Once fashioned a cunt out of clay; + But the heat of his prick + Kilned the damn thing to brick +And chafed all his foreskin away. +% +A pretty wife living in Tours +Demanded her daily amour. + But the husband said, "No! + It's to much. Let it go! +My backsides are dragging the floor." +% +A pretty young boy known as Kevin +Was raped in a pasture by seven + Lascivious beasts + (Oh, those Anglican priests) +And such is the Kingdom of Heaven. +% +A pretty young lady named Vogel +Once sat herself down on a molehill. + A curious mole + Nosed into her hole -- +Ms. Vogel's okay, but the mole's ill. +% +A pretty young maiden from France +Decided she'd "just take a chance." + She let herself go + For an hour or so, +And now all her sisters are aunts. +% +A princess who lived near a bog +Met a prince in the form of a frog. + Now she and her prince + Are the parents of quints, +Four boys and one fine polliwog. +% +A princess who reigned in Baroda +Made her home on a purple pagoda. + She festooned the walls + Of her halls with the balls +And the tools of the fools who be-stroda'. +% +A programmer down in Moline +Said, I'm the match for any machine. + My secret's aversion, + To loops and recursion, +Just acres of in-line routine. + -- W. J. Wilson +% +A progressive professor named Winners +Held classes each evening for sinners. + They were graded and spaced + So the vile and debased +Would not be held back by beginners. +% +A rapist who reeked of cheap booze +Attempted to ravish Miss Hughes. + She cried, "I suppose + There's no time for my clothes, +But PLEASE let me take off my shoes!" +% +A rapturous young fellatrix +One day was at work on five pricks. + With an unholy cry + She whipped out her glass eye: +"Tell the boys I can now take on six." +% +A reckless young lady of France +Had no qualms about taking a chance, + But she thought it was crude + To get screwed in the nude, +So she always went home with damp pants. +% +A remarkable race are the Persians; +They have such peculiar diversions. + They make love the whole day + In the usual way +And save up the nights for perversions. +% +A responsive young girl from the East +In bed was an able artiste. + She had learned two positions + From family physicians, +And ten more from the old parish priest. +% +A romantic attraction has clung +To a chap of whom damsels have sung: + "'Tis the Scourge from the East, + That lascivious beast +Who was known as Attila the Hung!" +% +A sailor who slept in the sun, +Woke to find his fly buttons undone, + He remarked with a smile, + "Good grief, a sun-dial! +And now it's a quarter-past one." +% +A savvy young hooker named Gail +Got busted and lodged in the jail. + But the jailer got hot, + To be lodged in her twat, +And so Gail made the bail with her tail. +% +A scandal involving an oyster +Sent the Countess of Clews to a cloister + She preferred it, in bed, + To the count (so she said) +'Cause it's longer and stronger and moister. +% +A scream from the crypt of St. Giles +Resounded for miles upon miles. + Said the friar, "Good gracious, + The brother Ignatious +Forgeteth the abbot hath piles." +% +A seafaring hacker named Slatey +Went to bed with a VAX/780. + The thing's learned to swear + With a nautical air, +And refers to its users as "matey". +% +A sex-loving coed named Bree +Caught the clap from her Apple IIE. + The joystick, she found, + Had been fooling around +With a neighboring student's PC. +% +A silly young man from Hong Kong +Had hands that were skinny and long. + He ate rice with his fingers-- + The taste of it lingers, +But now all his fingers are gone. +% +A slick talking pirate named Bruce +To steal code, had a plan to seduce + An Apple II+. + Now Bruce wears a truss +And was jailed for computer abuse. +% +A software technician from Digital +Had hardware extremely prodigical. + It's rumoured, I hear, + That when he was near +He made the ladies all flustered and fidgital. +% +A space shuttle pilot named Ventry, +Made love to a lovely girl sentry. + She started to pout, + Because it fell out, +But the mission was saved by re-entry. +% +A sperm faced, alack and forsooth, +His moment of sexual truth. + He'd expected to fall + On a womb's spongy wall +But was dashed to his death on a tooth. +% +A spinster in Kalamazoo +Once strolled after dark by the zoo. + She was seized by the nape, + And fucked by an ape, +And she murmured, "A wonderful screw." + +And she added, "You're rough, yes, and hairy, +But I hope -- yes I do -- that I marry + A man with a prick + Half as stiff and as thick +As the kind that you zoo-keepers carry." +% +A spunky young schoolboy named Fred +Used totoss off each night while in bed. + Said his mother, "Dear lad, + That's exceedingly bad-- +Jump in here with your mamma instead." +% +A starship commander named Kirk +Emerged from his cabin berserk. + He grabbed a girl yeoman + Beneath the abdomen, +And gave her a physical jerk. +% +A stout Gaelic warrior, McPherson, +Was having a captive, a person + Who was not averse + Though she had the curse, +And he'd breeches of bristling furs on. +% +A structured programmer named Drew +Was intensely turned on by "goto". + When he saw it in code + He'd shoot off his load. +It's a good thing his shop used so few. +% +A studious professor named Nestor +Bet a whore all his books that he could best her. + But she drained out his balls + And skipped up the walls, +Beseeching poor Nestor to rest her. +% +A sweetheart named Teresa Arden +Went down on her beau in the garden. + He said, "Good lord, Tess, + Don't swallow that mess!" +And she replied, "Ulp, beg your pardon?" +% +A systems programmer named Sprotic +Found his software intensely erotic. + In jealous distress + He wiped his OS. +It's possible that he's psychotic. +% +A talented fuckstress, Miss Chisholm, +Was renowned for her fine paroxysm. + While the man detumesced + She still spent on with zest, +Her rapture sheer anachronism. +% +A talented girl from Detroit +Could fuck you in ways quite adroit. + She could squeeze her vagina + To a pin-point or finer +Or open it out like a quoit. +% +A team playing baseball in Dallas +Called the umpire blind out of malice. + While this worthy had fits + The team made eight hits +And a girl in the bleachers named Alice. +% +A teenage protester named Lil +Cried, "Those watergate spies make me ill + First they bugged our martinis, + Our bras and bikinis, +And now they are bugging the pill." +% +A thrice-married gal from L.A. +Said, "My hymen's intact to this day, + 'Cause my first (a shrink) talked of it, + The voyeur only gawked at it, +And my most recent man's a gourmet." +% +A tidy young lady of Streator +Dearly loved to nibble a peter. + She always would say, + "I prefer it this way. +I think it is very much neater." +% +A timid young woman named Jane +Found parties a terrible strain; + With movements uncertain + She'd hide in a curtain +And make sounds like a rabbit in pain. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A tired young trollop of Nome +Was worn out from her toes to her dome. + Eight miners came screwing, + But she said, "Nothing doing; +One of you has to go home!" +% +A trapper named Francois Lefebvre +Once captured and buggered a beabvre. + The result of this fuck + Was a three titted duck, +A canoe, and an Irish retriebvre. +% +A tutor who tooted a flute +Tried to tutor two tutors to toot + Said the two to the tutor: + "Is it harder to toot or +To tutor two tutors to toot" +% +A UNIX saleslady, Lenore, +Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more. + She found a good way + To combine work and play: +She sells C shells by the seashore. +% +A vengeful technician named Schmitz +Caused a disk drive to go on the fritz. + He covered the platter + With bats' fecal matter. +Now it's seek time is really the pits. +% +A very intelligent turtle +Found programming UNIX a hurdle + The system, you see, + Ran as slow as did he, +And that's not saying much for the turtle. +% +A very intelligent turtle +Found programming UNIX a hurdle + The system, you see, + Ran as slow as did he, +And that's not saying much for the turtle. +% +A very odd pair are the Pitts: +His balls are as large as her tits, + Her tits are as large + As an invasion barge-- +Neither knows how the other cohabits. +% +A wanton young lady from Wimley +Reproached for not acting quite primly + Said, "Heavens above! + I know sex isn't love, +But it's such an entrancing facsimile." +% +A water pipe suited miss Hunt; +She used it for many a bunt. + But the unlucky wench + Got it caught in her trench --- +It took twenty-two men and a big Stillson wrench, +To get the thing out of her cunt. +% +A weary old lecher named Blott +Took a luscious young blond to his yacht. + Too lazy to rape her, + He made darts out of paper, +Which he leisurely tossed at her twat. +% +A whimsical fellow named Bloch +Could beat the base drum with his cock. + With a special erection + He could play a selection +From Johann Sebastian Bach. +% +A wicked stone cutter named Cary +Drilled holes in divine statuary. + With eyes full of malice + He pulled out his phallus, +And buggered a stone Virgin Mary. +% +A wide-bottomed girl named Trasket +Had a hole as big as a basket. + A spot, as a bride, + In it now, you could hide, +And include with your luggage your mascot. +% +A widow who fancied a man some +Was diddled three times in a hansome. + When she clamored for more + Her young man became sore +And exclaimed "My name's Simpson not Samson." +% +A widow whose singular vice +Was to keep her late husband on ice + Said, "It's been hard since I lost him -- + I'll never defrost him! +Cold comfort, but cheap at the price." +% +A wonderful bird is the pelican. +His mouth can hold more than his belican. + He can take in his beak + Enough food for a week. +I'm darned if I know how the helican. +% +A wonderful tribe are the Sweenies, +Renowned for the length of their peenies. + The hair on their balls + Sweeps the floors of their halls, +But they don't look at women, the meanies. +% +A wood-fetish busboy named Gable +Is rapid, is thorough, is able; + But when everything's cleared, + He gives way to the weird, +As he lovingly busses each table. +% +A worn-out young husband named Lehr +Her daily his wife's plaintive prayer: + "Slip on a sheath, quick, + Then slip your big dick +Between these lips covered with hair." +% +A worried young man from Stamboul +Founds lots of red spots on his tool. + Said the doctor, a cynic, + "Get out of my clinic; +Just wipe off the lipstick, you fool!" +% +A young bride and groom of Australia +Remarked as they joined genitalia : + "Though the system seems odd, + We are thankful that God +Developed the genus Mammalia." +% +A young fellow discovered through Freud +That although of penis devoid, + He could practice coitus + By eating a foetus, +And his parents were quite overjoyed. +% +A young Juliet of St. Louis +On a balcony stood acting screwy. + Her Romeo climbed, + But he wasn't well timed, +And half-way up, off he went -- blooey! +% +A young lad named Lester McGraw +Caught a stranger on top of his Maw. + As he watched him stick her + He said, with a snicker, +"You do it much faster than Paw." +% +A young lady sat by the sea, +Just as proper as proper could be. + A young fellow goosed her, + And roughly seduced her, +So she thanked him and went home to tea. +% +A young lady who lived by the Usk +Subsisted each day on a rusk; + She ate the first bite + Before it was light, +And the last crumb sometime after dusk. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A young maiden from France was no prude, +She decided to dive in the nude, + But her buddy, behind, + Went out of his mind, +When he noticed where she was tatooed. +% +A young man by a girl was desired +To give her the thrills she required, + But he died of old age + Ere his cock could assuage +The volcanic desire it inspired. +% +A young man from the banks of the Po +Found his cock had elongated so, + That when he'd pee + It was never he +But only his neighbors who'd know. +% +A young man grew increasingly peaky +In a house where the hinges were squeaky, + The ferns curled up brown, + The ceilings flaked down, +And all of the faucets were leaky. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A young man maintained that his trigger +Was so big that there weren't any bigger. + But this long and thick pud + Was so heavy it could +Scarcely lift up its head. It lacked vigor. +% +A young man of acumen and daring, +Who'd amassed a great fortune in herring, + Was left quite alone + When it soon became known +That their use at his board was unsparing. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A young man of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll +While bent over plucking a dingle + Had the whole of Eisteddfod + Taking turns at his pod +While they sang some impossible jingle. +% +A young man with passions quite gingery +Tore a hole in his sister's best lingerie. + He slapped her behind + And made up his mind +To add incest to insult and injury. +% +A young polo-player of Berkeley +Made love to his sweetheart beserkly. + In the midst of each chukker + He would break off and fuck her +Horizontally, laterally and verkeley. +% +A young systems programmer of Sprotic +Found his software intensely erotic. + In jealous distress + He wiped his OS. +It's possible that he's a psychotic. +% +A young violinist from Rio +Was seducing a woman named Cleo. + As she took down her panties + She said, "No andantes; +I want this allegro con brio!" +% +A young wife in the outskirts of Reims +Preferred frigging to going to mass. + Said her husband, "Take Jacques, + Or any young cock, +For I cannot live up to your ass." +% +A young woman got married at Chester, +Her mother she kissed her and blessed her. + Says she, "You're in luck, + He's a stunning good fuck, +For I've had him myself down in Leicester." +% +Aboard the good ship Venus, The cabin boy, the captain's joy, +The mast it was a penis, A cunning little nipper, + Her figurehead They filled his ass, + A whore in bed, With broken glass, +Good grief you should have seen us! And circumcized the skipper. + +The first mate's name was Higgins, The captain's daughter Mabel, +And Higgins was a biggins, They screwed when they were able, + Once round the deck, They nailed her tits, + Twice up the mast, Those nasty shits, +And the rest was used for riggins'! Right to the captain's table. + +The engineer's name was Carter, The second mate's name was Andy, +And Carter was a farter, By God, he was a dandy, + When the wind wouldn't blow, They broke his cock, + And the ship couldn't go, With chunks of rock, +Carter the farter would start her! For conking in the brandy! +% +According to experts, the oyster +In its shell - a crustacean cloister - + May frequently be + Either he or a she +Or both, if it should be its choice ter. +% +Alas for the Countess d'Isere, +Whose muff wasn't furnished with hair. + Said the Count, "Quelle surprise!" + When he parted her thighs; +"Magnifique! Pourtant pas de la guerre." +% +All the female apes ran from King Kong +For his dong was unspeakably long. + But a friendly giraffe + Quaffed his yard and a half, +And ecstatically burst into song. +% +An aesthete from South Carolina +Had a cock that tickled like China, + But while shooting his load + It cracked like old Spode, +So he's bought him a Steuben vagina. +% +An agreeable girl named Miss Doves +Likes to jack off the young men she loves. + She will use her bare fist + If the fellows insist +But she really prefers to wear gloves. +% +An AI researcher named Bluth +Wrote, to find out the sexual truth, + Eroticon VI, + Which he taught certain tricks +Which I'm sure can't be found in Knuth. +% +An amazon giantess named Dunne +Let a midget screw her for fun. + But the poor little runt + Was engulfed in her cunt +And re-born as the twin of his son. +% +An ambitious lady named Harriet +Once dreamed she was raped in a chariot + By seventeen sailors + A monk and three tailors, +Mohammed and Judas Iscariot. +% +An anonymous woman we knew +Was dozing one day in her pew; + When the preacher yelled "Sin!" + She said, "Count me in +As soon as the service is through." +% +An architect fellow named Yoric +Could, when feeling euphoric, + Display for selection + Three kinds of erection-- +Corinthian,ionic,and doric. +% +An ardent young man named Magruder +Once wooed a girl nude in Bermuda. + She thought it quite lewd + To be wooed in the nude, +But magruder was shrewder, he screwed her. +% +An Argentine gaucho named Bruno +Who said, "Fucking is one thing I do know. + Women are fine + And sheep are divine +But llamas are numero uno." +% +An ARPAnaut name of Corvette +Had a fetish involving the net. + As he fondled his IMP + His cock went from limp +To as hard as concrete which has set. +% +An arrogant wench from Salt Lake +Liked to tease all the boys on the make. + She was finally the prize + Of a man twice her size +And all she recalls is the ache. +% +An artist who lived in Australia +Once painted his ass like a Dahlia. + The drawing was fine, + The colour -- divine, +The scent -- ah, that was a failia. +% +An eager young hacker named Gus +Once buggered a VAX Unibus. + The hardware went bad, + But not the young lad +He didn't expect all that fuss! +% +An Edwardian father named Udgeon, +Whose offspring provoked him to dudgeon, + Used on Saturday nights + To turn down the lights, +And chase them around with a bludgeon. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An envious girl named McMeanus +Was jealous of her lover's big penis. + It was small consolation + That the rest of the nation +Of women were with her in weeness. +% +An exotic young lady named Suki +Once danced in a troupe of kabuki + When asked for a fuck + She said, "Solly, no luck-- +See here: looky looky, no nuki " +% +An impish young fellow named James +Had a passion for idiot games. + He lighted the hair + Of his lady's affair +And laughed as she pissed through the flames. +% +An impotent Scot named MacDougall +Had to husband his sperm and be frugal. + He was gathering semen + To gender a he-man, +By screwing his wife through a bugle. +% +An incautious young woman named Venn +Was seen with the wrong sort of men; + She vanished one day, + But the following May +Her legs were retrieved from a fen. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An indefatigable woman named Bavel +Had often occasion to travel; + On the way she would sit + And furiously knit, +And on the way back she'd unravel. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An ingenious young man in South Bend +Made a synthetic ass for a friend, + But the friend shortly found + Its construction unsound, +It was simply a bother -- no end. +% +An innocent maiden named Herridge +Was cruelly tricked ito marriage; + When she later found out + What her spouse was about, +She threw herself under a carriage. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An inquisitive virgin named Dora +Asked the man who started to bore 'er : + "Do you mean birds and bees + Go through antics like these, +To supply us our fauna and flora?" +% +An irate young lady named Booker +Told her husband, "You beast, I'm no hooker! + If you want it queer ways, + Go to whores for your lays!" +So he packed up his tool and forsook 'er. +% +An octagenerian Jew +To his wife remained steadfastly true. + This was not from compunction, + But due to dysfunction +Of his spermatic glands -- nuts to you. +% +An old couple just at Shrovetide +Were having a piece -- when he died. + The wife for a week + Sat tight on his peak, +And bounced up and down as she cried. +% +An old electronic designer +Had designs on a minor named Dinah. + He couldn't carry them out + For his prick was too stout, +And too small was the minor's vagina. +% +An old gentleman's crotchets and quibblings +Were a terrible trial to his siblings, + But he was not removed + Till one day it was proved +That the bell-ropes were damp with his dribblings. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An old maid who had a pet ape +Lived in fear of perpetual rape. + His red, hairy phallus + So filled her with malice +That she sealed up her snatch with Scotch tape. +% +An old man at the Folies Bergere +Had a jock, a most wondrous affair: + It snipped off a twat-curl + From each new chorus girl, +And he had a wig made of the hair. +% +An organist playing in York +Had a prick that could hold a small fork, + And between obbligatos + He'd munch at tomatoes, +To keep up his strength while at work. +% +An orgasmic young sex star named Sue +Was a hit as she writhed to a screw. + Her climatic fame spread + With an ad blitz that said: +Coming soon at a theater near you! +% +An uptight young lady named Breerley +Who valued her morals too dearly + Had sex, so I hear, + Only once every year, +And she strained her vagina severely. +% +And earnest young woman in Thrace +Said, "Darling, that's not the right place!" + So he gave her a thwack, + And did on her back, +What he couldn't have done face to face. +% +And then there's the story that's fraught +With disaster -- of balls that got caught, + When a chap took a crap + In the woods, and a trap +Underneath... Oh, I can't bear the thought! +% +As for weirdness, the guy who's the tops +Is a kinky old butcher named Pops. + Since he thinks it's effete + To be beating his meat, +What he's into is licking his chops. +% +As he came in his chubby choirboy, +Father Burke said, "There's no greater joy! + If no sodomy levens + And possible heavens, +Existence will merely annoy." +% +As the breeches-buoy swung towards the rocks, +Its occupant cried, "Save my socks! + I could not bear the loss, + For with scarlet silk floss +My mama has embroidered their clocks." + -- Edward Gorey +% +As tourists inspected the apse +An ominous series of raps + Came from under the altar, + Which caused some to falter +And others to shriek and collapse. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Asked a supplicant priest of the pontiff, +"Do I sin if I do what I want, if + I screw a young nun + In the eastertide sun?" +His holiness murmured, "Gut yontiff." +% +At a contest for farting in Butte +One lady's exertion was cute : + It won the diploma + For fetid aroma, +And three judges were felled by the brute. +% +At a dance, a girl from Connecticut +Showed an absolute absence of etiquette + Letting all comers press + Through the skirt of her dress +And wiping the mess with her petticoat. +% +At the end of all civilization +Is the planet Terminus's location. + There's a girl there whose feat, + Without stone or concrete, +Nonetheless, was to lay the Foundation. +% +At the moment Japan declared war +A sailor was fucking a whore. + He said, "After this poke + `Long and hard' ain't no joke; +This means months 'til I get back ashore." +% +At the Villa Nemetia the sleepers +Are disturbed by a phantom in weepers; + It beats all night long + A dirge on a gong +As it staggers about in the creepers. + -- Edward Gorey +% +At Vassar, sex isn't injurious, +Though of love we are never penurious. + Thanks to vulcanized aids, + Though we may die old maids, +At least we shall never die curious. +% +At whist drives and strawberry teas +Fan would giggle and show off her knees; + But when she was alone + She'd drink eau de cologne, +And weep from a sense of unease. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Augustus, for splashing his soup, +Was put for the night on the stoop; + In the morning he'd not + Repented a jot, +And next day he was dead of the croup. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Back in the days of old Adam +The grass served as mattress for madam, + And they spent the whole day + On the sex that today +They would bounce on box springs, if they had 'em. +% +Conflicting research paradigms +Have legitimized various crimes. + The worst we can see + Is in psychology, +Measuring reaction times. +% +Dame Catherine of Ashton-on-Lynches +Got on with her grooms and her wenches: + She went down on the gents, + And pronged the girl's vents +With a clitoris reaching six inches. +% +De Hispanice puella verumque +Simplex oris verborumque + Tulit potens vagina + Hominum agmina +Iterum iterum iterumque. +% +Despising machines to a man, +The Luddites joined up with the Klan, + And ride out by night + In a sheeting of white +To lynch all the robots they can. + -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson +% +Did you hear about young Henry Lockett? +He was blown down the street by a rocket. + The force of the blast + Blew his balls up his ass, +And his pecker was found in his pocket. +% +Don't dip your wick in a WAC, +Don't ride the breast of a WAVE, + Just sit in the sand + And do it by hand, +And buy bonds with the money you save. +% +Down by the old model T, +Where she first showed it to me. + It was furry and black, + And she called it a crack, +But it looked like a manhole to me. +% +DuPont, I.G., Monsanto, and Shell +Built a world-circling pussy cartel, + And by planned obsolescence, + So controlled detumescence, +A poor man could not get a smell. +% +Each Friday his engines abort, +But Scotty is never caught short. + He fills his machines + With space-navy beans, +And farts the ship back into port. +% +Each night Father fills me with dread +When he sits on the foot ofmy bed; + I'd not mind that he speaks + In gibbers and squeaks, +But for the seventeen years he's been dead. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Es giebt ein Arbeiter von Tinz, +Er schlaft mit ein Madel von Linz. + Sie sagt, "Halt sein' plummen, + Ich hore Mann kommen." +"Jacht, jacht," sagt der Plummer, "Ich binz." +% +Ethnologists up with the Sioux +Wired home for two punts, one canoe. + The answer next day, + Said, "Girls on the way, +But what the hell's a `panoe'?" +% +Exuberant Sue from Anjou +Found that fucking affected her hue. + She presented to sight + Nipples pink, bottom white; +But her asshole was purple and blue. +% +Flappity, floppity, flip +The mouse on the Mobius strip; + The strip revolved, + The mouse dissolved +In a chronodimensional skip. +% +Floating idly one day through the air, +A circus performer named Blair, + Tied a sizeable rock, + To the end of his cock, +And shattered a balcony chair. +% +Fond of equestrians, Mabel +Looked for true love in the stable. + But she found the studs, + For her were all duds, +Now she's out with the leg of a table. +% +For a house-to-house salesman named Moore, +Getting housewives' attention's no chore: + He's endowed with a dong + That is 12 inches long, +So he wedges his foot in the door. +% +For the sores on his prick he used Dial. +That failed; he gave Lava a trial. + But the one remedy + For contagious V.D. +Is the wonder drug sulfa-denial. +% +"For the tenth time, dull Daphnis," said Chloe, +"You have told me my bosom is snowy; + You have made much fine verse on + Each part of my person, +Now do something -- there's a good boy!" +% +From deep in the crypt at St. Giles +Came a bellow that echoed for miles. + Said the rector, "My gracious, + Has Father Ignatius +Forgotten the Bishop has piles!?" +% +From Number Nine, Penwiper Mews, +There is really abominable news; + They've discovered a head + In the box for the bread, +But nobody seems to know whose. + -- Edward Gorey +% +From the bathing machine came a din +As of jollification within; + It was heard far and wide, + And the incoming tide +Had a definite flavour of gin. + -- Edward Gorey +% +"Fucked by the finger of Fate!" +Bewailed a young fellow named Tate. + "Since dating Miss Baugh, + My whole tongue has been raw-- +It must have been something I ate." +% +Fucking is a filthy deed. -- I like it. +It satisfies a normal need. -- I like it. + It makes you sick, it makes you well, + It turns your spine to fucking jell, +It damns your soul to Eternal Hell! -- I like it. +% +Getting Cheryl to shed her apparel +Is like shooting goldfish in a barrel. + But her genital area + Is so vast it'll scareya, +And you venture inside at your peril. +% +God's plan made a hopeful beginning +But man spoiled his chances by sinning. + We trust that the story + Will end in God's glory +But at present, the other side's winning. +% +Have you heard about Magda Lupescu, +Who came to Rumania's rescue? + It's a wonderful thing + To be under a king-- +Is democracy better, I esk you? +% +Have you heard of knock-kneed Samuel McGuzzum +Who married Samantha, his bow-legged cousin? + Some people say, + Love finds a way, +But for Sam and Samantha it doesn'. +% +Have you heard of the lady named Cox +Who had a capacious old box? + When her lover was in place + She said, "Please turn your face. +I look like a gal, but I screw like a fox." +% +Have you heard of those trollops of Birmingham +And the scandal that's currently concerning'em? + How they lift the frock + And tickle the cock +Of the bishop while he was confirming 'em? +% +Having made a remark rather coarse, +A young lady was seized with remorse; + She fled from the room, + And later, a groom +Saw her rolling about in the gorse. + -- Edward Gorey +% +He dove down overweighted with lead. +Passed one hundred and flat lost his head. + He flapped and he flailed, + Spit his hose and he wailed, +Swallowed water and found himself dead. +% +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 played smooch and stinkfinger with Daisy +Till this virgin was gotch-eyed and hazy. + Then his gargantuan pole in + Her pink, tight, and swollen +Young cunt just about drove her crazy. +% +He'd kiss and the girls called him Georgie +They'd cry and the girls called him Porgie. + So he put Spanish fly + In their pudding and pie +And had the first tiny-tot orgy. +% +"Hell, no," said the Duchess of Quick, +"I won't suck his filthy old prick! + It's not that I funk + At a mouthful of spunk, +But the smell of his ass makes me sick!" +% +Her brother, a bastard named Ben, +Could rotate his pecker, and then + He would shoot through his rear + Which made him dear +Of the girls, and the envy of men. +% +Her daughter, thought worried Ms. Coffin, +Had morals the city might soften. + So she phoned and asked, "Lynn, + Are you living in sin?" +Lynn said, "No -- but I visit there often." +% +His shy bride admitted to Crandall +That for years she'd worked off with a candle, + But a cock like his dick + Gave her ten times the kick, +Though it stained her wee peehole to handle! +% +I dined with Lord Hughing Fitz-Bluing +Who said, "Do you squirm when you're screwing?" + I replied, "Simple shagging + Without any wagging +Is only for screwing canoeing." +% +"I do love a lay every day, +So whenever you're coming this way + Just phone in advance + And I'll jerk off my pants, +And we're set for a sexy soiree!" +% +I know of a fortunate Hindu +Who is sought in the towns that he's been to + By the ladies he knows, + Who are thrilled to the toes +By the tricks that he makes his foreskin do. +% +I met a young man in Chungking +Who had a very long thing -- + But you'll guess my surprise + When I found that its size +Just measured a third-finger ring! +% +I never had Miss Defauw, +But it wouldn't have been quite so raw + If she'd only said "No" + When I wanted her so; +But she didn't -- she laughed and said "Naw!" +% +I once had the wife of a Dean +Seven times while the Dean was out skiin'. + She remarked with some gaiety, + "Not bad for the laiety, +Though the Bishop once managed thirteen." +% +I once met a lassie named Ruth +In a long distance telephone booth. + Now I know the perfection + Of an ideal connection +Even if somewhat uncouth. +% +I once was annoyed by a queer +Who made his intentions quite clear. + Said I, "I'm no prude, + So don't think me rude, +But I'm already stewed, screwed, and tattooed." +% +I wish that my room had a floor; +I don't so much care for a door, + But this walking around + Without touching the ground +Is getting to be quite a bore! + -- Gelett Burgess +% +I wonder what my wife will want tonight; +Wonder if the wife will fuss and fight? + I wonder can she tell + That I've been raising hell; +Wonder if she'll know that I've been tight? + +My wife is just as nice as can be, +I hope she doesn't feel too nice toward me. + For an afternoon of joy, + Is hell on the old boy, +I wonder what the wife will want tonight! +% +I wooed a stewed nude in Bermuda, +I was lewd, but my God! she was lewder. + She said it was crude + To be wooed in the nude-- +I pursued her, subdued her, and screwed her! +% +I would like to say, Mister Bunce, +I'm a great connoisseur of hot cunts. + And in all my lewd life + I've met none like your wife, +So why leave her to me, you big dunce? +% +I'd rather have fingers than toes, +I'd rather have ears than a nose, + And a happy erection + Brought just to perfection +Makes me terribly sad when it goes. +% +If continence causes neurosis +And intercourse causes thrombosis + I'd rather expire + Fulfilling desire +Than live in a state of psychosis. +% +If you find for your verse there's no call, +And you can't afford paper at all, + For the true poet born, + However forlorn, +There is always the lavat'ry wall. +% +If you're speaking of actions immoral +The how about giving the laurel + To doughty Queen Esther, + No three men could best her -- +One fore, and one aft, and one oral. +% +If your thesis is utterly vacuous, +Employ first-order predicate calculus. + With sufficient formality, + The sheerest banality, +Will be hailed by all as miraculous! +% +Il y a une jeune fille amoureuse +D'un homme qu'a une conduite honteuse; + Il la mene chaque soir + A son caveau noir +Et la bat avec plaintes crapuleuses. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Il y avait un jeune homme de dijon, +Qui n'avait que peu de religion. + Il dit:"quant a' moi, + Je deteste tous les trois, +Le pere, et le fils, et le pigeon-" +% +Il y avait un plombier, Francois, +Qui plombait sa femme dans le Bois. + Dit-elle, "Arretez! + J'entends quelqu'un venait." +Dit le plombier, en plombant, "C'est moi." +% +Il y avait une madame de Lahore +Dont la figure n'etait la meilleure, + Mais la vagine tres forte, + Toujours ouverte la porte, +Encore, et encore, et encore. +% +In bed Dr. Oscar McPugh +Spoke of Spengler -- and ate crackers too. + His wife said, "Oh, stuff + That philosophy guff +Up your ass, dear, and throw me a screw!" +% +In Duluth there's a hostess, forsooth, +Who doesn't know gin from vermouth, + But this lubricant lapse + Isn't noticed, perhaps +Because nobody does in Duluth. +% +In my sweet little Alice Blue gown +Was the first time I ever laid down, + I was both proud and shy + As he opened his fly +And the moment I saw it I thought I would die. + +Oh it hung almost down to the ground, +As it went in I made not a sound, + The more that he shoved it + The more that I loved it, +As he came on my Alice Blue gown. +% +In my sweet little night gown of blue, +On the first night that I slept with you, + I was both shy and scared + As the bed was prepared, +And you played peekaboo with my ribbons of blue. + +As we both watched the break of day, +And in peaceful submission I lay, + You said you adored it + But dammit, you tore it, +My sweet little night gown of blue. +% +In the case of a lady named Frost, +Whose cunt's a good two feet acrost, + It's the best part of valor + To bugger the gal, or +You're apt to fall in and get lost. +% +In the Garden of Eden sat Adam, +Massaging the bust of his madam, + He chuckled with mirth, + For he knew that on earth, +There were only two boobs and he had 'em. +% +In the little French town of Le'Beau, +Lived a maiden exceedingly droll. + At a masquerade ball, + Clad in nothing at all, +She backed in as a Parker house roll. +% +In the shade of the old apple tree +Where between her fat legs I could see + A little brown spot + With the hair in a knot, +And it certainly looked good to me. + +I asked as I tickled her tit +If she thought that my big thing would fit. + She said it would do + So we had a good screw In the shade of the old apple tree +In the shade of the old apple tree. I got all that was coming to me. + In the soft dewy grass +I could hear the dull buzz of the bee I had a fine piece of ass +As he sunk his grub hooks into me. From a maiden that was fine to see. + Her ass it was fine + But you should have seen mine +In the shade of the old apple tree. +% +It always delights me at Hank's +To walk up the old river banks. + One time in the grass + I stepped on an ass, +And heard a young girl murmur, "Thanks." +% +It had snowed, and the man in the drift, +Flagged her down and asked, "Give me a lift?" + They sat in her Bentley, + She fondled him gently, +And the lift that he'd asked for was swift! +% +It takes little strain and no art +To bang out an echoing fart. + The reaction is hearty + When you fart at a party, +But the sensitive persons depart. +% +King Louis gave a lesson in class, +One time while enjoying a lass. + When she used the word "Damn" + He rebuked her: "Please ma'am, +Keep a more civil tongue in my ass." +% +"Last night," said a lassie named Ruth, +"In a long-distance telephone booth, + I enjoyed the perfection + Of an ideal connection -- +I was screwed, if you must know the truth." +% +Les salons de la ville de Trieste +Sont vaseux, suraigus, at funestes; + Parmi les grandes chaises + On cause des malaises, +Des estropiements, et des pestes. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Limericks are art forms complex, +Their topics run chiefly to sex. + They usually have virgins, + And masculine urgin's, +And other erotic effects. +% +Limericks are art forms complex, +Their topics run chiefly to sex. + They usually have virgins, + And masculine urgin's, +And other erotic effects. +% +Love letters no longer they write us, +To their homes they so seldom invite us. + It grieves me to say, + They have learned with dismay, +We can't cure their `vulva pruritus'. +% +Marlene wanted Joy to relent, +She said, "AIDS is so hard to prevent. + If you want to get laid, + Then we'll have to tribade!" +(But Joy didn't know what she meant.) +% +McCoy's a seducer galore, +And of virgins he has quite a score. + He tells them, "My dear, + You're the Final Frontier, +Where man never has gone before." +% +Meet Elmer, young son of the Thorpes, +Afflicted with psychotic warps. + His idea of fun + Is to bugger a nun, +And then vomit all over the corpse. +% +Mrs. Kelly is partial to cocks; +Mr. Kelly likes rye on the rocks. + When he's under the weather + They can't get together, +So others get into her box. +% +`My trip? It was vile. Balaclava +I loathed. Etna was crawling with lava. + The ship was all white + But it creaked in the night, +And the band, they did not know la java." + -- Edward Gorey +% +Now hear this fair lass from Rhode Isle +Who said with a wink and a smile, + "Sure, please stick it in, + Be it thick be it thin, +But if rough I won't do as a file." +% +Oden the bardling averred +His muse was the bum of a bird, + And his Lesbian wife + Would finger his fife +While Fisherwood waited as third. +% +Of his face she thought not very much, +But then, at the very first touch, + Her attitude shifted -- + He was terribly gifted +At frigging and fucking and such. +% +Oh pity the prince, Montezuma +He tried to make love to a puma. + Seems the puma, in play, + Tore his testes away -- +An example of animal huma. +% +Oh, pity the Duchess of Kent! +Her cunt is so dreadfully bent, + The poor wench doth stammer, + "I need a sledgehammer +To pound a man into my vent." +% +On a cannibal isle near Malaysia +Lives a lady they call Anastasia. + Not russian elite- + She's eager to eat +Whatever or whoever lays her. +% +On a ship wrecked far out at sea, +The girl said, "I can't seem to pee." + "Aha!" said the mate, + "That settles the fate +Of the captain, the pilot, and me." +% +On day a Monterey daughter +Did scuba down under the water. + She later turned up + The mom of a pup, +And they say t'was a otter that gotter. +% +On the breast of a lady named Gail, +Was tattooed the price of her tail. + And on her behind, + For the sake of the blind, +Was the same information -- in Braille. +% +On the porch of a dude named Horatio, +His girl got a yen for fellatio. + As she sucked on his dingus + He tried cunnilingus +But the cops ran 'em off of that patio. +% +Once a young gay from Khartoum, +Took a lesbian up to his room. + They argued all night + Over who had the right +To do what, and with which, and to whom. +% +Once was a hooker named Gail, +Busted and sent-off to jail, + She liked the jailer, + He wanted to nail her, +So Gail made bail with her tail. +% +One evening a guru had coitus +With an actress, a whore and a poetess. + When asked what position + He used for coition, +He answered serenely, "the lotus." +% +One night a girl had an affair +With a fellow all covered with hair. + Then she picked up his hat + And realized that +She'd been had by Smokey the Bear. +% +Our staff proctologist, Dr. Barr, +Has invented a new kind of car. + With a tank full of shit + There's no stopping it -- +For short trips, two poots take you far. +% +Perplexed, a shy virgin named Plummer +Asked, "what's there to do in the summer?" + She declined and declined + Till approached from behind... +When her summer turned out quite a bummer! +% +Playing poker with busty Ms. Ware, +He announced as he folded with flair, + "I had four of a kind, + But those aces combined, +Don't stack up, I'm afraid, with your pair." +% +Poor Alice who lived in Corvallis +Had heard of, but not seen, the male phallus. + At her first sight of one + She started to run, +And last was seen sprinting through Dallas. +% +Pour guerir un acces de fievre +Un jeune homme poursuivit un lievre; + Il le prit a son trou, + Et fit faire un ragout +Des entrailles et des pattes au genievre. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Prince Absalom lay with his sister +And bundled and nibbled and kissed her, + But the kid was so tight, + And it was deep night -- +Though he shot at the target, he missed her. +% +Prince Hamlet thought Uncle a traitor +For having it off with his Mater; + Revenge Dad or not? + That's the gist of the plot, +And he did -- nine soliloquies later. + -- Stanley J. Sharpless +% +Prope mare erat tubulator +Qui virginem ingrediebatur. + Dessine ingressus + Audivi progressus: +Est mihi inquit tubulator. +% +Said a dainty young whore named Ms. Meggs, +"The men like to spread my two legs, + Then slip in between, + If you know what I mean, +And leave me the white of their eggs." +% +Said a decadent wench of Bombay : +"This has been a most wonderful day. + Three cherry tarts, + At least twenty farts, +Two shits, and a bloody fine lay." +% +Said a girl who upon her divan +Was attacked by a virile young man: + "Such excess of passion + Is quite out of fashion" +And she fractured his wrist with her fan. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Said a happy young man of Fort Drum : +"What care I for this shortage of gum? + My favorite chew + Is a condom or two, +With a goodly amount of fresh come." +% +Said a horny young girl from Milpitas, +"My favorite sport is coitus." + But a fullback from State + Made her period late, +And now she has athlete's fetus +% +Said a lecherous fellow named Shea, +When his prick wouldn't rise for a lay, + "You must seize it, and squeeze it, + And tease it, and please it, +For Rome wasn't built in a day." +% +Said a lesbian lady, "It's sad; +Of all the girls that I've had, + None gave me the thrill + Of real rapture until +I learned how to be a tribade." +% +Said a madam named Mamie La Farge +To a sailor just off of a barge, + "We have one girl that's dead, + With a hole in her head-- +Of course there's a slight extra charge." +% +Said a modest young miss to de Sade, +I'm simply too shy and afraid + To take part in your pranks. + But to show you my thanks, +I'd just love to become your first aide. +% +Said a pornographistic young poet +"Although I perhaps do not show it, + My interest in sin + Is wearing quite thin, +And I'll soon tell those fuckers to stow it." +% +Said a swinging young chick named Lyth +Whose virtue was largely a myth, + "Try as hard as I can, + I can't find a man +That it's fun to be virtuous with!" +% +Said crew girl Angelica Bauer : +"The captain's withdrawn, cold, and sour." + Uhura said, "No, + At night that's not so-- +He doesn't withdraw for an hour." +% +Said Einstein, "I have an equation +Which to some may seem rabelaisian: + Let _V be virginity + Approaching infinity; +Let _P be a constant persuasion; + +"Let _V over _P be inverted +With the square root of _M_u inserted + _N times into _V ... + The result, Q.E.D., +Is a relative!" Einstein asserted. +% +Said Francesca, "My lack of volition +Is leading me straight to perdition; + But I haven't the strength + To go to the length +Of making an act of contrition." + -- Edward Gorey +% +Said President Jobcock one day : +"War's better than love, I should say. + Instead of a virgin, + It's murder I'm urgin'-- +You get lots more blood that-a-way." +% +Said sneering Mohammed el-Din : +"Only infidel dogs put it in. + Back home in Arabia + We nibble the labia +Till the juice dribbles off of our chin." +% +Said the cunt-lapping Bey of Algiers, +In a cunt halfway up to his ears : + "This nautch is delicious, + And without doubt nutritious. +She's my best-tasting wife in ten years!" +% +Said the Duchess of Danzer at tea, +"Young man, do you fart when you pee?" + I replied with some wit, + "Do you belch when you shit?" +I think that was one up for me. +% +Said the nun as the bishop withdrew, +"This must be our final adieu, + For the vicar is slicker, + And thicker, and quicker, +And two inches longer than you." +% +Saint Peteer was once heard to boast +That he'd had all the heavenly host : + The Father and Son, + And then - just for fun - +The hole in the Holy Ghost. +% +Says an airlining wanton named Vi: +"I'm a pantyless stew when I fly. + To a muffer's delight, + I'll take head on a flight, +So the guy can have pie in the sky." +% +She begged and she pleaded for more. +I said, "We've already had four, + And I'm sure that you've heard, + Though it's somewhat absurd, +That eros spelt backwards is sore." +% +She made a thing of soft leather, +And topped off the end with a feather. + When she poked it inside her + She took off like a glider, +And gave up her lover forever. +% +She stood there and peeled off her clothes, +And begged for a bang : goodness knows + I am surely impure + And I sizzled to scrure, +But the push had gone out of my hose. +% +She was coming round the mountain doin' ninety, +When the chain on her motorcycle broke, + Now she's lying in the grass, + With the muffler up her ass, +And her tits a-playin' Dixie on the spokes. +% +She was peeved, and called her beau "Mr." +Not because, when she came in, he kr., + But she knew, just before + She opened the door, +This same Mr. had kr. sr. +% +She wasn't what one could call pretty +And other girls offered her pity, + So nobody guessed + That her Wasserman test +Involved half the men in the city. +% +Shouted Frosty the Snowman "Hooray! +I'm agog with excitement today! + And the reason of course, + A reliable source, +Said the snow blower's heading this way!" +% +Sighed a neat little package named Annie : +"I've the tits and the twat and the fanny, + Plus the yen, but the men + Only call now and then-- +Can it be I've B.O. in my cranny?" +% +"Snyder's got a stiff ticket," said Kay, +"Come on, take it out, and let's play." + He pulled it on out, + But she started to pout, +His ticket was only a quarter-inch stout. +% +So here was this fellow of Strensall +Whose pecker was shaped like a pencil, + Anemic, 'tis true, + But an interesting screw, +Inasmuch as the tip was prehensile. +% +So it's ai yi yi yi, +Your mother scores more than Wayne Gretzky! +So sing me another verse that worse than the other verse, +And waltz me around by my willie! + + There once was a man from Nantucket! + Whose cock was so long he could suck it! + He said with a grin, + As he wiped off his chin, + If my ear were a cunt I could fuck it! + +So it's ai yi yi yi, +Your sister does squat thrusts on flag poles! +So sing me another verse that worse than the other verse, +And waltz me around by my willie! + + There once was a young man from Boston! + Who drove around town in an Austin! + There was room for his ass, + And a gallon of gas, + So he hung out his balls and he lost 'em! +% +So it's ai yi yi yi, +Your sister swims out to meet troop ships! +So sing me another verse that worse than the other verse, +And waltz me around by my willie! + + There once was a man from Racine! + Who invented a screwing machine! + Both concave and convex, + It could please either sex, + But, oh, what a bastard to clean! + +So it's ai yi yi yi, +Your girlfriend douches with Drano! +So sing me another verse that worse than the other verse, +And waltz me around by my willie! + + One night a girl had an affair! + With a fellow all covered with hair! + His enormous red whang, + Gave her a wonderful bang -- + She'd been diddled by Smokey the bear! +% +Some Harvard men, stalwart and hairy, +Drank up several bottles of sherry; + In the Yard around three + They were shrieking with glee: +"Come on out, we are burning a fairy!" + -- Edward Gorey +% +Thank God for the Duchess of Gloucester, +She obliges all who accost her. + She welcomes the prick + Of Tom, Harry or Dick, +Or Baldwin, or even Lord Astor. +% +That Harvard don down at El Djim -- +Oh, wasn't it nasty of him, + With the whole harem randy, + The sheik himself handy, +To muss up a young camel's quim. +% +That naughty old Sappho of Greece +Said: "What I prefer to a piece + Is to have my pudenda + Rubbed hard by the enda +The little pink nose of my niece." +% +The acrobats -- Tom and Louise -- +Do an act in the nude on their knees. + They crawl down the aisle + While screwing dog-style, +As the orchestra plays Kilmer's "Trees." +% +The babe, with a cry brief and dismal, +Fell into the water baptismal; + Ere they'd gathered its plight, + It had sunk out of sight, +For the depth of the font was abysmal. + -- Edward Gorey +% +The bedsprings next door jounce and creak : +They have kept me awake for a week. + Why do newlyweds + Select squeaky beds +To develop their fucking technique? +% +The bishop of Alexandretta +Loved a girl and he couldn't forget her. + So he thought he'd enshrine her + As the Holy Vagina +In the Church of the Sacred French Letter. +% +The bustard's a remarkable fowl +With surely no reason to growl + He escapes what would be + Illegitimacy +By the grace of a fortunate vowel. +% +The cruelest of creatures' the crab +With claws that can pinch you or stab, + And then when you dine + On crab and white wine +It gets you as well with the tab. +% +The Dowager Duchess of Spout +Collapsed at the height of a rout; + She found strength to say + As they bore her away: +"I should never have taken the trout." + -- Edward Gorey +% +The Enterprise crew when off work +Will fuck like an Ottoman Turk. + Uhura the Zulu + Is shacked up with Sulu, +And Spock shares a crew girl with Kirk. +% +The Enterprise girls, so one hears, +Have chased Spock for several years. + His look of disdain + Has spared them great pain, +For his prick is as sharp as his ears. +% +The fearless old bishop of Brest +Put his faith in the Lord to the test. + He fucked whores in the apse + With chancres and claps, +But first they were sprinkled and blessed. +% +The first child of a Mrs. Keats-Shelley +Came to light with its face in its belly; + Her second was born + With a hump and a horn, +And her third was as shapeles as jelly. + -- Edward Gorey +% +The genital area of Ann +Will accommodate any size man, + From the wee that cause titters + To the mighty twat-splitters +That cause screams peasants hear in Japan. +% +The Gray-haired Woman's Complaint + +My back aches, my pussy is sore; +I simply can't fuck any more; + I'm covered with sweat, + And you haven't come yet, +And my God, it's a quarter to four! +% +The Grecians were famed for fine art, +And buildings and stonework so smart. + They distinguished with poise + The men from the boys, +And used crowbars to keep them apart. +% +The King named Oedipus Rex +Who started this fuss about sex + Put the world to great pains + By the spots and the stains +Which he made on his mother's pubex. +% +The King plugged the Queen's ass with mustard +To make her fuck hot, but got flustered, + And cried, "Oh, my dear, + I am coming, I fear, +But the mustard will make you come `plus tard'." +% +The kings of Peru were the Incas, +Who were known far and wide as great drincas. + They worshipped the sun + And had lots of fun, +But the peasants all thought they were stincas. +% +The late Brigham Young was no neuter -- +No faggot, no fairy, no fruiter. + Where ten thousand virgins + Succumbed to his urgin's +There now stands the great State of Utah. +% +The latest reports from Good Hope +State that apes there have pricks thick as rope, + And fuck high, wide, and free, + From the top of one tree +To the top of the next -- what a scope! +% +The limerick is furtive and mean; +You must keep her in close quarantine, + Or she sneaks to the slums + And promptly becomes +Disorderly, drunk, and obscene. + -- Morris Bishop +% +The limerick, a verse form iniquitous, +Has nonetheless been ubiquitous. + Once Congress in session, + Declared its suppression, +But people got around that by writing the last line with no rhyme or meter. +% +The long-peckered Bey of Algiers +Loved to spear chubby lads in their rears. + A demon for semen, + This buffersome he-man +Shot the chute till it seeped from their ears. +% +The moyel who treated young Alec +Was cross-eyed and hydrocephalic. + Presented the child + His aim was so wild +He rendered the poor boy biphallic. +% +The new cinematic emporium +Is not just a super-sensorium, + But a highly effectual + Heterosexual +Mutual masturbatorium. +% +The nipples of Sarah Sarong +When excited are twelve inches long + This embarrassed her lover + Who was pained to discover +She expected no less of his dong +% +The notorious Duchess of Peels +Saw a fisherman fishing for eels. + Said she, "Would you mind? -- + Shove one up my behind. +I am anxious to know how it feels." +% +The office brown-noser named Bunky +Would claim he was nobody's flunky. + But when the chips were all down, + His proboscis was brown, +And there hung many strands which were gunky. +% +The old archeologist, Throstle, +Discovered a marvelous fossil. + He knew from its bend + And the knot on the end, +'Twas the penis of Paul the Apostle. +% +The once was a man from Bombay +Who modeled his cunts out of clay + So hot was his prick + That he turned them to brick +And rubbed all his foreskin away. +% +The partition of Vavasour Scowles +Was a sickener: they came on his bowels + In a firkin; his brain + Was found clogging a drain, +And his toes were inside of some towels. + -- Edward Gorey +% +The prick of the engineer, Scott, +Fell off from Saturnian rot. + He went to the basement + And made a replacement +Of tungsten and plastic and snot. +% +The randy old Bey of Algiers +Who'd confined his cock-poking to queers, + Tried a cunt for a change, + And remarked : "It felt strange ... +Just think what I've missed all these years!" +% +The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher +Called a girl a most elegant creature. + So she laid on her back + And, exposing her crack, +Said, "Fuck that, you old Sunday School Teacher!" +% +The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher +Called a hen a most elegant creature. + The hen, pleased with that, + Laid an egg in his hat -- +And thus did the hen reward Beecher. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes +% +The Shah of the Empire of Persia +Lay for days in a sexual merger. + When the nautch asked the Shah, + "Won't you ever withdraw?" +He replied with a yawn, "It's inertia." +% +The sight of his guests filled Lord Cray +At breakfast with horrid dismay, + So he launched off the spoons + The pits from his prunes +At their heads as they neared the buffet. + -- Edward Gorey +% +The skater, Barbara Ann Scott +Is so fuckingly "winsome" a snot, + That when posed on her toes + She elaborately shows +Teeth, fat ass, titties and twat. +% +The spouse of a pretty young thing +Came home from the wars in the spring. + He was lame but he came + With his dame like a flame -- +A discharge is a wondeful thing. +% +The star of that X-rated hit +Plays a nurse with a throat full of clit. + This serves as a palace + For each turgid phallus-- +Some say that the plot is pure shit. +% +The Sultan was peeved with his harem, +And cooked up a scheme for to scare'em. + He caught a big mouse + Which he loosed in the house. +(Such confusion is called harem-scarem). +% +"The testes are cooler outside," +Said the doc to the curious bride, + "For the semen must not + Get too fucking hot, +And the bag fans your bum on the ride." +% +The wife of young Richard of Limerick +Complained to her husband, "My quim, Rick, + Still grows in diameter + Each time that you ram at her; +How can your poor tool stay so slim, Rick?" +% +The woman who lives on the moon +Is still cherishing the balloon + Of an earthling who'd come + And given her some, +But had dribbled away all too soon. +% +The work of Mess Sergeant Potgieter +Is not merely reading a meter. + By orders of Kirk + A part of his work +Is dosing the food with saltpeter. +% +The world is so full of a number of things, +I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. + I'll tell you a story-- + It won't take me long-- +Of a brother and sister whose tale is my song. + +There was an old fellow and what do you think? +He lived on the cheese that he scraped from his dink. + He whacked it, he hacked it, + He ate it with glee- +Was there ever a fellow so happy as he? + +This charming old chap had a sister as well : +She was ugly and gaunt, with a horrible smell. + Her cunt was so dirty + It stank like a beast, +And the odor killed flies as they gathered to feast. + +What a wonderful family! What marvellous style! +I'll bet you and I aren't close by a mile. + Their odor and diet + Won't soon be forgotton, +And one day you and I may be equally rotten. +% +There a young man from the Coast +Who had an affair with a ghost. + At the height of orgasm + Said the pallid phantasm, +"I think I can feel it -- almost!" +% +There are some things we mustn't expose, +So we hide them away in our clothes. + Oh, it's shocking to stare + At what's certainly there-- +But why this is so, heaven knows. +% +There is a young faggot named Mose +Who insists that you fuck his long nose. + And you'll double the joy + Of this lecherous boy +If you'll tickle his balls with your toes. +% +There is a young lady named Aird, +Whose bottom is always kept bared. + When asked why she pouts, + She says "The Boy Scouts, +All beg me to please Be Prepared!" +% +There once was a bishop from Birmingham +Who deflowered young girls while confirming 'em. + As they knelt on the hassock + He lifted his cassock +And slipped his episcopal worm in 'em. +% +There once was a boy named Carruthers +Who was busily fucking his mother + "I know it's a sin," + He said, shoving it in, +"But it's better than blowing my brother." +% +There once was a chick named Longet, +Who went out to Aspen to play. + Along came a Spyder, + Who sat down beside her +And she blew the poor bastard away. +% +There once was a clergyman's daughter +Who detested the pony he bought her, + Till she found that its dong + Was as hard and as long +As the prayers her father had taught her. + +She married a fellow named Tony +Who soon found her fucking the pony. + Said he, "What's it got, + My dear, that I've not?" +Sighed she, "Just a yard-long bologna." +% +There once was a couple named Kelley, +Who lived their life belly to belly. + Because in their haste + They used library paste, +Instead of petroleum jelly. +% +There once was a dentist named Stone +Who saw all his patients alone. + In a fit of depravity + He filled the wrong cavity, +And my, how his practice has grown! +% +There once was a Duchess of Beever +Who slept with her golden retriever. + Said the potted old Duke : + "Such tricks make me puke! +Were it not for her money, I'd leave her." +% +There once was a Duchess of Bruges +Whose cunt was incredibly huge. + Said the king to this dame + As he thunderously came: +"Mon Dieu! Apres moi, le deluge!" +% +There once was a fairy named Avers +Who encircled his cock with lifesavers. + Though buggers all claimed + That their asses were maimed, +Sixy-niners all cheered the new flavors. +% +There once was a fellow named Bob +Who in sexual ways was a snob. + One day he was swimmin' + With twelve naked women +And deserted them all for a gob. +% +There once was a fellow named Brewster +Who said to his wife, as he goosed her, + "It used to be grand + But look at my hand +You're not wiping as clean as ya uster." +% +There once was a fellow named Howard, +Whose tool it was nuclear-powered, + While grabbing some ass, + He reached critical mass, +But think of the girl he deflowered! +% +There once was a fellow named Potts +Who was prone to having the trots + But his humble abode + Was without a commode +So his carpet was covered with spots. +% +There once was a fellow named Siegel +Who attempted to bugger a beagle, + But the mettlesome bitch + Turned and said with a twitch, +"It's fun, but you know it's illegal." +% +There once was a fellow named Sweeney +Who spilled gin all over his weenie. + Not being uncouth, + He added vermouth +And slipped his amour a martini. +% +There once was a fiesty young terrier +Who liked to bite girls on the derriere. + He'd yip and he'd yap, + Then leap up and snap; +And the fairer the derriere the merrier. +% +There once was a floozie named Annie +Whose prices were cosy--but cannie: + A buck for a fuck, + Fifty cents for a suck, +And a dime for a feel of her fanny. +% +There once was a freshman named Lin, +Whose tool was as thin as a pin, + A virgin named Joan + From a bible belt home, +Said "This won't be much of a sin." +% +There once was a gangster named Brown +-- the sneakiest bastard in town. + He was caught by G-men + Shooting his semen +Where the cops would slip and fall down. +% +There once was a gaucho named Bruno, +Who said, "About sex, well, I do know, + Sheep are just fine, + Chickens, divine, +But iguanas are Numero Uno." +% +There once was a gay young Parisian +Who screwed an appendix incision, + And the girl of his choice + Could hardly rejoice +At the horrible lack of precision. +% +There once was a girl from Cornell +Whose teats were shaped like a bell. + When you touched them they shrunk, + Except when she was drunk, +And then they got bigger than hell. +% +There once was a girl from Decatur, +Who got laid by a big alligator. + Now nobody knew + The result of that screw, +'Cause after he laid her, he ate her. +% +There once was a girl from Madras +Who had such a beautiful ass -- + It was not round and pink + (As you bastards think) +But had two ears, a tail, and ate grass. +% +There once was a girl from Spokane, +Went to bed with a one-legged man. + She said, "I know you-- + You've really got two! +Why didn't you say so when we began?" +% +There once was a girl named Irene +Who lived on distilled kerosene + But she started absorbin' + A new hydrocarbon +And since then has never benzene. +% +There once was a girl named Irene +Who lived on distilled kerosene + But she started absorbin' + A new hydrocarbon +And since then has never benzene. +% +There once was a girl named Louise +Whose cunt hair hung down to her knees. + The crabs in her twat + Tied the hairs in a knot +And constructed a flying trapeze. +% +There once was a girl named Mcgoffin +Who was diddled amazingly often. + She was rogered by scores + Who'd been turned down by whores, +And was finally screwed in her coffin. +% +There once was a girl named Priscilla +Whose vagina was flavored vanilla. + The taste was so fine + Man and beast stood in line +(Including a stud armadilla). +% +There once was a girl so lovely, +Who wanted to make love in the bubbly, + She strapped on her tanks, + And started her pranks, +But the lobsters all thought she was ugly. +% +There once was a golfer named Leer, +Who got put in the clink for a year, + For an action obscene, + On the very first green. +Where the sign said "Enter course here." +% +There once was a gouty old colonel +Who grew glum when the weather grew vernal, + And he cried in his tiffin + For his prick wouldn't stiffen, +And the size of the thing was infernal. +% +There once was a guardsman from Buckingham +Who said, "As for girls, I hate fucking 'em. + But when I meet boys, + God! how I enjoys +Just licking their peckers and sucking 'em." +% +There once was a hacker named Ken +Who inherited truckloads of Yen. + So he built him some chicks, + Of silicon chips, +And hasn't been heard from since then. +% +There once was a handsome young seaman +Who with ladies was really a demon. + In peace or in war, + At sea or on shore, +He could certainly dish out the semen. +% +There once was a horny old bitch +With a motorized self-frigger which + She would use with delight + All day long and all night - +Twenty bucks: Abercrombie & Fitch. +% +There once was a horse named Lily +Whose dingus was really a dilly. + It was vaginoid duply, + And labial quadruply -- +In fact, he was really a filly. +% +There once was a husky young Viking +Whose sexual prowess was striking. + Every time he got hot + He would scour the twat +Of some girl that might be to his liking. +% +There once was a jolly old bloke +Who picked up a girl for a poke. + He took down her pants, + Fucked her into a trance, +And then shit into her shoe for a joke. +% +There once was a kiddie named Carr +Caught a man on top of his mar. + As he saw him stick 'er, + He said with a snicker, +"You do it much faster than par." +% +There once was a lady from Exeter, +So pretty that men craned their necks at her. + One was even so brave + As to take out and wave +The distinguishing mark of his sex at her. +% +There once was a lady from Kansas +Whose cunt was as big as Bonanzas. + It was nine inches deep + And the sides were quite steep -- +It had whiskers like General Carranza's. +% +There once was a lady named Carter, +Fell in love with a virile young Tartar. + She stripped off his pants, + At his prick quickly glanced, +And cried: "For that I'll be a martyr!" +% +There once was a lady named Clair, +Who possessed a magnificent pair. + Or that's what I thought, + Till I saw one get caught, +On a thorn and begin losing air. +% +There once was a lady named Myrtle +Who had an affair with a turtle. + She had crabs, so they say, + In a year and a day +Which proved that that turtle was fertile. +% +There once was a lawyer named Rex +With minuscule organs of sex. + Arraigned for exposure, + He maintained with composure, +"De minimis non curat lex." + + [Trans: the law does not concern itself with small things. Ed.] +% +There once was a lifeguard named Lee +Who rescued a girl from the sea + She asked how to pay, + And he said "Try this way, +Go down for the third time on me." +% +There once was a maid from Mobile +Whose cunt was made of blue steel. + She only got thrills + From pneumatic drills +And an off-centered emery wheel. +% +There once was a man from Bombay +He would do it all night and all day + He soon became sore + You shoulda' heard him roar +When his wife rubbed his balls with Ben-Gay! +% +There once was a man from Calcutta +Who used to beat off in the gutta + The heat of the sun + Affected his gun +And turned all his cream into butta! +% +There once was a man from Dunoon, +Who always ate soup with a fork. + He said "When I eat + Either fish, foul or flesh, +I otherwise finish too quick." +% +There once was a man from Exameter +Who had a prodigious diameter + But it wasn't the size + That brought forth the cries +'Twas his rhythm, iambic pentameter. +% +There once was a man from Madras, +Whose balls were made out of brass. + When they clanged together, + They played "Stormy Weather", +And lightning shot out of his ass. +% +There once was a man from Nantee +Who buggered an ape in a tree. + The results were most horrid + All ass and no forehead +Three balls and a purple goatee. +% +There once was a man from Nantucket +Who kept all his cash in a bucket. + His daughter, named Nan, + Ran away with a man, +And as for the bucket, Nantucket. + +The pair of them went to Manhasset, +(Nan and the man with the asset.) + Pa followed them there, + But they left in a tear, +And as for the asset, Manhasset. + +Pa followed the pair to Pawtucket, +(Nan and the man with the bucket.) + Pa said to the man, + "You're welcome to Nan." +But as for the bucket, Pawtucket. +% +There once was a man from Nantucket +Whose dick was so long he could suck it. + He said with a grin + As he wiped off his chin, +"If my ear was a cunt, I could fuck it." +% +There once was a man from Racine, +Who invented a screwing machine. + Both concave and convex, + It could please either sex, +But, oh, what a bastard to clean! +% +There once was a man from Sandem +Who was making his girl on a tandem. + At the peak of the make + She jammed on the brake +And scattered his semen at random. +% +There once was a man from Sydney +Who could put it up to her kidney. + But the man from Quebec + Put it up to her neck; +He had a big one, now didn't he? +% +There once was a man named Eugene +Who invented a screwing machine + Concave and convex + It served either sex +And it played with itself in between. +% +There once was a man named McGruder, +Who canoed with a girl in Bermuder. + But the girl thought it crude, + To be wooed in the nude, +So McGru took an oar and subduder. +% +There once was a man named McSweeny +Who spilled lots of gin on his weeney + So just to be couth + He added vermouth +And slipped his best girl a martini. +% +There once was a man named Parridge +With peculiar views on marriage. + He sucked off his brother, + Fucked his own mother, +And gobbled his sister's miscarriage. +% +There once was a man with a hernia +Who said to his doctor, "Gol dern ya, + When you work on my middle + Be sure you don't fiddle +With things that do not concern ya." +% +There once was a member of Mensa +Who was a most excellent fencer. + The sword that he used + Was his -- (line is refused, +And has now been removed by the censor). +% +There once was a miner named Dave, +Who kept a dead whore in his cave. + She was ugly as shit, + And missing one tit, +But think of the money he saves. +% +There once was a monk of Camyre +Who was seized with a carnal desire + And the primary cause + Was the abbess's drawers +Which were hung up to dry by the fire. +% +There once was a newspaper vendor, +A person of dubious gender. + He would charge one-and-two + For permission to view +His remarkable double pudenda. +% +There once was a plumber from Leigh, +Who was plumbing his maid by the sea, + Said she, "Please stop plumbing, + I think someone's coming!" +Said he, "Yes, love, I know that, it's me." +% +There once was a pretty young Mrs. +Whose tearful but short story thrs. + Her mind lost its grasp -- + Now she thinks she's an asp +And just sits in the corner and hrs. +% +There once was a queen of Bulgaria +Whose bush had grown hairier and hairier, + Till a prince from Peru + Who came up for a screw +Had to hunt for her cunt with a terrier. +% +There once was a reverend at Kings +Whose mind 'twas on heavenly things. + But his heart was on fire + For a boy in the choir +Whose buns were like jelly on springs. +% +There once was a sad Maitre d'hotel +Who said, "They can all go to hell! + What they do to my wife -- + Why it ruins my life; +And the worst is they all do it well." +% +There once was a sailor named Gasted, +A swell guy, as long as he lasted, + He could jerk himself off + In a basket, aloft, +Or a breeches-buoy swung from the masthead. +% +There once was a Scot named McAmeter +With a tool of prodigious diameter. + It was not the size + That cause such surprise; +'Twas his rhythm -- iambic pentameter. +% +There once was a son-of-a-bitch, +Neither clever, nor handsome, nor rich, + Yet the girls he would dazzle, + And fuck to a frazzle, +And then ditch them, the son-of-a-bitch! +% +There once was a spaceman named Spock +Who had a huge Vulcanized cock. + A girl from Missouri + Whose name was Uhura +Just fainted away from the shock. +% +There once was a Swede in Minneapolis, +Discovered his sex life was hapless: + The more he would screw + The more he'd want to, +And he feared he would soon be quite sapless. +% +There once was a Usenetter named Mark, +Whose gender was kept in the dark. + He/she/it said with a nod, + "My ancestors were odd!" +Did Noah need two for the ark? +% +There once was a whore from Regina +Who had a stupendous vagina. + To save herself time, + She had six at a time, +And another one working behind her. +% +There once was a woman from Arden +Who sucked off a man in a garden. + He said, "My dear Flo, + Where does all that stuff go?" +And she said, "[Swallow hard] I beg pardon?" +% +There once was a yokel of Beaconsfield +Engaged to look after the deacon's field, + But he lurked in the ditches + And diddled the bitches +Who happened to cross that antique 'un's field. +% +There once was a young fellow named Blaine, +And he screwed some disgusting old jane. + She was ugly and smelly, + With an awful pot-belly, +But... well, they were caught in the rain. +% +There once was a young girl from Natchez +Who chanced to be born with two snatches + She often said, "Shit! + I'd give either tit +For a guy with equipment that matches." +% +There once was a young man from Boston +Who drove around town in an Austin, + There was room for his ass, + And a gallon of gas, +So he hung out his balls and he lost 'em. +% +There once was a young man from France +Who waited ten years for his chance; +Then he muffed it... +% +There once was a young man from Yuma +Who attempted sex with a puma + He gave up real quick + Minus nose, toes, and prick +In obvious pain and ill huma. +% +There once was a young man from Yuma, +Who told an elephant joke to a puma. + Now his dry bleached bones lie, + Under hot Asian skies, +'Cause the puma had no sense of huma. +% +There once was a young man named Clyde +Who fell in an outhouse, and died. + He had a twin brother + Who fell in another +And now they're interred side by side. +% +There once was a young man named Gene, +Who invented a screwing machine. + Concave and convex, + It served either sex, +And it played with itself in between. +% +There once was a young man named Lancelot +Whom the townsfolk would look at askance a lot + For when he should pass + A desirable lass +The front of his pants would advance a lot. +% +There once was an Arpanet freak, +Who better response-time did seek. + He searched coast to coast, + For a reliable host, +Whose logger took less than a week. +% +There once was an old man from Esser, +Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser. + It at last grew so small, + He knew nothing at all, +And now he's a College Professor. +% +There once was an old man from Esser, +Whose knowledge grew lesser and lesser. + It at last grew so small, + He knew nothing at all, +And now he's a College Professor. +% +There once were two brothers named Luntz +Who buggered each other at once. + When asked to account + For this intricate mount, +They said, "Ass-holes are tighter than cunts." +% +There once were two women from Birmingham. +And this is the story concerning 'em. + They lifted the frock + And fondled the cock +Of the bishop as he was confirming 'em. +% +There was a bluestocking in Florence +Wrote anti-sex pamphlets in torrents, + Till a Spanish grandee, + Got her off with his knee, +And she burned all her works with abhorrence. +% +There was a family named Doe, +An ideal family to know. + As father screwed mother, + She said, "You're heavier than brother." +And he said, "Yes, Sis told me so!" +% +There was a fat lady of China +Who'd a really enormous vagina, + And when she was dead + They painted it red, +And used it for docking a liner. +% +There was a fat man from Rangoon +Whose prick was much like a ballon. + He tried hard to ride her + And when finally inside her +She thought she was pregnant too soon. +% +There was a gay countess of Bray, +And you may think it odd when I say, + That in spite of high station, + Rank and education, +She always spelled cunt with a 'k'. +% +There was a gay dog from Ontario +Who fancied himself a Lothario. + At a wench's glance + He'd snatch off his pants +And make for her Mons Venerio. +% +There was a gay parson of Norton +Whose prick, although thick, was a short 'un. + To make up for this loss, + He had balls like a horse, +And never spent less than a quartern. +% +There was a gay parson of Tooting +Whose roe he was frequently shooting, + Till he married a lass + With a face like my arse, +And a cunt you could put a top-boot in. +% +There was a girl from Aberystwyth +Who brought grain to the mill to get grist with. + The miller's son Jack + Laid her flat on her back +And united the organs they pissed with. +% +There was a lewd fellow named Duff +Who loved to dive deep in the muff. + With his head in a whirl + He said, "Spread it, Pearl; +I cunt get enough of the stuff!" +% +There was a man from Mich. +Who used to wish and wich. + That spring would come + So he could bum +Around and go out fich. +% +There was a pianist named Liszt +Who played with one hand while he pissed, + But as he grew older + His technique grew bolder, +And in concert jacked off with his fist. +% +There was a poor parson from Goring, +Who made a small hole in his flooring, + Fur-lined it all round, + Then laid on the ground, +And declared it was cheaper than whoring. +% +There was a strong man of Drumrig +Who one day did seven times frig. + He buggered three sailors, + Four dogs and two tailors, +And ended by fucking a pig. +% +There was a teenager named Donna +Who never said, "No, I don't wanna." + Two days out of three + She would shoot LSD, +And on weekends she smoked marijuana. +% +There was a young belle of old Natchez +Whose garments were always in patchez. + When comment arose + On the state of her clothes +She, drawled, "When ah itchez, ah scratchez." +% +There was a young blade from South Greece +Whose bush did so greatly increase + That before he could shack + He must hunt needle in stack. +'Twas as bad as being obese. +% +There was a young bride of Antigua +Whose husband said, "Dear me, how big you are!" + Said the girl, "What damn'd rot! + Why, you've only felt my twot, +My legs and my arse and my figua!" +% +There was a young bride, a Canuck, +Told her husband, "Let's do more than suck. + You say that I, maybe, + Can have my first baby-- +Let's give up this Frenchin' and fuck!" +% +There was a young chap in Arabia +Who courted a widow named Fabia. + "Yes, my tongue is as long + As the average man's dong," +He said, licking the lips of her labia. +% +There was a young cook with the art +Of making a delicious tart + With a handful of shit, + Some snot and some spit, +And he'd flavor the whole with a fart. +% +There was a young curate whose brain +Was deranged from the use of cocaine; + He lured a small child + To a copse dark and wild, +Where he beat it to death with his cane. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young damsel named Baker +Who was poked in a pew by a Quaker. + He yelled, "My God! what + Do you call this -- a twat? +Why, the entrance is more than an acre!" +% +There was a young dolly named Molly +Who thought that to frig was a folly. + Said she, "Your pee-pee + Means nothing to me, +But I'll do it just to be jolly." +% +There was a young fellow called Clyde +Who fell in an outhouse and died. + He had a twin brother + Who fell in another +So now they're interred side by side. +% +There was a young fellow from Cal., +In bed with a passionate gal. + He leapt from the bed, + To the toilet he sped; +Said the gal, "What about me, old pal?" +% +There was a young fellow from Florida +Who liked a friend's wife, so he borrowed her. + When they got into bed + He cried, "God strike me dead! +This ain't a cunt -- it's a corridor!" +% +There was a young fellow from Kent +Whose cock was so long that it bent + To save himself trouble + He put it in double +And instead of coming, he went. +% +There was a young fellow from Leeds +Who swallowed a package of seeds. + Great tufts of grass + Sprouted out of his ass +And his balls were all covered with weeds. +% +There was a young fellow from Parma +Who was solemnly screwing his charmer. + Said the damsel demure, + "You'll excuse me, I'm sure, +But I must say you fuck like a farmer." +% +There was a young fellow name Tucker +Who, instructing a novice cock-sucker, + Said, "Don't bow out your lips + Like an elephant's hips, +The boys like it best when they pucker." +% +There was a young fellow named Ades +Whose favorite fruit was young maids. + But sheep, nigger boys, whores, + And the knot holes in doors +Were by no means exempt from his raids. +% +There was a young fellow named Babbitt +Who could screw nine times like a rabbit, + But a girl from Johore + Could do it twice more, +Which was just enough extra to crab it. +% +There was a young fellow named Bill, +Who took an atomic pill, + His navel corroded, + His asshole exploded, +And they found his nuts in Brazil. +% +There was a young fellow named Blaine, +And he screwed some disgusting old jane. + She was ugly and smelly + With an awful pot-belly, +But... well, they were caught in the rain. +% +There was a young fellow named Bliss +Whose sex life was strangely amiss, + For even with Venus + His recalcitrant penis +Would never do better than t + h + i + s + . +% +There was a young fellow named Bowen +Whose pecker kept growin' and growin'. + It grew so tremendous, + So long and so pendulous, +'Twas no good for fuckin' -- just showin'. +% +There was a young fellow named Brewer +Whose girl made her home in a sewer. + Thus he, the poor soul, + Could get into her hole, +And still not be able to screw her! +% +There was a young fellow named Case +Who entered a cunt-lapping race. + He licked his way clean + Through Number thirteen, +But then slipped and got pissed in the face. +% +There was a young fellow named Charteris +Put his hand where his young lady's garter is. + Said she, "I don't mind, + And higher up you'll find +The place where my fucker and farter is." +% +There was a young fellow named Cribbs +Whose cock was so big it had ribs. + They were inches apart, + And to suck it took art, +While to fuck it took forty-two trips. +% +There was a young fellow named Dick +Who had a magnificent prick. + It was shaped like a prism + And shot so much gism +It made every cocksucker sick. +% +There was a young fellow named Feeney +Whose girl was a terrible meany. + The hatch of her snatch + Had a catch that would latch +-- She could only be screwed by Houdini. +% +There was a young fellow named Fletcher, +Was reputed an infamous lecher. + When he'd take on a whore + She'd need a rebore, +And they'd carry him out on a stretcher. +% +There was a young fellow named Fyfe +Whose marriage was ruined for life, + For he had an aversion + To every perversion, +And only liked fucking his wife. + +Well, one year the poor woman struck, +And she wept, and she cursed at her luck, + And said, "Where have you gotten us + With your goddamn monotonous +Fuck after fuck after fuck? + +"I once knew a harlot named Lou -- +And a versatile girl she was, too. + After ten years of whoredom + She perished of boredom +When she married a jackass like you!" +% +There was a young fellow named Gene +Who first picked his asshole quite clean. + He next picked his toes, + And lastly his nose, +And he never did wash in between. +% +There was a young fellow named Gluck +Who found himself shit out of luck. + Though he petted and wooed, + When he tried to get screwed +He found virgins just don't give a fuck. +% +There was a young fellow named Goody +Who claimed that he wouldn't, but would he? + If he found himself nude + With a gal in the mood +The question's not woody but could he? +% +There was a young fellow named Grant +Who was made like the sensitive plant. + When they asked "Do you fuck?" + He replied, "No such luck. +I would if I could, but I can't." +% +There was a young fellow named Grimes +Who fucked his girl seventeen times + In the course of a week -- + And this isn't to speak +Of assorted venereal crimes. +% +There was a young fellow named Harry, +Had a joint that was long, huge and scary. + He grabbed him a virgin, + Who, without any urgin', +Immediately spread like a fairy. +% +There was a young fellow named Hatch +Who was fond of the music of Bach. + He said: "It's not fussy + Like Brahms and Debussy; +Sit down, and I'll play you a snatch." +% +There was a young fellow named Kimble +Whose prick was exceedingly nimble, + But fragile and slender, + And dainty and tender, +So he kept it encased in a thimble. +% +There was a young fellow named Meek +Who invented a lingual technique. + It drove women frantic, + And made them romantic, +And wore all the hair off his cheek. +% +There was a young fellow named Morgan +Who possessed an unusual organ: + The end of his dong, + Which was nine inches long, +Was tipped with the head of a gorgon. +% +There was a young fellow named Paul +Who confessed, "I have only one ball. + But the size of my prick + Is God's dirtiest trick, +For my girls always ask, 'Is that all?'" +% +There was a young fellow named Pell +Who didn't like cunt very well. + He would finger or fuck one, + But never would suck one-- +He just couldn't get used to the smell. +% +There was a young fellow named Price +Who dabbled in all sorts of vice. + He had virgins and boys + And mechanical toys, +And on Mondays... he meddled with mice! +% +There was a young fellow named Prynne +Whose prick was so short and so thin, + His wife found she needed + A Fuckoscope -- she did -- +To see if he'd gotten it in. +% +There was a young fellow named Skinner +Who took a young lady to dinner + At a quarter to nine, + They sat down to dine, +At twenty to ten it was in her. +The dinner, not Skinner -- Skinner was in her before dinner. + +There was a young fellow named Tupper +Who took a young lady to supper. + At a quarter to nine, + They sat down to dine, +And at twenty to ten it was up her. +Not the supper -- not Tupper -- It was some son-of-a-bitch named Skinner! +% +There was a young fellow named Sweeney, +Whose girl was a terrible meanie, + The hatch of her snatch, + Had a catch that would latch, +She could only be screwed by Houdini. +% +There was a young fellow of Burma +Whose betrothed had good reason to murmur. + But now that he's married he's + Been using cantharides +And the root of their love is much firmer. +% +There was a young fellow of Greenwich +Whose balls were all covered with spinach. + He had such a tool + It was wound on a spool, +And he reeled it out inich by inich. + +But this tale has an unhappy finich, +For due to the sand in the spinach + His ballocks grew rough + And wrecked his wife's muff, +And scratched up her thatch in the scrimmage. +% +There was a young fellow of Harrow +Whose john was the size of a marrow. + He said to his tart, + "How's this for a start? +My balls are outside in a barrow." +% +There was a young fellow of Kent +Whose prick was so long that it bent, + So to save himself trouble + He put it in double, +And instead of coming he went. +% +There was a young fellow of Mayence +Who fucked his own arse in defiance + Not only of custom + And morals, dad-bust him, +But of most of the known laws of science. +% +There was a young fellow of Perth +Whose balls were the finest on earth. + They grew to such size + That one won a prize, +And goodness knows what they were worth. +% +There was a young fellow of Strensall +Whose prick was as sharp as a pencil. + On the night of his wedding + It went through the bedding, +And shattered the chamber utensil. +% +There was a young fellow of Warwick +Who had reason for feeling euphoric, + For he could by election + Have triune erection: +Ionic, Corinthian, and Doric. +% +There was a young fellow whose dong +Was prodigiously massive and long. + On each side of his whang + Two testes did hang +That attracted a curious throng. +% +There was a young gaucho named Bruno +Who said, "Screwing is one thing I do know. + A woman is fine, + And a sheep is divine, +But a llama is Numero Uno." +% +There was a young German named Ringer +Who was screwing an opera singer. + Said he with a grin, + "Well, I've sure got it in!" +Said she, "You mean that ain't your finger?" +% +There was a young girl from Annista +Who dated a lecherous mister. + He fondled her titty, + Got one finger shitty, +Then screwed up his courage and kissed 'er. +% +There was a young girl from Decatur +Who was raped by an alligator. + But no one quite knew + How she relished that screw, +For after he screwed her, he ate her. +% +There was a young girl from Dundee, +From her fanny there grew a plum tree. + No one ate the nice fruit, + To tell you the truth, +Because they knew it came from her tooty-toot-toot. +% +There was a young girl from East Lynn +Whose mother ( to save her from sin ) + Had filled up her crack + With hard-setting shellac, +But the boys picked it out with a pin. +% +There was a young girl from Hong Kong +Who said, "You are utterly wrong + To say my vagina + Is the largest in China +Just because of your mean little dong." +% +There was a young girl from Hong Kong +Whose cervical cap was a gong. + She said with a yell, + As a shot rang her bell, +"I'll give you a ding for a dong!" +% +There was a young girl from Medina +Who could completely control her vagina. + She could twist it around + Like the cunts that are found +In Japan, Manchukuo and China. +% +There was a young girl from New York +Who plugged up her cunt with a cork. + A woodpecker or two + Made the grade it is true, +But it totally baffled the stork. + +Till along came a man who presented +A tool that was strangely indented. + With a dizzying twirl + He punctured that girl, +And thus was the cork-screw invented. +% +There was a young girl from Peru, +Who noticed her lovers were few; + So she walked out her door + With a fig leaf, no more, +And now she's in bed - with the flu. +% +There was a young girl from Samoa +Who pledged that no man would know her. + One young fellow tried, + But she wriggled aside, +And he spilled all his spermatozoa. +% +There was a young girl from Seattle, +Whose hobby was sucking off cattle. + But a bull from the South + Shot a wad in her mouth +That made both her ovaries rattle. +% +There was a young girl from Siam +Who said to her boyfriend Priam, + "To seduce me, of course, + You'll have to use force, +And thank goodness you're stronger than I am. +% +There was a young girl from St. Cyr +Whose reflex reactions were queer. + Her escort said, "Mable, + Get up off the table; +That money's to pay for the beer." +% +There was a young girl from St. Paul +Who went to a newspaper ball. + Her dress caught on fire + And burnt her entire +Front page and sport section and all. +% +There was a young girl from the Bronix +Who had a vagina of onyx. + She had so much `tsoris' + With her clitoris, +She traded it in for a Packard. +% +There was a young girl from the coast +Who, just when she needed it most, + Lost her Kotex and bled + All over the bed, +And the head and the beard of her host. +% +There was a young girl in Berlin +Who eked out a living through sin. + She didn't mind fucking, + But much preferred sucking, +And she'd wipe off the pricks on her chin. +% +There was a young girl in Berlin +Who was fucked by an elderly Finn. + Though he diddled his best, + And fucked her with zest, +She kept asking, "Hey, Pop, is it in?" +% +There was a young girl in Dakota +Had a letter from Ickes; he wrote her: + "In addition to gas + We are rationing ass, +And you've greatly exceeded your quota." +% +There was a young girl name McKnight +Who got drunk with her boy-friend one night. + She came to in bed, + With a split maidenhead-- +That's the last time she ever was tight. +% +There was a young girl named Ann Heuser +Who swore that no man could surprise her. + But Pabst took a chance, + Found a Schlitz in her pants, +And now she is sadder Budweiser. +% +There was a young girl named Heather +Whose twitcher was made out of leather. + She made a queer noise, + Which attracted the boys, +By flapping the edges together. +% +There was a young girl named McCall +Whose cunt was exceedingly small, + But the size of her anus + Was something quite heinous -- +It could hold seven pricks and one ball. +% +There was a young girl named O'Clare +Whose body was covered with hair. + It was really quite fun + To probe with one's gun, +For her quimmy might be anywhere. +% +There was a young girl named O'Malley +Who wanted to dance in the ballet. + She got roars of applause + When she kicked off her drawers, +But her hair and her bush didn't tally. +% +There was a young girl named Sapphire +Who succumbed to her lover's desire. + She said, "It's a sin, + But now that it's in, +Could you shove it a few inches higher?" +% +There was a young girl of Aberystwyth +Who screwed every man that she kissed with. + She tickled the balls + Of the men in the halls, +And pulled on the prongs that they pissed with. +% +There was a young girl of Aberystwyth +Who took grain to the mill to get grist with. + The miller's sun, Jack, + Laid her flat on her back, +And united the organs they pissed with. +% +There was a young girl of Angina +Who stretched catgut across her vagina. + From the love-making frock + (With the proper sized cock) +Came Toccata and Fugue in D minor. +% +There was a young girl of Asturias +With a penchant for practices curious. + She loved to bat rocks + With her gentlemen's cocks -- +A practice both rude and injurious. +% +There was a young girl of Batonger +who diddled herself with a conger, + When asked how it feels + To be pleasured by eels +She said, "Just like a man, only longer. +% +There was a young girl of Ca'lina, +Had a very capricious vagina: + To the shock of the fucker + "Twould suddenly pucker, +And whistle the chorus of "Dinah." +% +There was a young girl of Cape Cod +Who dreamt she'd been buggered by God. + But it wasn't Jehovah + That turned the girl over, +'Twas Roger the lodger, the dirty old codger, + the bugger, the bastard, the sod! +% +There was a young girl of Cape Town +Who usually fucked with a clown. + He taught her the trick + Of sucking his prick, +And when it went up -- she went down. +% +There was a young girl of Coxsaxie +Whose skirt was more mini than maxi. + She was fucked at the show + In the twenty-third row, +And once more going home in the taxi. +% +There was a young girl of Darjeeling +Who could dance with such exquisite feeling + There was never a sound + For miles around +Save of fly-buttons hitting the ceiling. +% +There was a young girl of Des Moines +Whose cunt could be fitted with coins, + Till a guy from Hoboken + Went and dropped in a token, +And now she rides free on the ferry. +% +There was a young girl of Detroit +Who at fucking was very adroit: + She could squeeze her vagina + To a pin-point, or finer, +Or open it out like a quoit. + +And she had a friend named Durand +Whose cock could contract or expand. + He could diddle a midge + Or the arch of a bridge -- +Their performance together was grand! +% +There was a young girl of East Lynne +Whose mother, to save her from sin, + Had filled up her crack, + To the brim with shellac, +But the boys picked it out with a pin. +% +There was a young girl of Gibraltar +Who was raped as she knelt at the altar. + It really seems odd + That a virtuous God +Should answer her prayers and assault her. +% +There was a young girl of LLewellyn +Whose breasts were as big as a melon. + They were big it is true, + But her cunt was big too, +Like a bifocal, full-color, aerial view +Of Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan. +% +There was a young girl of Mobile, +Who hymen was made of chilled steel, + To give her a thrill, + Took a rotary drill, +Or a number nine emery wheel. +% +There was a young girl of Moline +Whose fucking was sweet and obscene. + She would work on a prick + With every known trick, +And finish by winking it clean. +% +There was a young girl of Newcastle +Whose charms were declared universal. + While one man in front + Wired into her cunt, +Another was engaged at her arsehole. +% +There was a young girl of Pawtucket +Whose box was as big as a bucket. + Her boy-friend said, "Toots, + I'll have to wear boots, +For I see I must muck it, not fuck it." +% +There was a young girl of Penzance +Who boarded a bus in a trance. + The passengers fucked her, + Likewise the conductor, +While the driver shot off in his pants. +% +There was a young girl of Pitlochry +Who was had by a man in a rockery. + She said, "Oh! You've come + All over my bum; +This isn't a fuck -- it's a mockery." +% +There was a young girl of Rangoon +Who was blocked by the Man in the Moon. + "Well, it has been great fun," + She remarked when he'd done, +"But I'm sorry you came quite so soon." +% +There was a young girl of Spitzbergen, +Whose people all thought her a virgin, + Till they found her in bed + With her twat very red, +And the head of a kid just emergin'. +% +There was a young girl who begat +Three babies named Nat, Pat and Tat. + T'was fun in the breeding + But hell in the feeding +When she found there's no tit for Tat. +% +There was a young girl, very sweet, +Who thought sailors' meat quite a treat. + When she sat on their lap + She unbuttoned their flap, +And always had plenty to eat. +% +There was a young harlot from Kew +Who filled her vagina with glue. + She said with a grin, + "If they pay to get in, +They'll pay to get out of it too." +% +There was a young harlot named Schwartz +Whose cock-pit was studded with warts, + And they tickled so nice + She drew a high price +From the studs at the summer resorts. + +Her pimp, a young fellow named Biddle, +Was seldom hard up for a diddle, + For according to rumor + His tool had a tumor +And a fine row of warts down the middle. +% +There was a young hayseed from Tiffan +Whose cock would constantly stiffen. + The knob out in front + Attracted foul cunt +Which he greatly delighted in sniffin'. +% +There was a young idler named Blood, +Made a fortune performing at stud, + With a fifteen-inch peter, + A double-beat metre, +And a load like the Biblical Flood. +% +There was a young Jew of Far Rockaway +Whose screams could be heard for a block away. + Perceiving his error, + The Rabbi in terror +Cried, "God! I have cut his whole cock away!" +% +There was a young lad -- name of Durcan +Who was always jerkin' his gherkin. + His father said, "Durcan + Stop jerkin' your gherkin +Your gherkin's for ferkin', not jerkin'. +% +There was a young lad from Nahant +Who was made like the Sensitve Plant. + When asked, "Do you fuck?" + He replied, "No such luck. +I would if I could but I can't." +% +There was a young lad from Siam, +Whose sexlife was caught in a jam. + He loved them real small, + 'Cause they're funner to ball, +So he went out and bought him a lamb! +% +There was a young lad name of Durcan +Who was always jerkin' his gherkin. + His father said, "Durcan! + Stop jerkin' your gherkin! +Your gherkin's for ferkin', not jerkin'. +% +There was a young lad name of Ward +Who strung himself up with a cord + Said he, of his work + (Ere the rope snapped with a jerk) +"I am leaving because I am bored." + - E. A. Guest +% +There was a young lad named McFee +Who was stung in the balls by a bee + He made oodles of money + By oozing pure honey +Every time he attempted to pee. +% +There was a young lady at sea +Who said, "God, how it hurts me to pee." + "I see," said the mate, + "That accounts for the state +Of the captain, the purser, and me." +% +There was a young lady called Ciss +Who went to the river to piss. + A young man in a punt + Put his hand on her cunt; +No wonder she thought it was bliss. +% +There was a young lady from Bangor +Who slept while the ship lay at anchor + She woke in dismay + When she heard the mate say: +"Let's lift up the topsheet and spanker!" +% +There was a young lady from Bright, +Whose speed was much faster than light. + She went out one day + In a relative way +And returned on the previous night. +% +There was a young lady from Bristol +Who went to the Palace called Crystal. + Said she, "It's all glass, + And as round as my ass," +And she farted as loud as a pistol. +% +There was a young lady from Brussels +Who was proud of her vaginal muscles. + She could easily plex them + And so interflex them +As to whistle love songs through her bustles. +% +There was a young lady from Drew +Who ended her verse at line two. +% +There was a young lady from Dumfries +Who said to her boyfriend, "It's some freeze! + My navel's all bare, + So stick it in there, +Before both my legs and my bum freeze." +% +There was a young lady from Exeter, +So pretty that men craned their necks at her. + One was even so brave + As to take out and wave +The distinguishing mark of his sex at her. +% +There was a young lady from Hyde +Who ate a green apple and died. + While her lover lamented + The apple fermented +And made cider inside her inside. +% +There was a young lady from Hyde +Who ate a green apple and died. + While her lover lamented + The apple fermented +And made cider inside her inside. +% +There was a young lady from Maine +Who claimed she had men on her brain. + But you knew from the view, + As her abdomen grew, +It was not on her brain that he'd lain. +% +There was a young lady from Munich +Who had an affair with a eunuch. + At the height of their passion + He dealt her a ration +From a squirt gun concealed in his tunic. +% +There was a young lady from Norway +Who hung by her heels in a doorway. + She told her young man, + "Get off the divan, +I think I've discovered one more way " +% +There was a young lady from Prentice +Who had an affair with a dentist. + To make things easier + He used anesthesia, +And diddled her, `non compos mentis'. +% +There was a young lady from Rheims +Who amazingly pissed in four streams. + A friend poked around + And a fly-button found +Lodged tight in her hole so it seems. +% +There was a young lady from Rio +Who slept with the Fornier trio. + As she dropped her panties + She said, "No andanties +I want this allegro con brio." +% +There was a young lady from Siam +Who said to her lover, one Kiam, + "You may kiss me of course, + But you'll have to use force. +Though god knows you're stronger than I am." +% +There was a young lady from Spain +Who demurely undressed on a train. + A helpful young porter + Helped more than he orter, +And she promptly cried "Help me again" +% +There was a young lady from Spain +Who got sick as she rode on a train; + Not once, but again, + And again, and again, +And again, and again, and again. +% +There was a young lady from Spain +Whose face was exceedingly plain, + But her cunt had a pucker + That made the men fuck her, +Again, and again, and again. +% +There was a young lady from Troy +Had a moustache, just like a young boy + Though it tickled to kiss + 'Twas a source of much bliss +When she used it to brush a man's toy. +% +There was a young lady from Wheeling +Who claimed to lack sexual feeling. + But a cynic named Boris + Just touched her clitoris +And she had to be scraped off the ceiling. +% +There was a young lady from Wheeling +Who had a peculiar feeling. + She laid on her back + And tickled her crack +And pissed all over the ceiling. +% +There was a young lady from Wooster +Who complained that too many men gooster. + So she traded her scanties + For sandpaper panties, +Now they goose her much less than they used 'ter. +% +There was a young lady in Reno, +Who lost all her dough playing Keno. + But she lay on her back, + And opened her crack, +So now she owns the Casino! +% +There was a young lady named Alice +Who was known to have peed in a chalice. + 'Twas the common belief + It was done for relief, +And not out of protestant malice. +% +There was a young lady named Astor +Who never let any get past her. + She finally got plenty + By stopping twenty, +Which certainly ought to last her. +% +There was a young lady named Banker, +Who slept while the ship lay at anchor, + She woke in dismay, + When she heard the mate say, +"Now hoist up the topsheet and spanker." +% +There was a young lady named Blount +Who had a rectangular cunt. + She learned for diversion + Posterior perversion, +Since no one could fit here in front. +% +There was a young lady named Bower +Who dwelt in an Ivory Tower. + But a poet from Perth + Laid her flat on the earth, +And proceeded with penis to plough her. +% +There was a young lady named Brent +With a cunt of enormous extent, + And so deep and so wide, + The acoustics inside +Were so good you could hear when you spent. +% +There was a young lady named Bright +Who could travel much faster than light. + She took off one day, + In a relative way, +And returned on the previous night. +% +There was a young lady named Brook +Who never could learn how to cook. + But on a divan + She could please any man- +She knew every darn trick in the book! +% +There was a young lady named Cager +Who, as the result of a wager, + Consented to fart + The entire oboe part +Of Mozart's quartet in F major. +% +There was a young lady named Ciss +Who said, "I think skating's a bliss " + But she'll never restate, + For a wheel off her skate +.siht ekil gnihtemos pu hsinif reh edaM +% +There was a young lady named Clair +Who possessed a magnificent pair; + At least so I thought + Till I saw one get caught +On a thorn, and begin losing air. +% +There was a young lady named Dot +Whose cunt was so terribly hot + That ten bishops of Rome + And the Pope's private gnome +Failed to quench her Vesuvial twat. +% +There was a young lady named Duff +With a lovely, luxuriant muff. + In his haste to get in her + One eager beginner +Lost both of his balls in the rough. +% +There was a young lady named Etta +Who was constantly seen in a swetta. + Three reasons she had: + To keep warm wasn't bad, +But the other two reasons were betta. +% +There was a young lady named Fleager +Who was terribly, terribly eager + To be all the rage + On the tragedy stage, +Though her talents were pitifully meagre. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young lady named Flo +Whose lover had pulled out too slow. + So they tried it all night, + Till he got it just right... +Well, practice makes pregnant, you know. +% +There was a young lady named Flynn +Who thought fornication a sin, + But when she was tight + It seemed quite all right, +So everyone filled her with gin. +% +There was a young lady named Gilda +Who went on a date with a builder. + He said that he would, + And he could and he should, +And he did and it damn well near killed her. +% +There was a young lady named Gloria +Who was had by Sir Gerald Du Maurier, + And then by six men, + Sir Gerald again, +And the band at the Waldorf-Astoria. +% +There was a young lady named Gloria, +Whose boyfriend said, "May I explore ya?" + She replied to the chap, + "I'll draw you a map, +Of where others have been to before ya." +% +There was a young lady named Grace +Who would not take a prick in her "place." + Though she'd kiss it and suck it, + She never would fuck it-- +She just couldn't relax face-to-face. +% +There was a young lady named Hall, +Wore a newspaper dress to a ball. + The dress caught on fire + And burned her entire +Front page, sporting section, and all. +% +There was a young lady named Hatch +Who would always come through in a scratch. + If a guy wouldn't neck her, + She'd grab up his pecker +And shove the damn thing up her snatch. +% +There was a young lady named Mabel +Who liked to sprawl out on the table, + Then cry to her man, + "Stuff in all you can -- +Get your ballocks in, too, if you're able." +% +There was a young lady named Mandel +Who caused quite a neighborhood scandal + By coming out bare + On the main village square +And frigging herself with a candle. +% +There was a young lady named Maud, +A terrible society fraud: + In company, I'm told, + She was distant and cold, +But if you got her alone, Oh God! +% +There was a young lady named May +Who strolled in a park by the way, + And she met a youg man + Who fucked her and ran -- +Now she goes to the park every day. +% +There was a young lady named Nance +Who learned about fucking in France, + And when you'd insert it + She'd squeeze till she hurt it, +And shoved it right back in your pants. +% +There was a young lady named Nelly +Whose tits would jiggle like jelly. + They could tickle her twat + Or be tied in a knot, +And could even swat flies on her belly. +% +There was a young lady named Ransom +Who was rogered three times in a hansom + When she cried out for more + Said a voice from the floor, +"My name, ma'am, is Simpson, not Samson +% +There was a young lady named Riddle +Who had an untouchable middle. + She had many friends + Because of her ends, +Since it isn't the middle you diddle. +% +There was a young lady named Rose +Who fainted whenever she chose; + She did so one day + While playing croquet, +But was quickly revived with a hose. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young lady named Rose +With erogenous zones in her toes. + She remained onanistic + Till a foot-fetishistic +Young man became one of her beaux. +% +There was a young lady named Schneider +Who often kept trysts with a spider. + She found a strange bliss, + In the hiss of her piss, +As it strained through the cobwebs inside her. +% +There was a young lady named Smith +Whose virtue was largely a myth. + She said, "Try as I can + I can't find a man +Who it's fun to be virtuous with." +% +There was a young lady named Twiss +Who said she thought fucking a bliss, + For it tickled her bum + And caused her to come +.siht ekil gniyl ylbatrofmoc elihW +% +There was a young lady named Wylde +Who kept herself quite undefiled + By thinking of Jesus; + Contagious diseases; +And the bother of having a child. +% +There was a young lady of Arden, +The tool of whose swain wouldn't harden. + Said she with a frown, + "I've been sadly let down +By the tool of a fool in a garden." +% +There was a young lady of Bicester +Who was nicer by far than her sister: + The sister would giggle + And wiggle and jiggle, +But this one would come if you kissed her. +% +There was a young lady of Brabant +Who slept with an impotent savant. + She admitted, "We shouldn't, + But it turned out he couldn't- +So you can't say we have when we haven't." +% +There was a young lady of Bude +Who walked down the street in the nude. + A bobby said, "Whattum + Magnificent bottom!" +And slapped it as hard as he could. +% +There was a young lady of Carmia +Whose housekeeping ways would alarm ya. + At every cold snap + She would climb in your lab, +So her little base burner could warm ya. +% +There was a young lady of Dee +Who went down to the river to pee. + A man in a punt + Put his hand on her cunt, +And God! how I wish it were me. +% +There was a young lady of Dee +Whose hymen was split into three. + And when she was diddled + The middle string fiddled : +"Nearer My God To Thee." +% +There was a young lady of Dexter +Whose husband exceedingly vexed her, + For whenever they'd start + He'd unfailingly fart +With a blast that damn nearly unsexed her. +% +There was a young lady of Dover +Whose passion was such that it drove her + To cry, when you came, + "Oh dear! What a shame! +Well, now we shall have to start over." +% +There was a young lady of Ealing +And her lover before her was kneeling. + Said she, "Dearest Jim, + Take your hands off my quim; +I much prefer fucking to feeling." +% +There was a young lady of fashion +Who had oodles and oodles of passion. + To her lover she said, + As they climbed into bed, +"Here's one thing the bastards can't ration!" +% +There was a young lady of Fez +Who was known to the public as "Jez." + Jezebel was her name, + Sucking cocks was the game +She excelled at (so everyone says). +% +There was a young lady of Gaza +Who shaved her cunt bare with a razor. + The crabs, in a lump, + Made tracks to her rump -- +This passing parade did amaze her. +% +There was a young lady of Gloucester +Whose friends they thought they had lost her + Till they found on the grass + The marks of her arse, +And the knees of the man who had crossed her. +% +There was a young lady of Gloucester, +Met a passionate fellow who tossed her. + She wasn't much hurt, + But he dirtied her skirt, +So think of the anguish it cost her. +% +There was a young lady of Kent, +Who admitted she knew what it meant + When men asked her to dine, + And plied her with wine, +She knew, oh she knew -- but she went! +% +There was a young lady of Lee +Who scrambled up into a tree, + When she got there + Her arsehole was bare, +And so was her C U N T. +% +There was a young lady of Lincoln +Who said that her cunt was a pink'un, + So she had a prick lent her + Which turned it magenta, +This artful old lady of Lincoln. +% +There was a young lady of Natchez +Who chanced to be born with two snatches, + And she often said, "Shit! + Why, I'd give either tit +For a man with equipment that matches." + +There was a young fellow named Locke +Who was born with a two-headed cock. + When he'd fondle the thing + It would rise up and sing +An antiphonal chorus by Bach. + +But whether these two ever met +Has not been recorded as yet, + Still, it would be diverting + To see him inserting +His whang while it sang a duet. +% +There was a young lady of Norway +Who hung by her toes in a doorway. + She said to her beau + "Just look at me, Joe! +I think I've discovered one more way!" +% +There was a young lady of Rhyll +In an omnibus was taken ill, + So she called the conductor, + Who got in and fucked her, +Which did more good than a pill. +% +There was a young lady of Spain +Who was fucked by a monk in a drain. + They did it again + And again and again, +And again and again and again. +% +There was a young lady of Twickenham +Who thought men had not enough prick in 'em. + On her knees every day + To God she would pray +To lengthen and strengthen and thicken 'em. +% +There was a young lady of Wheeling +Said to her beau, "I've a feeling + My little brown jug + Has need of a plug" -- +And straightaway she started to peeling. +% +There was a young lady who said, +As her bridegroom got into the bed, + "I'm tired of this stunt, + That they do with one's cunt, +You can get up my bottom instead." +% +There was a young lady whose cunt +Could accommodate a small punt. + Her mother said, "Annie, + It matches your fanny, +Which never was that of a runt." +% +There was a young lady whose thighs, +When spread showed a slit of such size, + And so deep and so wide, + You could play cards inside, +Much to her bridegroom's surprise. +% +There was a young lass from Surat. +The cheeks of her ass were so fat + That they had to be parted + Whenever she farted, +And also whenever she shat. +% +There was a young laundress named Wrangle +Whose tits tilted up at an angle. + "They may tickle my chin," + She said with a grin, +"But at least they keep out of the mangle." +% +There was a young maiden from Osset +Whose quim was nine inches across it. + Said a young man named Tong, + With tool nine inches long, +"I'll put bugger-in if I loss it." +% +There was a young man from Bear Ridge +Who had strange ideas about marriage. + He fucked his wife's mother + And sucked off her brother +And ate up her sister's miscarriage. +% +There was a young man from Bel-Aire +Who was screwing his girl on the stair. + But the banister broke + So he doubled his stroke +And finished her off in mid-air. +% +There was a young man from Bengal +Who claimed he had only one ball, + But two little bitches + Pulled down this man's breeches +And proved he had nothing at all. +% +There was a young man from Biloxi +Whose bowels responded to Moxie. + Drinking glass after glass, + He would tune up his ass, +Till he played like the band at the Roxy. +% +There was a young man from Bombay +Who fashioned a cunt out of clay + But the heat of his prick + Turned it into a brick +And rubbed all his foreskin away. +% +There was a young man from Boston +Who rode around in an Austin. + There was room for his ass + And a gallon of gas, +But his balls hung out and he lost 'em. +% +There was a young man from Calcutta +Who was heard in his beard to mutter, + "If her Bartholin glands + Don't respond to my hands, +I'm afraid I shall have to use butter." +% +There was a young man from Dallas +Who had an exceptional phallus. + He couldn't find room + In any girl's womb +Without rubbing it first with Vitalis. +% +There was a young man from Dundee +Who buggered an ape in a tree. + The results were quite horrid: + All ass and no forehead, +Three balls and a purple goatee. +% +There was a young man from East Lizes +Whose balls were of two different sizes + One was so small + It was no ball at all +The other was large and won prizes. +% +There was a young man from East Wubley +Whose cock was bifurcated doubly. + Each quadruplicate shaft + Had two balls hanging aft, +And the general effect was quite lovely. + +There was a young man from Hong Kong +Who had a trifurcated prong: + A small one for sucking, + A large one for fucking, +And a `boney' for beating a gong. +% +There was a young man from Glengozzle +Who found a remarkable fossil. + He knew by the bend + And the wart on the end, +'Twas the peter of Paul the Apostle. +% +There was a young man from Jodhpur +Who found he could easily cure + His dread diabetes + By eating a foetus +Served up in a sauce of manure. +% +There was a young man from Kent +Whose tool was so long that it bent. + To save himself trouble + He put it in double +And instead of coming, he went. +% +There was a young man from LeDoux, +Whose limericks stopped at line two. + +There was a young man from Verdunne. + + [Actually, there are three limericks in this series, the third one + is about some guy named Nero. If anyone has a copy of it, please + mail it to "fortune". Ed.] +% +There was a young man from Lynn +Whose cock was the size of a pin. + Said his girl with a laugh + As she felt his staff, +"This won't be much of a sin." +% +There was a young man from Maine +Whose prick was as strong as a crane; + It was almost as long, + So he strolled with his dong +Extended in sunshine and rain. +% +There was a young man from Nantucket +Whose cock was so long he could suck it. + But he looked in the glass, + And saw his own ass, +And broke his neck trying to fuck it. +% +There was a young man from Nantucket +Whose cock was so long he could suck it. + He said with a grin, + While wiping his chin, +"If my ear was a cunt, I could fuck it." +% +There was a young man from New Haven +Who had an affair with a raven. + He said with a grin + As he wiped off his chin, +"Nevermore!" +% +There was a young man from Peru, +Who took a long trip by canoe. + While staring at Venus, + And rubbing his penis, +He wound up with a handful of goo. +% +There was a young man from Purdue +Who was only just learning to screw, + But he hadn't the knack, + And he got too far back -- +In the right church, but in the wrong pew. +% +There was a young man from Racine +Who invented a fucking machine. + Concave or convex, + It served either sex, +But oh what a bitch to keep clean. +% +There was a young man from Rangoon +Who used to lament 'neath the moon + That he had the luck + To be born of a fuck +That was scraped off the sheets with a spoon. +% +There was a young man from Salinas +Who had an extremely long penis: + Believe it or not, + When he lay on his cot +It reached from Marin to Martinez. +% +There was a young man from Seattle +Whose testicles tended to rattle. + He said as he fuck-ed + Some stones in a bucket, +"If Stravinsky won't deafen you -- that'll." +% +There was a young man from Siam +Who said, "I go in with a wham, + But I soon lose my starch + Like the mad month of March, +And the lion comes out like a lamb." +% +There was a young man from St. Paul's +Who read "Harper's Bazaar" and "McCall's" + Till he grew such a passion + For feminine fashion +That he knitted a snood for his balls. +% +There was a young man from Stamboul +Who boasted so torrid a tool + That each female crater + Explored by this satyr +Seemed almost unpleasantly cool. +% +There was a young man from Tibet-- +And this is the strangest one yet-- + Whose tool was so long, + So pointed and strong, +He could bugger six Greeks "en brochette". +% +There was a young man in Havana, +Banged his girl on a player-piana. + At the height of their fever + Her ass hit the lever +And: yes, he has no banana. +% +There was a young man in Norway, +Tried to jerk himself off in a sleigh, + But the air was so frigid + It froze his cock rigid, +And all he could come was frappe. +% +There was a young man in the choir +Whose penis rose higher and higher, + Till it reached such a height + It was quite out of sight -- +But of course you know I'm a liar. +% +There was a young man named Crockett +Whose balls got caught in a socket. + His wife was a bitch, + Yeah, she threw the switch, +And Crockett went off like a rocket. +% +There was a young man named Hughes +Who swore off all kinds of booze. + He said, "When I'm muddled + My senses get fuddled, +And I pass up too many screws." +% +There was a young man named Knute +Who had warts all over his root. + He put acid on these + And now when he pees, +He fingers the thing like a flute. +% +There was a young man named Laplace +Whose balls were made out of spun glass. + When they banged together + They played "Stormy Weather" +And lightning shot out of his ass. +% +There was a young man named McNamiter +With a tool of prodigious diameter. + But it wasn't the size + Gave the girls a surprise, +But his rhythm -- iambic pentameter. +% +There was a young man named Rex +Who really was small for his sex. + When tried for exposure + The judge's disclosure +Was "de minimus non curat lex." +% +There was a young man named Zerubbabel +Who had only one real, and one rubber ball. + When they asked if his pleasure + Was only half measure, +He replied, "That is highly improbable." +% +There was a young man named Zerubbabub +Who belonged to the Block, Fuck & Bugger Club + But the pride of his life + Were the tits of his wife -- +One real, and one India-rubber bub. +% +There was a young man of Arras +Who stretched himself out on the grass, + And with no little trouble, + He bent himself double, +And stuck his prick well up his ass. +% +There was a young man of Australia +Who went on a wild bacchanalia. + He buggered a frog, + Two mice and a dog, +And a bishop in fullest regalia. +% +There was a young man of Belgrade +Who remarked, "I'm a queer piece of trade. + I will suck, without charge, + Any cock, if it's large. +If it's small, I expect to be paid." +% +There was a young man of Belgrade +Who slept with a girl in the trade. + She said to him, "Jack, + Try the hole in the back; +The front one is badly decayed." +% +There was a young man of Bengal +Who swore he had only one ball, + But two little bitches + Unbuttoned his britches, +And found he had no balls at all. +% +There was a young man of Bombay +Who buggered his dad once a day. + He said, "I like, rather, + Fucking my father -- +He's clean, and there's nothing to pay." +% +There was a young man of Calcutta, +Who tried to write "cunt" on a shutter. + When he got to c-u, + A pious Hindoo +Knocked him ass-over-head in the gutter. +% +There was a young man of Cape Horn +Who wished he had never been born, + And he wouldn't have been + If his father had seen +That the end of the rubber was torn. +% +There was a young man of Coblenz +Whose ballocks were simply immense: + It took forty-four draymen, + A priest and three laymen +To carry them thither and thence. +% +There was a young man of Darjeeling +Whose cock reached up to the ceiling. + In the electric light socket, + He'd put it and rock it-- +Oh God! What a wonderful feeling! +% +There was a young man of Devizes, +Whose balls were of different sizes. + One was so small, + It was nothing at all; +The other took numerous prizes. +% +There was a young man of Dumfries +Who said to his girl, "If you please, + It would give me great bliss + If, while playing with this, +You would pay some attention to these!" +% +There was a young man of Greenwich +Whose balls were all covered with spinach. + So long was his tool + That it wound round a spool, +And he let it out inach by inach. +% +There was a young man of high station +Who was found by a pious relation + Making love in a ditch + To -- I won't say a bitch -- +But a woman of no reputation. +% +There was a young man of Khartoum +Who lured a poor girl to her doom. + He not only fucked her, + But buggered and sucked her-- +And left her to pay for the room. +% +There was a young man of Khartoum, +The strength of whose balls was his doom. + So strong was his shootin', + The third law of Newton +Propelled the poor chap to the Moon. +% +There was a young man of Kildare +Who was fucking a girl on the stair. + The bannister broke, + But he doubled his stroke +And finished her off in mid-air. +% +There was a young man of Kutki +Who could blink himself off with one eye. + For a while though, he pined, + When his organ declined +To function, because of a stye. +% +There was a young man of Lahore +Whose prick was one inch and no more. + It was all right for key-holes + And little girl's pee-holes, +But not worth a damn with a whore. +% +There was a young man of Lake Placid +Whose prick was lethargic and flaccid. + When he wanted to sport + He would have to resort +To injections of sulphuric acid. +% +There was a young man of Madras +Whose balls were constructed of brass. + When jangled together + They played "Stormy Weather", +And lightning shot out of his ass. +% +There was a young man of Missouri +Who fucked with a terrible fury. + Till hauled into court + For his beastial sport, +And condemned by a poorly-hung jury. +% +There was a young man of Natal +And Sue was the name of his gal. + One day, north of Aden, + He got his hard rod in, +And came clear up Suez Canal. +% +There was a young man of Natal +Who was fucking a Hottentot gal. + Said she, "You're a sluggard!" + Said he, "You be buggered! +I like to fuck slow and I shall." +% +There was a young man of Ostend +Who let a girl play with his end. + She took hold of Rover, + And felt it all over, +And it did what she didn't intend. +% +There was a young man of Ostend +Whose wife caught him fucking her friend. + "It's no use, my duck, + Interrupting our fuck, +For I'm damned if I draw till I spend." +% +There was a young man of Saskatchewan, +Whose penis was truly gargantuan. + It was good for large whores, + And for small dinosaurs, +And was rough enough to scratch a match upon. +% +There was a young man of Seattle +Who bested a bull in a battle. + With fire and gumption + He assumed the bull's function, +And deflowered a whole herd of cattle. +% +There was a young man of St. John's +Who wanted to bugger the swans. + But the loyal hall porter + Said, "Pray take my daughter! +Those birds are reserved for the dons." +% +There was a young man of Tibet +-- And this is the strangest one yet -- + His prick was so long, + And so pointed and strong, +He could bugger six sheep en brochette. +% +There was a young man of Toulouse +Who had a deficient prepuce, + But the foreskin he lacked + He made up in his sac; +The result was, his balls were too loose. +% +There was a young man who appeared +To his friends with a full growth of beard; + They at once said, "Although + We can't say why it's so, +The effect is uncommonly weird." + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young man who said "God, +I find it exceedingly odd, + That the willow oak tree + Continues to be, +When there's no one about in the Quad." + +"Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd, +For I'm always about in the Quad; + And that's why the tree, + Continues to be," +Signed "Yours faithfully, God." +% +There was a young man with a fiddle +Who asked of his girl, "Do you diddle?" + She replied, "Yes, I do, + But prefer to with two -- +It's twice as much fun in the middle." +% +There was a young man with a prick +Which into his wife he would stick + Every morning and night + If it stood up all right -- +Not a very remarkable trick. + +His wife had a nice little cunt: +It was hairy, and soft, and in front, + And with this she would fuck him, + Though sometimes she'd suck him -- +A charming, if commonplace, stunt. +% +There was a young man with one foot +Who had a very long root. + If he used this peg + As an extra leg +Is a question exceedingly moot. +% +There was a young man, name of Fred, +Who spent every Thursday in bed; + He lay with his feet + Outside of the sheet, +And the pillows on top of his head. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young man, name of Saul, +Who was able to bounce either ball, + He could stretch them and snap them, + And juggle and clap them, +Which earned him the plaudits of all. +% +There was a young miss from Johore +Who'd lie on a mat on the floor; + In a manner uncanny + She'd wobble her fanny, +And drain your nuts dry to the core. +% +There was a young monk from Siberia +Whose life got drearia' and drearia' + Till he did to a nun + What shouldn't be done +And made her a mother superia'. +% +There was a young monk of Dundee +Who complained that it hurt him to pee, + He said, "Pax vobiscum, + Now why won't the piss come? +I'm afraid I've the c-l-a-p." +% +There was a young parson of Harwich, +Tried to grind his betrothed in a carriage. + She said, "No, you young goose, + Just try self-abuse. +And the other we'll try after marriage." +% +There was a young peasant named Gorse +Who fell madly in love with his horse. + Said his wife, "You rapscallion, + That horse is a stallion -- +This constitutes grounds for divorce." +% +There was a young person of Kent +Who was famous wherever he went. + All the way through a fuck, + He would quack like a duck, +And he crowed like a cock when he spent. +% +There was a young plumber named Lee +Who was plumbing his girl by the sea. + She said, "Stop your plumbing, + There's somebody coming" +Said the plumber, still plumbing, "It's me." +% +There was a young poet named Dan, +Whose poetry never would scan. + When told this was so, + He said, "Yes, I know, +It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that + Last line that I can." +% +There was a young royal marine, +Who tried to fart "God Save the Queen". + When he reached the soprano + Out came only guano +And his britches weren't fit to be seen. +% +There was a young sailor from Brighton, +Who remarked to his girl, "You're a tight one." + She replied, "'Pon my soul, + You're in the wrong hole; +There's plenty of room in the right one." +% +There was a young sapphic named Anna +Who stuffed her friend's cunt with banana, + Which she sucked, bit by bit, + From her partner's warm slit, +In the most approved lesbian manner. +% +There was a young Scot in Madrid +Who got fifty-five fucks for a quid. + When they said, "Are you faint?" + He replied, "No, I ain't, +But I don't feel as good as I did." +% +There was a young soldier from Munich +Whose penis hung down past his tunic, + And their chops girls would lick + When they thought of his prick, +But alas! he was only a eunuch. +% +There was a young sportsman named Peel +Who went for a trip on his wheel; + He pedalled for days + Through crepuscular haze, +And returned feeling somewhat unreal. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young squaw of Wohunt +Who possessed a collapsible cunt. + It had many odd uses, + Produced no papooses, +And fitted both giant and runt. +% +There was a young student from Yale +Who was getting his first piece of tail. + He shoved in his pole, + But in the wrong hole, +And a voice from beneath yelled: "No sale!" +% +There was a young tenor named Springer, +Got his testicles caught in a wringer. + He hollered in pain, + As they rolled down the drain, +"There goes my career as a singer!" +% +There was a young trollop at Yale, +Who had verses tattooed on her tail, + And on her behind, + For the sake of the blind, +A duplicate version in Braille. +% +There was a young whore from Kaloo +Who filled her vagina with glue. + She said with a grin, + "If they pay to get in, +They can pay to get out again too!" +% +There was a young woman called Pearl +Who quite resembled a churl; + When she asked a young man named Tex + Whether he would like to have sex, +"Certainly," quoth he, "Who's the girl?" +% +There was a young woman from Bude, +Who went for a swim in the nude, + But a man in a punt, + Grabbed at her elbow, +And said "Hey, lady, you can't swim here, it's private property." +% +There was a young woman in Dee +Who stayed with each man she did see. + When it came to a test + She wished to be best, +And practice makes perfect, you see. +% +There was a young woman named Alice +Who peed in a Catholic chalice. + She said, "I do this + From a great need to piss, +And not from sectarian malice." +% +There was a young woman named Ells +Who was subject to curious spells + When got up very oddly, + She'd cry out things ungodly +by the palms in expensive hotels. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young woman named Florence +Who for fucking professed an abhorrence, + But they found her in bed + With her cunt flaming red, +And her poodle-dog spending in torrents. +% +There was a young woman named Plunnery +Who rejoiced in the practice of gunnery. + Till one day unobservant, + She blew up a servant, +And was forced to retire to a nunnery. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young woman named Sutton +Who said, as she carved up the mutton, + "My father preferred + The last sheep in the herd -- +This is one of his children I'm cuttin'." +% +There was a young woman of Cheadle, +Who once gave the clap to a beadle. + Said she, "Does it itch?" + "It does, you damned bitch, +And it burns like hell-fire when I peedle." +% +There was a young woman of Condover +Whose husband had ceased to be fond of 'er. + Her pussy was juicy, + Her arse soft and goosey, +But peroxide had now made a blonde of 'er. +% +There was a young woman of Croft +Who played with herself in a loft, + Having reasoned that candles + Could never cause scandals, +Besides which they did not go soft. + +Said another young woman of Croft, +Amusing herself in the loft, + "A salami or wurst + Is what I'd choose first -- +With bologna you know you've been boffed." +% +There was a young woman whose stammer +Was atrocious, and so was her grammar; + But they were not improved + When her husband was moved +To knock out her teeth with a hammer. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young woman, quite handsome, +Who got stuck in a sleeping room transom. + When she offered much gold + For release, she was told +That the view was worth more than the ransom. +% +There was an old abbess quite shocked +To find nuns where the candles were locked. + Said the abbess, "You nuns + Should behave more like guns, +And never go off till you're cocked." +% +There was an old bishop from Buckingham +Who fell in love with some oysters while shuckingham. + His wife with distain + Could scarcely restrain +That sprightly old bishop from fuckingham. +% +There was an old count of Swoboda +Who would not pay a whore what he owed her. + So, with great savoir-faire, + She stood on a chair +And pissed in his whiskey-and-soda. +% +There was an old curate of Hestion +Who'd erect at the slightest suggestion. + But so small was his tool + He could scarce screw a spool, +And a cunt was quite out of the question. +% +There was an old fellow named Art +Who awoke with a horrible start, + For down by his rump + Was a generous lump +Of what should have been just a fart. +% +There was an old fellow named Skinner +Whose prick, his wife said, had grown thinner. + But still, by and large, + It would always discharge +Once he could just get it in her. +% +There was an old feminine blighter +Who trained a Chow dog to delight her. + She would cream her own pool + While she sucked off his tool -- +How his cock in her cunt would excite her! +% +There was an old gent from Kentuck +Who boasted a filigreed schmuck, + But he put it away + For fear that one day +He might put it in and get stuck. +% +There was an old girl of Kilkenny +Whose usual charge was a penny. + For half of that sum + You could finger her bum-- +A source of amusement to many. +% +There was an old harlot from Dijon +Who in her old age got religion. + "When I'm dead & gone," + Said she, "I'll take on +The Father, the Son, and the Pigeon." +% +There was an old hermit named Dave +Who kept a dead whore in his cave. + He said "I'll admit + I'm a bit of a shit, +But look at the money I save." +% +There was an old lady of Bingly +Who wailed, "I do hate to sleep singly. + I thought I had got + A bloke for my twat, +But he seems rather queenly than kingly." +% +There was an old lady of Glascow, +Whose party proved quite a fiasco. + At nine-thirty, about, + The lights all went out, +Through a lapse on the part of the Gas Co. +% +There was an old lady of Kewry +Whose cunt was a `lusus naturae': + The `introitus vaginae', + Was unnaturally tiny, +And the thought of it filled her with fury. +% +There was an old lady who lay +With her legs wide apart in the hay, + Then, calling the ploughman, + She said, "Do it now, man! +Don't wait till your hair has turned gray." +% +There was an old maid from Cape Cod +Who thought all good things came from god. + But it wasn't the almighty + Who lifted her nighty, +It was Roger, the lodger, by god. +% +There was an old man from Bengal +Who liked to do tricks in the hall. + His favorite trick + Was to stand on his dick +While he rolled around on one ball. +% +There was an old man from Duluth +Whose cock was shot off in his youth. + He fucked with his nose + Or his fingers and toes +And he came thru a hole in his tooth. +% +There was an old man from Fort Drum +Whose son was incredibly dumb. + When he urged him ahead, + He went down instead, +For he thought to succeed meant succumb. +% +There was an old man of Alsace +Who played the trombone with his ass. + He put in a trap + To take out the crap, +But the vapors corroded the brass. +% +There was an old man of Brienz +The length of whose cock was immense: + With one swerve he could plug + A boy's bottom in Zug, +And a kitchen-maid's cunt in Coblenz. +% +There was an old man of Cajon +Who never could get a good bone. + With the aid of a gland + It grew simply grand; +Now his wife cannot leave it alone. +% +There was an old man of Calcutta +Who spied through a chink in the shutter. + But all he could see + Was his wife's bare knee, +And the back of the bloke who was up her. +% +There was an old man of Connaught +Whose prick was remarkably short. + When he got into bed, + The old woman said, +"This isn't a prick, it's a wart." +% +There was an old man of Duddee +Who came home as drunk as could be. + He wound up the clock + With the end of his cock, +And buggered his wife with the key. +% +There was an old man of Duluth +Whose cock was shot off in his youth. + He fucked with his nose + And with fingers and toes, +And he came through a hole in his tooth. +% +There was an old man of Hong Kong +Who never did anything wrong. + He would lie on his back + With his head in a sack +And secretly finger his dong. +% +There was an old man of St. Bees, +Who was stung in the arm by a wasp. + When asked, "Does it hurt?" + He relied, "No, it doesn't. +I'm so glad that it wasn't a hornet." + -- W. S. Gilbert +% +There was an old man of Tagore +Whose tool was a yard long or more, + So he wore the damn thing + In a surgical sling +To keep it from wiping the floor. +% +There was an Old Man of the Mountain +Who frigged himself into a fountain + Fifteen times had he spent, + Still he wasn't content, +He simply got tired of the counting. +% +There was an old man of the port +Whose prick was remarkably short. + When he got into bed, + The old woman said, +"This isn't a prick; it's a wart!" +% +There was an old man who said, "Tush! +My balls always hang in the brush, + And I fumble about, + Half in and half out, +With a pecker as limber as mush." +% +There was an old man with a beard +Who said, "It is just what I feared! + Two owls and a hen, + Four larks and a wren +Have all built their nests in my beard!" +% +There was an old person of Ware +Who had an affair with a bear. + He explained, "I don't mind, + For it's gentle and kind, +But I wish it had slightly less hair." +% +There was an old pirate named Bates +Who was learning to rhumba on skates. + He fell on his cutlass + Which rendered him nutless +And practically useless on dates. +% +There was an old satyr named Mack +Whose prick had a left handed tack. + If the ladies he loves + Don't spin when he shoves, +Their cervixes frequently crack. +% +There was an old Scot named McTavish +Who attempted an anthropoid ravish. + The object of rape + Was the wrong sex of ape, +And the anthropoid ravished McTavish. +% +There was an old whore from Silesia +Who'd croke: "If my box doesn't please ya, + For a slight extra sum + You can go up my bum +But watchout or my tapeworm'll seize ya." +% +There was an old whore in the Azores +Whose body was covered with festers & sores. + Why the dogs in the street + Wouldn't eat the green meat +That hung in festoons from her drawers. +% +There was an old woman of Ghent +Who swore that her cunt had no scent. + She got fucked so often + At last she got rotten, +And didn't she stink when she spent. +% +There was once a mechanic named Bench +Whose best tool was a sturdy gut-wrench. + With this vibrant device + He could reach, in a trice, +The innermost parts of a wench. +% +There was once a sad Maitre d'hotel +Who said, "They can all go to hell! + What they do to my wife-- + Why it ruins my life; +And the worst is, they all do it well. +% +There were three ladies of Huxham, +And whenever we meets 'em we fuxham, + And when that game grows stale + We sits on a rail, +And pulls out our pricks and they suxham. +% +There were three young ladies of Birmingham, +And this is the scandal concerning 'em. + They lifted the frock + And tickled the cock +Of the Bishop engaged in confirming 'em. + +Now, the Bishop was nobody's fool, +He'd been to a good public school, + So he took down their britches + And buggered those bitches +With his ten-inch episcopal tool. + +Then up spoke a lady from Kew, +And said, as the Bishop withdrew, + "The vicar is quicker + And thicker and slicker, +And longer and stronger than you." + -- Abuses of the Clergy +% +There's a charming young girl in Tobruk +Who refers to her quiff as a nook. + It's deep and it's wide, + -- You can curl up inside +With a nice easy chair and a book. +% +There's a charming young lady named Beaulieu +Who's often been screwed by yours truly, + But now--it's appallin'-- + My balls always fall in! +I fear that I've fucked her unduly. +% +There's a dowager near Sweden Landing +Whose manners are odd and demanding. + It's one of her jests + To suck off her guests -- +She hates to keep gentlemen standing. +% +There's a lovely young lady named Shittlecock +Who loves to play diddle and fiddle-cock, + But her cunt's got a pucker + That's best not to fuck, or +When least you expect it to, it'll lock. +% +There's a rather odd couple in Herts +Who are cousins (or so each asserts); + Their sex is in doubt + For they're never without +Their moustaches and long, trailing skirts. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There's a sports-minded coed named Sue, +Who's been coxing the varsity crew. + In the shell Sue is great, + But her boyfriend's irate, +When she calls out the stroke as they screw. +% +There's a tavern in London that's staffed, +By a barmaid who's tops at her craft: + In her striving to please, + She serves ale on her knees, +So the patrons get head with their draft. +% +There's a very hot babe at the Aggies +Who's to men what to bulls a red rag is. + The seniors go round + Hanging down to the ground, +And one extra-large Soph has to drag his. +% +There's a vicar who's classed as nefarious, +Since his shocking perversions are various... + He will bugger some lad + With a dildo (the cad!) +While exulting, "My pleasure's vicarious!" +% +There's a young Yiddish slut with two cunts, +Whose pleasure in life is to pruntz. + When one pireg is shot, + There's that alternate twat, +But the ausgefuckt male merely grunts. +% +There's an oversexed lady named Whyte +Who insists on a dozen a night. + A fellow named Cheddar + Had the brashness to wed her- +His chance of survival is slight. +% +There's an unbroken babe from Toronto, +Exceedingly hard to get onto, + But when you get there, + And have parted the hair, +You can fuck her as much as you want to. +% +They had come in the fugue to the stretto +When a dark, bearded man from a ghetto + Slipped forward and grabbed + Her tresses and stabbed +Her to death with a rusty stiletto. + -- Edward Gorey +% +This limerick is **SO**FILTHY** that it would offend even you. So I'll put +"di-dah" for the filthy words: + + Di-dah, di-dah, di-dah di-dah, + Di-dah di-dah di-dah, di-dah; + di-dah di-dah di-dah? + Di-dah di-dah di-dah. + Di-dah di-dah, di-dah di-fuck. +% +Though his plan, when he gave her a buzz, +Was to do what man normally does, + She declared, "I'm a Soul-- + Not a sexual goal!" +So he shrugged and called someone who was. +% +Though most of the crewmen are whites, +Uhura has full equal rights. + Her crewmates, you see, + Love De-mo-cra-cy, +And the way that she fills out her tights. +% +Though the invalid Saint of Brac +Lay all of his life on his back, + His wife got her share, + And the pilgrims now stare +At the scene, in his shrine, on a plaque. +% +'Tis a custom in Castellamare +To fuck in the back of a lorry. + The chassis and springs + Are like woodwinds and strings +In the midst of a musical soiree. +% +To a weepy young woman in Thrums +Her betrothed remarked, "This is what comes + Of allowing your tears + To fall into my ears - +I think they have rotted the drums." + -- Edward Gorey +% +To bear offspring, Noah's snakes were unable. +Their fertility was somewhat unstable. + He constructed a bed + Out of tree trunks and said, +"Even adders can multiply on a log table." +% +To his bride a young bridegroom said, "Pish! +Your cunt is as big as a dish!" + She replied, "Why, you fool, + With your limp little tool +It's like driving a nail with a fish!" +% +To his bride said a numskull named Clarence : +"I trust you will show some forbearance. + My sexual habits + I picked up from rabbits, +And occasionally watching my parents." +% +To his bride said economist Fife : +"The semen you'll launch as my wife, + We will salvage and freeze + To resemble goat's cheese, +And slice for hors d'oeuvres with a knife." +% +To his bride, said the sharp eyed detective, +"Can it be that my eyesight's defective? + Is your east tit the least bit + The best of your west tit, +Or is it a trick of perspective?" +% +To his clubfooted child said Lord Stipple, +As he poured his post-prandial tipple, + "Your mother's behaviour + Gave pain to Our Saviour, +And that's why He made you a cripple." + -- Edward Gorey +% +Two anglers were fishing off Wight +And his bobber was dipping all night. + Murmured she, with a laugh, + "It's ready to gaff, +But don't break your rod which is light." + +A couple was fishing near Clombe +When the maid began looking quite glum, + And said, "Bother the fish! + I'd rather coish!" +Which they did -- which was why they had come. + +As two consular clerks in Madras +Fished, hidden in deep shore-grass, + "What a marvelous pole," + Said she, "but control +Your sinkers -- they're banging my ass." +% +Two eager young men from Cawnpore +Once buggared and fucked the same whore. + But her partition split + And the blood and the shit +Rolled out in a mess on the floor. +% +Two roosters in one of our pens +Found their pricks were no larger than wens. + As they looked at their foreskins + And wished they had more skins, +They discovered they'd both become hens. +% +Un moine au milieu de la messe A monk in the middle of mass +S'eleva et cria en detresse; Stood up and cried out in distress; + "La vie religieuse, "The religious life + C'est sale et affreuse," Is dirty and horrid," +Et se poignarda dans les fesses. And stabbed himself in the ass. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Under the spreading chestnut tree +The village smith he sat, + Amusing himself + By abusing himself +And catching the load in his hat. +% +Une joile epousetta a Tours +Voulait de gig-gig tous le jours. + Mais le mari disait, "Non! + De trop n'est pas bon! +Mon derriere exige du secours!" +% +Visas erat: huic geminarum +Dispar modus testicularum: + Minor haec nihili, + Palma triplici, +Jam fecerat altera clarum. +% +We dedicate this to the cunt, +The kind the broad-minded guys hunt : + All hail to the twat, + Willing, thrilling, and hot, +That wears peckers down, limp and blunt! +% +We sailed on the good ship Venus, +My God, you should have seen us + With a figurehead + Of a whore in bed +And the mast an upright penis + +The captain of the lugger +Was known as a filthy bugger + Declared unfit + To shovel shit +From one ship to another + +The first mate's name was Cooper, +By god he was a trooper + He jerked and jerked + Until he worked +Himself into a stupor + +The cabin boy was chipper, +A dandy little nipper + He shoved cracked glass + Inside his ass +And circumcised the skipper + +The captain's wife was Charlotte, +Born and bred a harlot + Her thighs at night + Were lily white +By morning they were scarlet + +The captain's youngest daughter +Slipped into the water + Her plaintive squeals + Announced that eels +Had found her sexual quarter + +The ship's dog's name was Rover, +They turned the poor beast over + And ground and ground + That faithful hound +From Tenerief to Dover +% +Well buggered was a boy named Delpasse +By all of the lads in his class + He said, with a yawn, + "Now the novelty's gone +And it's only a pain in the ass." +% +"Well, I took your advice, Doc", said Knopp, +"And told my wife to try it on top. + She bounced for an hour, + Till she ran out of power, +And the kids, who'd grown bored, made us stop." +% +"Well, madam," the bishop declared, +While the vicar just mumbled and stared, + "'Twere better, perhaps, + In the crypt or the apse, +Because sex in the nave must be shared." +% +When he tried to inject his huge whanger +A young man aroused his girl's anger. + As they strove in the dark + She was heard to remark, +"What you need is a zeppelin hanger." +% +When I was a baby, my penis +Was as white as the buttocks of Venus. + But now 'this as red + As her nipples instead-- +All because of the feminie genus! +% +When they asked a pert baggage name Alice, +Who'd been bedded and banged in the palace, + "Was he modest or vain?" + "Was he regal or plain?" +She replied, "He's a jolly good phallus!" +% +When you fuck little Annie in Anza +You get a great bosom bonanza: + Sucking Annie's soft tits + Makes her throw fifty fits, +And the fuck is a sextravaganza! +% +While his duchess lay practically dead, +The Duke of Daguerrodargue said: + "Can it be this is all? + How puny! How small! +Have destroyed this disgrace to my bed." + -- Edward Gorey +% +While I, with my usual enthusiasm, +Was exploring in Ermintrude's busiasm, + She explained, "They are flat, + But think nothing of that -- +You will find that my sweet sister Susiasm." +% +While I, with my usual enthusiasm, +Was exploring in Ermintrude's busiasm, + She explained, "They are flat, + But think nothing of that -- +You will find that my sweet sister Susiasm." +% +While out on a date in his Fiat, +The man exclaimed "Where's my key at?" + As he bent down to seek, + She let out a shriek: +"That's not where it's likely to be at." +% +While spending the winter at Pau +Lady Pamela forgot to say "No." + So the head-porter made her + And the second-cook laid her; +The waiters were all hanging low. +% +While Titian was mixing rose madder, +His model reclined on a ladder. + Her position to Titian + Suggested coition, +So he leapt up the ladder and had 'er. +% +While travelling in farthest Tibet, +Lord Irongate found cause to regret + The buttered-up tea, + A pain in his knee, +And the frivolous tourists he met. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Winter is here with his grouch, +The time when you sneeze and you slouch. + You can't take your women + Canoein' or swimmin', +But a lot can be done on a couch. +% +With his penis in turgid erection, +And aimed at woman's mid-section, + Man looks most uncouth + In that Moment of Truth, +But she sheathes it with loving affection. +% +You Women's Lib gals won't agree, +But dependent on men you must be: + You'll need a him + With a rod firm and trim, +To puggle your water-drains free! +% +You've heard of the bishop of Birmingham, +Well, here's the new story concerning 'im : + He buggers the choir + As they sing "Ave Maria," +And fucks all the girls whilst confirming 'em. +% +Young Frederick the great was a beaut. +To a guard he cried, "Hey, man, you're cute. + If you'll come to my palace, + I'll finger your phallus, +And then I shall blow on your flute." +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/linux b/fortunes/off/linux new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a458a0e --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/linux @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +A word to the wise: a credentials dicksize war is usually a bad idea +on the net. + -- David Parsons in c.o.l.development.system, about coding in C +% +What's this script do? + unzip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; gasp ; yes ; umount ; sleep +Hint for the answer: not everything is computer-oriented. Sometimes you're +in a sleeping bag, camping out with your girlfriend. + -- Contributed by Frans van der Zande +% +You can see that there are 25 unread articles in `news.announce.newusers'. +There are no unread articles, but some ticked articles, in +`alt.fan.andrea-dworkin' (see that little asterisk at the beginning of the +line?) + +You can fuck that up to your heart's delight by fiddling with the +`gnus-group-line-format' variable. + -- From the (ding) Gnus 5 documentation, by Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen +% + printk("ufs_read_super: fucking Sun blows me\n"); + -- /usr/src/linux/fs/ufs/ufs_super.c +% +KDE == (see GayDE) Kool Desktop Environment - Make X Window look like +winbloze... + +What a fucking great idea! The developers of this have a mental sickness, +please avoid this product -> see GNOME. + -- Jakes on #Debian +% + "Oxford University has joined with IBM and the UK + Government to build a sophisticated computing Grid based + on the open standards of Linux that will enable early + screening and diagnosis of breast cancer...." Press + release within. + In gratitude, the women of the world should all let Linux + developers fondle their breasts, and the lactating ones + should permit developers to drink. +% +'Mounting' is used for three things: climbing on a horse, linking in a +hard disk unit in data systems, and, well, mounting during sex. + -- Christa Keil +% +This is a scsi driver, scraes the shit out of me, therefore I tapdanced +and wrote a unix clone around it (C) by linus + -- Somewhere in the kernel tree +% +> No manual is ever necessary. +May I politely interject here: BULLSHIT. That's the biggest Apple lie of all! + -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/misandry b/fortunes/off/misandry new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e771c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/misandry @@ -0,0 +1,84 @@ +A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who has never owned a car. + -- Carrie Snow +% +A male mathematician is someone who can count to twenty-one without +unzipping his fly. +% +A man without a woman is like a fish without gills. +% +A woman's a woman until the day she dies, but a man's only a man as long +as he can. + -- Moms Mabley +% +Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade, since it consists principally +of dealings with men. + -- Conrad +% +Does he treat your breasts like unripe grapefruit? Who needs him? + -- `J', "The Sensuous Woman" +% +Don't accept rides from strange men -- and remember that all men are strange +as hell. + -- Robin Morgan, "Sisterhood Is Powerful" +% +If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. +% +If men couldn't fuck there'd be a bounty on their heads. +% +If they sent one man to the moon, why can't they send them all? +% +If you catch a man, throw him back. + -- Woman's Liberation Slogan, c. 1975 +% +Lysistrata had a good idea. +% +Men -- can't live with 'em, can't leave 'em by the curb when you're done. +% +Men will fuck mud. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +Most men would never get laid if it weren't for the pity fuck. +% +The only one of your children who does not grow up and move away +is your husband. +% +The sex life of spiders is very interesting. +He fucks her. +She bites his head off. + -- From a Women's Lib Poster +% +There are three women on the fast track in a particular company. The +president realizes it's time to promote one of them, but they're all so +competent that he's not sure which one to choose. So he devises a little +test. One day while they're all at lunch, he places $500 on each of their +desks. #1 returns it to him immediately. #2 pockets it. #3 invests +in the market and returns $1,500 to him in the morning. Who gets the +promotion? The one with the big tits! +% +Upon leaving a hotel bar one evening, an executive noticed a drunk sitting +on the edge of a potted palm in the lobby, crying like a baby. Because he'd +had a couple himself that night, and was feeling rather sorry for his fellow +man, he asked the inebriated one what the trouble was. + "I did a terrible thing tonight," sniffled the drunk. "I sold my +wife to a guy for a bottle of Scotch." + "That is terrible," said the man, too much under the weather to +muster any real indignation. "And now that she's gone, you wish you had her +back." + "Thas right," said the drunk, still sniffling. + "You're sorry you sold her, because you realize too late that you +love her," sympathized the executive. + "No, no," said the drunk. "I wish I had her back because I'm +thirsty again." +% +War is menstruation envy. +% +When God created man, She was only testing. +% +You know the Norplant thing? It's a new birth control device for women. +It's a cartridge, that goes in your arm. Well, they're coming out with +a new one for men: it's a brain, that goes in your head. +% +Beware of the man who denounces women writers; his penis is tiny and he +cannot spell. + -- Erica Jong +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/miscellaneous b/fortunes/off/miscellaneous new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2599df --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/miscellaneous @@ -0,0 +1,335 @@ +A game can by God repent or we'll punish it. +That's how they did it in Salem in the seventeenth century, +and that's how we'll do it now. + -- Dick Hamlet +% +America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel. + -- Allen Ginsberg +% +An Army travels on her stomach. +% +Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. +To actual women it is merely a good excuse not to play football. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. +% +Bringing your mate to a convention is like taking a game warden hunting. +% +Britain has lowered the tax on chastity belts by about 60 cents each... +[reclassifying them] as a safety device rather than... clothing + -- NY Times +% +But sex and drugs and rock & roll, why, they'd bring our blackest day. +% +Clark Kent is a transvestite. +% +Dad," the 13-year-old boy asked, looking up from his social-studies text, +"what did you do during the sexual revolution?" + +"Well, son," his father confided, "I guess you could say I was captured +early and spent the duration doing the dishes." +% +Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today! +% +Don't eat yellow snow. +% +Don't forget to support the ERA apersonment. +% +Evening hours "all clear" for romance! + +(Tell mate you have to work late.) +% +Ever wondered why you always run out of breath when you throw up? +Ah, but a man's retch should exceed his gasp, else what's a heaving for? +% +Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic +without looking to see whether the seeds move. +% +"For an adequate time call 555-3321" +% +Fortune's Rules for Memo Wars: #1 + + Any attempt to say that someone's personal beliefs are wrong, even if +you supply conclusive evidence to support your claim, is an outright attack. +If you show someone a flaw in his/her logic, they have every right to punch +you in the face. Mathematical proofs of errors are the moral equivalent +of rape and should be avoided at all cost. + Now... your opponent has requested a "rational discussion". What do +you do? Well, remember that people are normally willing to discuss things +rationally if and only if you agree with them; anything less would obviously +not be rational. Therefore, agree immediately, and continue as before. + Always assume that whenever you see someone making a statement about +"certain parties who shall remain nameless", "some people", "assholes", etc., +they are talking about *you*. It is also correct to assume that words you +don't understand, such as "prestidigatory", "lapidarian", and "buprestid", +are direct personal attacks aimed at your loved ones and merit an equally +scathing response. Failure to do this results in many lost opportunities for +rational discussion. (See above.) +% +Fortune's Rules for Memo Wars: #3 + +The proper time for a vicious ad hominem attack is when you have no logical +recourse. If you have been arguing a point with a person or persons for +30 odd weeks, and an memo comes across that logically tears down the +final shred of evidence that you thought you had, that is the time to call +the author of that memo: + 1: a mindless twit who attacks other people's beliefs for no reason. + 2: an egotistical flaming typical wombat aggie melon-humping + cheese-whizzing nanosexual subuseless clamsucker whose memos + are apparently sneezed onto his/her terminal. + 3: something unpleasant. +The OTHER proper time for an ad hominem attack is immediately after someone +has posted something you don't understand. Given the current state of modern +electronic communications technology your inability to comprehend the meaning +of an memo constitutes a violation of western moral tradition on the part of +the author of that memo, and the author should be taken to task publicly via +a series of really nasty, name-calling oriented memos. +% +Four Oxford dons were taking their evening walk together and as +usual, were engaged in casual but learned conversation. On this particular +evening, their conversation was about the names given to groups of animals, +such as a "pride of lions" or a "gaggle of geese." + One of the professors noticed a group of prostitutes down the block, +and posed the question, "What name would be given to that group?" The four +fell into silence for a moment, as they pondered the possibilities... + At last, one spoke: "How about 'a Jam of Tarts'?" The others nodded +in acknowledgement as they continued to consider the problem. A second +professor spoke: "I'd suggest 'an Essay of Trollops.'" Again, the others +nodded. A third spoke: "I propose 'a Flourish of Strumpets.'" + They continued their walk in silence, until the first professor +remarked to the remaining professor, who was the most senior and learned of +the four, "You haven't suggested a name for our ladies. What are your +thoughts?" + Replied the fourth professor, "'An Anthology of Prose.'" +% +"He could be a poster child for retroactive birth control." +% +He who sneezes without a handkerchief takes matters into his own hands. +% +Home is where the hurt is. + -- Strange de Jim +% +Hugh Hefner is a virgin. +% +Hypocrisy is the vaseline of social intercourse. +% +I don't care who you are, Fatso. Get those reindeer off my roof. +% +I just got off the phone with Sonny Barger [President of the Hell's Angels]. +He wants me to appear as a character witness for him at his murder trial +and said he'd be glad to appear as a character witness on my behalf if I +ever needed one. Needless to say, I readily agreed. + -- Thomas King Forcade, publisher of "High Times" +% + "I was plodding through the woods when suddenly a giant brown bear +grabbed me from behind and made me drop my gun. He picked it up and +stuck it in my back." + "What did you do?" + "What *could* I do? I married his daughter." +% + I went into a bar feeling a little depressed, the bartender said, +"What'll you have, Bud"? + I said," I don't know, surprise me". + So he showed me a nude picture of my wife. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +"I've had one child. My husband wants to have another. I'd like to +watch him have another." +% +If I could reach, I'd never leave the house. + -- George Carlin +% +Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion. + -- Robert Burton +% +In breeding cattle you need one bull for every twenty-five cows, unless +the cows are known sluts. + -- Johnny Carson +% +In light of the New Morality, Playboy Inc. is offering a new version of +its magazine, for married men. Every month it has the same centerfold. +% +It is better to have Uranus in Cancer than to have Cancer in Uranus. +% +It takes a brave man to admit his mistakes. + +Especially in a paternity hearing. +% +It was a female that drove me to drink and I didn't even have the kindness +to thank her. + -- R. E. Baber +% +It was New Year's Eve and the house was brightly decorated with holiday +trappings. The only sound that broke the quiet was the click of Grandma's +knitting needles. The children; Jane, eight and Mary, five, were seated +in front of a cheerily burning fire, leafing through a picture book. +Tiring of this, they went over to Grandma's rocker. Jane climbed up on +the arm of the chair and Mary snuggled into Grandma's cozy lap. + "Tell us a story," begged Mary. + "Oh," said the old lady, laying aside her knitting and wrapping +her arms around the children. "What story should I tell you?" + "Tell us our favorite story," whispered little Jane eagerly. +"About the time you were a hooker in Chicago." +% + It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east +laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. The +thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle, +nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying +for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's. + Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating +under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting +icepacks. + -- "Bored of the Rings", The Harvard Lampoon +% +Jesus loves you, but everybody else thinks you're a dork. +% +Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin. + -- Michael O'Donohugh +% +May a deranged midget on a pogo stick take refuge in your sister's hoop skirt. +% +May a diseased yak take a liking to your sister. +% +My father was a creole, his father a Negro, and his father a monkey; my +family, it seems, begins where yours left off. + -- Alexandre Dumas, pere +% +Never take a resume seriously. Resumes only make money for the +people who write the resumes. No resume ever tells an employer how many +times a job applicant has had the clap. + Why, indeed, would anyone hire a person based on a resume written +by a professional liar? + If the applicant is a man, the employer must ask only one question: +did the applicant go to TCU? + If the applicant is a woman, the employer may simply ask: does she +have a tongue that can lick the paint off a dormitory wall? + -- Dan Jenkins, "Baja Oklahoma" +% +No one born with a mouth and a need is "innocent". + -- Greg Bear +% +Objectivity is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman. + -- Joseph Pulitzer +% +OLD FELLA RED CLARET + Produce of Australia -- "The Big 69'er" + +An unusual "Rough-as-Guts" wine that has the Distinctive Bouquet of old +and ill-cared for animals. It is best drunk with the teeth clenched to +prevent ingestion of the seeds and skins. Connoisseurs will savour the +slight Tannin Taste of burnt shag feathers and soiled medical dressings. +Possessors of a cultivated Palate admire the initial assault on the taste +buds which comes from the careful and loving blending of circus hosings +with perished jock straps. The maturing in Midland Abattoir hogsheads +gives it a very Definite Nose. With the bouquet like an aborigine's armpit. +In the United States this wine is marketed as Crow Brand (9 out of 10 people +who drink it for the first time exclaim "VRAAAARRRRRK"). + +It won a Bronze at the "Kings Cross Homosexuals Convention" of 1973 + +Warning: Avoid contact with eyes and open cuts. + Keep away from open naked flames -- both old and new. +% +Once upon a time there was a boy, who tried very, very hard to be a Good +Little Boy. He grew up to try to be a Good Man. + But he never understood how he could be either. + Finally, one day, after years of chronic worry and months of +outright crisis, he admitted that he couldn't do either, because at some +level, he wasn't even male. + So she tried to be a Good Little Girl, and soon after, tried to +learn to be a Good Woman. + Unfortunately, she didn't look much like Barbie. More like Ken, +I suppose. + So, she lost some friends. But she loved herself, and that was +more important. Then she lost her career, but that wasn't so important, +because it was *his* career she lost. Her family tried to accept; all of +them stopped using the old name. One of them even tried the new one, a +few times. She couldn't get a job--"That's no woman!" seemed to bar her +even from jobs that didn't require interior plumbing. But it was all +right, because she had learned to stop trying to be a Good Anything At +All, and loving herself, *was* herself. + Then the heat went off, and the food ran out, the eviction notice +came and there wasn't anywhere left to borrow money from. So she filled +the tub, heating water in a kettle on the stove, and gently, lovingly, +cut her wrists. + +The moral of the story: The ugly duckling makes a dandy meal. Dig in. +% +A stunning blonde, but probably all bean dip above the eyebrows. +% +SEX-CHANGE NUN BECOMES TV WRESTLER!!! + details at 11! +% +Smoking a woman is like kissing a fish. +% +So... if you could choose any nose in the whole wide world, +which one would you pick? +% +Sorry 'bout that sweat, honey. That's just holy water. + -- Little Richard +% +Television is a whore. Any man who wants her full favors can have them +in five minutes with a pistol. + -- Hijacker, quoted in "Esquire" +% +The attractive and grief-stricken widow had been living in seclusion at the +home of her deceased husband's younger brother for several weeks. One evening, +when she could no longer control her emotions, she barged into her brother-in- +law's study and pleaded, "James, I want you to take off my dress." Shyly, +the brother-in-law did as she requested. "Now," she continued, "take off my +slip." He again complied. "And now," she said, with a slight blush, "remove +my panties and bra." Once more James obeyed her command. + Then, regaining her composure, she stared directly at the young man +and boldly announced, "I have only one more request, James. Don't ever let +me catch you wearing my things again." +% +The moving finger having writ... gestures. +% +The only difference between your girlfriend and a barracuda is the nailpolish. +% +The Stealth Condom -- they'll never see you coming. +% +Watch out for a cold wave this week. (Or maybe a warm WAC.) +% + When I was coming out, the single most common reaction was a question: +"Oh, well ... have you really thought about this?" delivered with solemn +concern. + I never did figure out a good reply; I finally settled on a +disbelieving stare, which usually provoked a change of topic. I always +*wanted* to say "Gee, no! I just woke up one morning and thought, 'Gosh, +it's been such fun being a boy, I guess I'll try being a girl for a +while!' Don't you think it's a neato idea?" But these were *friends* -- +clueless, it's true, but trying to comprehend in a moment what I'd +struggled to not comprehend for thirty years ... they didn't deserve that. + -- Anonymous transsexual woman +% +... why should you waste a single moment of *your* life seeming to be something +you don't want to be? Lord, that's so simple. If you hate your job, quit it. +If your friends are tedious, go out and find new friends. You are queer, you +lucky fool, and that makes you one of life's buccaneers, free from the clutter +of 2000 years of Judeo-Christian sermonizing. Stop feeling sorry for yourself +and start raising your sails. You haven't a moment to lose. + -- Edmund Carlevale +% +You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't +pick your friend's nose. +% +Your boy/girl friend is *so* ugly that... + + -- when you look up ugly in the dictionary, their picture's there. + -- it looks like their face caught fire and someone put it out + with an ice pick. + -- Nabisco used their face to model for animal cookies. + -- when they yelled "Rape", the guy screamed "No way!" + -- they were the birth control poster child. + -- when they were born, the doctor slapped their mother. + -- as a child, their parents tied a pork chop around her neck to + get the puppy to play with them. + -- they have to sneak up on a glass of water, just to get a drink! +% +Diary of a Young Girl LITE(tm) + -- by Anne Frank + + A young girl hides in an attic but is discovered. +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/misogyny b/fortunes/off/misogyny new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f783e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/misogyny @@ -0,0 +1,297 @@ +A highly intelligent man should take a primitive woman. Imagine if on top +of everything else, I had a woman who interfered with my work. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +A little bit of rape is good for a man's soul. + -- Norman Mailer +% +A perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, +who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never +speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of +unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be! + -- Thackeray +% +A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave... The female is a female +by virtue of a certain lack of qualities -- a natural defectiveness. + -- Aristotle +% +A society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, +the care of men, and the creation of the future generation is a society +which is on its way out. + -- L. Ron Hubbard +% +A woman employs sincerity only when every other form of deception has failed. + -- Scott +% +A woman must be a cute, cuddly, naive little thing--tender, sweet, and stupid. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +A woman occasionally is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation. +It takes an abundance of imagination, to be sure. + -- Karl Kraus, "Die Fackel" +% +A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments. + -- Herodotus +% +A woman who is guided by the head and not by the heart is a social +pestilence: she has all the defects of the passionate and affectionate +woman, with none of her compensations; she is without pity, without love, +without virtue, without sex. + -- Balzac +% +A woman who is unfaithful deserves to be shot. + -- Pancho Villa +% +Among all savage beasts, none is found so harmful as woman. + -- St. John Chrysostom, 304-407. +% +And do you not think that each of you women is an Eve? The judgement of God +upon your sex endures today; and with it invariably endures your position of +criminal at the bar of justice. + -- Tertullian, second-century Christian writer +% + Are Women Human? + +In the year 584, in Lyon, France, 43 Catholic bishops and 20 men +representing other bishops, after a lengthy debate, took a vote. The +results were 32 yes, 31 no. Women were declared human by one vote. +% + Are you a Young Urban Professional Woman? If so, you know how +Yuppie women are; cold, ruthless bitches with no time for love, and only +an occasional weekend for sex. Your one "hot date" with Joe Fastrack, +rising corporate star, ended in disaster. Yesterday you heard him telling +a friend over lunch, "The woman must masturbate with popsicles!" Well, +all is not lost! SofSqueeze can change your nickname to Electrolux in just +15 minutes a day! + SofSqueeze is a pressure sensitive device (divided into appropriate +sections) that plugs into the serial port of most home computers. Through +the magic of biofeedback, SofSqueeze teaches you control over your vaginal +muscles. With our exciting, easy-to-follow software you'll master the +"Cincinnati Squeeze", the "Irresistible", the "California Crusher", and, +of course, the perennial favorite, "Milking Time Down on the Farm". Or, +using our exclusive Interactive Mode, invent your own! + SofSqueeze is made of sturdy ABS plastic, and is completely +immersible for easy cleaning. SofSqueeze's flesh-toned exterior is finely +textured for a realistic effect. Requires 4K RAM, a DB25 serial port and +limited graphics capability. Comes fully assembled, with 4 AA batteries. +% +Contemporary American feminism's simplistic psychology is illustrated by +the new cliche of the date-rape furor: "`No' always means `no'." Will +we ever graduate from the Girl Scouts? "No" has always been, and always +will be, part of the dangerous alluring courtship ritual of sex and +seduction, observable even in the animal kingdom. + -- Camille Paglia, NY Times, Dec. 14 1990, Op Ed. +% +Dames lie about anything -- just for practice. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +Do you want to know what's ahead for you, in your happiness at home, +your business success? Here's a telling test: Look in the mirror. Is +your skin smooth and lovely, your hair gleaming, your make-up glamorous? +Are you slender enough for your height? Do you stand erect, confident? +Yes? Then you are on your way to success as a woman. + -- Ladies' Home Journal, 1947 advertisement +% +Eighteen goddess-like daughters are not equal to one son with a hump. + -- Chinese Proverb +% +Everyone has the right, without exception, to equal pay for equal work. +Except for women. +% +Everyone in the office is welcome to join the group going to the Columbus +Theater tonight. Meet in the lobby at 8:30. The films are "Blue Jennifer" +and "Hot Coed Cheerleaders". +% +Feminists say 60 percent of the country's wealth is in the hands of women. +They're letting men hold the other 40 percent because their handbags are full. + -- Earl Wilson +% +Finally, a reporter got a chance to interview Tarzan. + +Reporter: Tarzan? Is that your first or last name? +Tarzan: Tarzan first name. +Reporter: Then, what's your whole name? +Tarzan: Tarzan of the Apes. +Reporter: And who is the woman with you? +Tarzan: That Jane. +Reporter: And what's Jane's whole name? +Tarzan: Cunt. +% +Have you ever stopped to think what it would be like to have a woman President? +"I can't deal with the Russians today. Not now. I've got my period." + -- Steven Moore +% +Here's to women. Would that we could fall into her arms without falling +into her hands. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% + I paid a visit to my local precinct in Greenwich Village and +asked a sergeant to show me some rape statistics. He politely obliged. +That month there had been thirty-five rape complaints, an advance of ten +over the same month for the previous year. The precinct had made two +arrests. + "Not a very impressive record," I offered. + "Don't worry about it," the sergeant assured me. "You know what +these complaints represent?" + "What do they represent?" I asked. + "Prostitutes who didn't get their money," he said firmly, +closing the book. + -- Susan Brownmiller, "Against Our Will" +% +If a shameless woman expects to be defiled and then dies of her fierce +love because you do not consent, will chastity also be homicide? + -- Saint Augustine +% +In childhood a woman must be subject to her father; in youth to her +husband; when her husband is dead, to her sons. A woman must never +be free of subjugation. + -- The Hindu Code of Manu +% +In the highest society, as well as in the lowest, woman is merely an +instrument of pleasure. + -- Tolstoy +% +It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that +could give the name of the fair sex to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, +broad-hipped, and short-legged race. + -- Schopenhauer +% +It seems to me that nearly every woman I know wants a man who knows how +to love with authority. Women are simple souls who like simple things, +and one of the simplest is one of the simplest to give. ... Our family +airedale will come clear across the yard for one pat on the head. The +average wife is like that. + -- Episcopal Bishop James Pike +% +Many a woman hasn't realized that she was raped until the check bounced. +% +Men are superior to women. + -- The Koran +% +No is no negative in a woman's mouth. + -- Sidney +% +One hundred women are not worth a single testicle. + -- Confucius +% +Scratch the average female and you'll find a purring bundle... at the +ready to love and honor, bake a torte and still produce quintuplets. + -- Edgar Berman +% +Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. + -- Grover Cleveland, 1905 +% +She applies her lipstick in spite of its contents: "greasy rouge, +containing crushed and dried insect corpses for coloring, beeswax for +stiffness, and olive oil to help it flow - the latter having the +unfortunate tendency to go rancid several hours after use. + +In 1924 the New York Board of Health considered banning lipstick, not +because it was hazardous to the wearers but because of "the worry that it +might poison the men who kissed the women who wore it." + -- David Bodanis, "The Secret House" +% +Six days after the Creation, Adam was still alone in the Garden of +Eden, and getting pretty desperate. "God!" he cried, "rescue me from +loneliness and despair! Send some company for Your sake!" + +God replied "OK, I have just the thing. Keep you warm and relaxed all +the days of your life. Never complains. Looks up to you in every way. +It'll cost you though". + +"Sounds ideal" said Adam. "The society of the beasts of the field and +the birds of the air palls after a while. What's the price?" + +"An arm and a leg", said God. + +Adam thought about it for a bit and finally sighed. "So, what can I get +for a rib?" +% +Some women should be beaten regularly, like gongs. + -- Noel Coward +% +Sure, and of course I would vote for a woman for president! +Quite naturally, we wouldn't have to pay her so much. +% +That Xanthippe's husband should have become so great a philosopher is +remarkable. Amid all the scolding, to be able to think! But he could not +write: that was impossible. Socrates has not left us a single book. + -- Heine +% +The Bible says that woman was the last thing God made. Evidently He made +her on Saturday night. She reveals his fatigue. + -- Dumas +% +The great question that has never been answered and which I have not +yet been able to answer despite my thirty years of research into the +feminine soul is: WHAT DOES A WOMAN WANT? + -- Sigmund Freud + + [*Which* woman? This sort of *stupid* question should, I suppose, be + expected from the man who invented the mind-bogglingly unbelievable + concept of 'penis envy' to explain the behavior of half of mankind.] +% +The man-hating woman, like the cold woman, is largely imaginary. She +is simply a woman who has done her best to snare a man and has failed. + -- Norton +% +The more I learn about women, the more I love my dog. +% +The only alliance I would make with the Women's Liberation Movement is in bed. + -- A. Hoffman +% +The Pope is working on a crossword puzzle one Sunday afternoon. He stops +for a moment, scratches his forehead, then asks a Cardinal, "Can you think +of a four-letter word for `woman' that ends in `u-n-t'?" + "Aunt," replies the Cardinal. + "Say, thanks," says the Pope. "You got an eraser?" +% +The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to +join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Woman's Rights", with all its +attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every +sense of womanly feeling and propriety. Lady ____ ought to get a good +whipping. It is a subject which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot +contain herself. God created men and women different -- then let them +remain each in their own position. + -- Letter to Sir Theodore Martin, 29 May 1870, from Queen Victoria +% +Were there no women, men might live like gods. + -- Thomas Dekker +% +When I have one foot in the grave I will tell the truth about women. I +shall tell it, jump into my coffin, pull the lid over me, and say, "Do +what you like now." + -- Tolstoy +% +When I was in college, there were a lot of four-letter words you couldn't +say in front of girls. Now you can say them. But you can't say "girls". +% +With all the talent around, it's sort of amazing that a woman could be +up here with us. + -- Ralph Kiner, on introducing an award winner +% +With her body, woman is more sincere than man; but with her mind she lies. +And when she lies, she does not believe herself. + -- Tolstoy +% +With women, I've got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end of +it. I slip the loop around their necks so they can't get away or come too +close. Like catching snakes. + -- Marlon Brando +% +Woman is generally so bad that the difference between a good and a bad +woman scarcely exists. + -- Tolstoy +% +Women -- can't live with 'em, can't leave 'em by the curb when you're done. +% +Women are nothing but machines for producing children. + -- Napoleon +% +Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. +In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the +original earth clinging to the roots. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Women should be obscene and not heard. +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/politics b/fortunes/off/politics new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f09a29 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/politics @@ -0,0 +1,2018 @@ +A bureaucracy is like a septic tank -- all the really big shits float +to the top. +% +A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. +Avoid him. He's a Commie. +% +A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for +the first time. + -- Alfred E. Wiggam +% +A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never +learned to walk. + -- Franklin D. Roosevelt +% +A decade after Vietnam, we still cannot understand why "their" +Salvadorans fight better than "our" Salvadorans. It is not a matter of +their training or their equipment. It has to do with the quality of the +society we are asking them to risk death defending. The metaphor of the +domino obscures this reality, and the cost our self-imposed blindness +is high. San Salvador is closer to Saigon than to Munich. + -- William LeoGrande, "New York Times", 3/9/83 +% +A friendly message from your Internal Revenue Service: tax time is +coming again soon. Bend over. +% +A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel. + -- Robert Frost +% +A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment. + -- Willis Player +% +A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist, and too rich to be a +communist. +% +A new taste had been acquired and a new appetite began to grow. The time +had long since arrived to crush the technical intelligentsia, which had +come to regard itself as too irreplaceable and had not gotten used to +catching instructions on the wing. In other words, we never did trust +the engineers - and from the very first years of the Revolution we saw to +it that those lackeys and servants of former capitalist bosses were kept +in line by healthy suspicion and surveillance by the workers. + -- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago" +% +A New Yorker was driving through Berkeley when he saw a big crowd gathered +by the side of the street. Curiousity got the better of him and he leaned +out of his window to ask an onlooker what was going on. The fellow explained +that a protestor against the U.S. position in South America had doused +himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. "That's terrible," gasped +the man. "But why is everyone still standing around?" + "Well, they're taking up a collection for his wife and kids," the +onlooker explained. "Would you be willing to help?" + "Well, sure," replied the New Yorker. "I suppose I could spare a +gallon or two." +% +A Nixon [is preferable to] a Dean Rusk -- who will be passionately +wrong with a high sense of consistency. + -- J. K. Galbraith +% +A non-vegetarian anti-abortionist is a contradiction in terms. + -- Phyllis Schlafly +% +A person who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called +a liberal. +% +A Polish worker walks into a bank to deposit his paycheck. He has heard +about Poland's economic problems, and he asks what would happen to his +money if the bank collapsed. "All of our deposits are guaranteed by the +finance ministry, sir," the teller replies. + "But what if the finance ministry goes broke?" the worker asks. + "Then the government will intercede to protect the working class," +the teller says. + "But what if the government goes broke?" the worker asks. + "Our socialist comrades in the Soviet Union naturally will come +to our assistance," the teller responds with growing irritation. + "And if the Soviet Union goes broke?" the worker asks. + "Idiot!" the teller snorts. "Isn't that worth losing one lousy +paycheck?" + -- Making the rounds in Warsaw, 1984 +% +A reactionary is a man whose political opinions always manage to keep +up with yesterday. +% +A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other +people what to do with their money. + -- Imamu Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) +% +A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. + -- Joseph Stalin +% +... [after the announcement of Vanguard] ... Secretary of Defense Charles +Wilson (the same "Engine Charlie" who once told the Senate, "[F]or years +I've thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, +and vice versa," probably an accurate analysis) was asked whether the +Russians might beat the Americans into orbit. "I wouldn't care if they +did," he responded. (It was later claimed that Wilson favored the +development of the automatic transmission so that he could drive with +one foot in his mouth.) + -- Smithsonian's Air&Space Magazine, "The Day the Rocket Died" +% +After the ground war began, captured Iraqi soldiers said any of them caught +by superiors wearing a white T-shirt would be executed because of the ease +with which the shirts could be used as surrender flags. Some Iraqi soldiers +carried bleach with them to make their dark shirts white. + -- Chuck Shepherd, Funny Times, May 1991 +% +"Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the +Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact +that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately +unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep +up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers." + -- A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comic +% +Aide to Raygun: Sir, the poor are outside protesting your budget cuts. +Raygun himself: Tell them they'll have to help themselves. +Aide to Raygun: Sir, the Pentagon wants another $30 billion. +Raygun himself: Tell them to help themselves. +% +Al Gore resembled a Vulcan desperately in need of a blow job. + -- Bobcat Goldthwait +% +America ... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesman +with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing +anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" +% +America is a stronger nation for the ACLU's uncompromising effort. + -- President John F. Kennedy + +The simple rights, the civil liberties from generations of struggle must not +be just fine words for patriotic holidays, words we subvert on weekdays, but +living, honored rules of conduct amongst us...I'm glad the American Civil +Liberties Union gets indignant, and I hope this will always be so. + -- Senator Adlai E. Stevenson + +The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that +from time to time threaten freedoms everyhere... Indeed, it is difficult +to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the +Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights +of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised +by the majority they were at the time. + -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren +% +American cars are made shoddily... Cars made overseas are far superior. + -- Sen. Barry Goldwater +% +An American tourist is visiting Russia, and he's talking with a Russian +about the fact that not many people in Russia own cars. + +American: "I can't believe you don't have cars here! How do you + get to work?" +Russian: "We take the bus, or the subway. We have public + transportation everywhere." +A: "Well, how do you go on vacations?" +R: "We take the train." +A: "Well, what if you want to go abroad?" +R: "We don't ever want go abroad." +A: "Well, what if you really HAVE to go abroad?" +R: "We take tanks." +% +An American, a Frenchman, and a Vietnamese refugee had a discussion about +the happiness of life. + "To me, happiness is returning home on a Monday evening, having a +wonderful dinner prepared by my wife, then slouching on the sofa watching +Monday Night Football," the American said. + "You Americans are not romantic at all", the French injected, "Sharing +a beautiful evening with my lover, walking along the Seine river, and having a +romantic dinner on top of the Eiffel tower. That is happiness of life." + "You call those things happiness", the Vietnamese laughed, "then you +two still don't understand life at all. Imagine this. You are sleeping +soundly at night in Saigon. Then suddenly you hear loud knocks on your front +door. You hear loud voices, 'Mr. Nguyen Van Binh, open the door!'. Quaking +with fear, you rush out and open the door. Right there, you see two secret +policemen ready to handcuff you. One of them says to you, 'Mr. Nguyen Van +Binh, you are under arrest for your anti-revolutionary activities. You are +being sent to the re-educational camp tonight!' Sweating profusely and +shaking uncontrollably, you reply to them, 'Comrades, Mr. Nguyen Van Binh +lives next door.' That moment is happiness in life, my friends. +% +An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile -- hoping that it will eat him last. + -- Sir Winston Churchill, 1954 +% + An elderly man stands in line for hours at a Warsaw meat store (meat +is severely rationed). When the butcher comes out at the end of the day and +announces that there is no meat left, the man flies into a rage. + "What is this?" he shouts. "I fought against the Nazis, I worked hard +all my life, I've been a loyal citizen, and now you tell me I can't even buy a +piece of meat? This rotten system stinks!" + Suddenly a thuggish man in a black leather coat sidles up and murmurs +"Take it easy, comrade. Remember what would have happened if you had made an +outburst like that only a few years ago" -- and he points an imaginary gun to +this head and pulls the trigger. + The old man goes home, and his wife says, "So they're out of meat +again?" + "It's worse than that," he replies. "They're out of bullets." + -- making the rounds in Warsaw, 1987 +% +And what accomplished villains these old engineers were! What diabolical +ways to sabotage they found! Nikolai Karlovich von Meck, of the People's +Comissariat of Railroads ... would hold forth for hours on end about the +economic problems involved in the construction of socialism, and he loved to +give advice. One such pernicious piece of advice was to increase the size +of freight trains and not worry about heavier than average loads. The GPU +exposed van Meck, and he was shot: his objective had been to wear out rails +and roadbeds, freight cars and locomotives, so as to leave the Republic +without railroads in case of foreign military intervention! When, not long +afterward, the new People's Commissar of Railroads ordered that average +loads should be increased, and even doubled and tripled them, the malicious +engineers who protested became known as limiters ... they were rightly +shot for their lack of faith in the possibilities of socialist transport. + -- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago" +% +Announcing the NEW VAX 11/782!! + +Be the envy of other major Communist Governments! + +Defend yourself against the entire ICBM force of the imperialist USA with +just one of the processors, at the same time you're designing missile IC's, +cracking secret NATO codes and editing propaganda for your own people all +at the same time with the other! (Well, you really can't, but the Americans +think you can, and that's the point, right?) +% +Antique fairy tale: Little Red Riding Hood. +Modern fairy tale: Oswald, acting alone, shot Kennedy. +% +Any president should have the right to shoot at least two people a year +without explanation. + -- Herbert Hoover, discussing the press +% +Anybody has a right to evade taxes if he can get away with it. No citizen +has a moral obligation to assist in maintaining his government. + -- J. P. Morgan [Speaking, no doubt, on behalf of his highly- + paid tax lawyers] +% +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 +% +"Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by +vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emissions +standards from man-made sources." + -- Ronald Reagan, noted ecologist and former President +% +ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE -- FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE +% +As for Carter being for registration but against the draft, isn't that +sort of being like for putting it in and not taking it out? Even if it +was possible not to follow through, you'd still be getting screwed. +% +As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great +industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free speech +and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, "That +man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a real American +talk like that. + -- Frank Hague, 1896-1956 +% +At last, the first Soviet, artificially intelligent computer had been produced. +The engineers did not get it, nor the physicists. First things first: it went +to the institute of Marxism-Leninism. + +"IS IT POSSIBLE TO BUILD SOCIALISM IN SWITZERLAND?" typed in one of the + theologians. +"YES," replied the computer. "BUT IT WOULD BE SUCH A PITY TO DESTROY + SUCH A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY." +% +At twenty-six, Kate, though not promiscuous, had slept with most of the +decent men in public life. + -- Renata Adler +% +Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. + -- Winston Churchill +% +"Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but +we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you." + -- Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a Kent State student +% +Back in '80 or '81 the workers were rioting in Gdansk and there were fears +that the Soviets would invade Poland to put down the demonstrations. Foreign +correspondents were curious as to just what the Poles would do if they were +invaded. They asked, "What will you do if the East Germans invade from the +West and the Soviets invade from the East? Who will you fight first?" + To which the Poles replied, "Why, we will fight the Germans first. +Business before pleasure." +% +Because woman's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or +repetitious and we're the first to get the sack and what we look like is +more important than what we do and if we get raped it's our fault and if we +get bashed we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we're nagging +bitches and if we enjoy sex nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we +love women it's because we can't get a "real" man and if we ask our doctor +too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect community +care for children we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're +aggressive and "unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical weak females and +if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're +unnatural and because we still can't get an adequate safe contraceptive but +men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're +made to feel guilty about abortion and... for lots and lots of other reasons +we are part of the women's liberation movement. +% +Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart +enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it's important. + -- Eugene McCarthy +% +Being in the army is like being in the Boy Scouts, except that the +Boy Scouts have adult supervision. + -- Blake Clark +% +Being the #2 man in the Justice Department under Ed Meese is akin to +standing next to a lamp post infested with pigeons. + -- unamed Justice Department official +% +Black people have never rioted. A riot is what white people think blacks +are involved in when they burn stores. + -- Julius Lester +% +But among the children of the Great Society there were those whose +skins were black. And lo! Their portion was niggardly, and of the fatted +calf they were sucking hind teat... + Now it came to pass that a prophet rose up amongst them, and they +called him King. And he went unto Pharaoh and said, "Let my people go to +the front of the bus." + But Pharaoh answered: "In the fullness of time and with all +deliberate speed shall this thing come to pass. When ye shall prove +yourselves worthy, shall ye have your just portion -- yea, verily, like +unto a snowball in Hell." + -- "The Begatting of a President" +% +"California is proud to be the home of the freeway." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle. + -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth +% +Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, +Vermont. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for +the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all. + -- John Maynard Keynes +% +Civilization and profits go hand in hand. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +Come home America. + -- George McGovern, 1972 +% +Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of +socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism. + -- Walter Lippmann +% +"Dear Mr. Seldes: I cannot remember the exact wording of the statement +to which you allude; but what I meant was that ... a man who calls +himself a 100% American and is proud of it, is generally 150% an idiot +politically. But the designations may be good business for war +veterans. Having bled for their country in 1861 and 1918, they have +bled it all they could consequently. And why not?" + -- George Seldes, "The Great Quotations" +% +Democracy can learn some things from Communism: for example, when a +Communist politician is through, he is through. +% +Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and +deserve to get it good and hard. + -- H. L. Mencken, "Little Book in C major", 1916 +% +Democrats buy most of the books that have been banned somewhere. +Republicans form censorship committees and read them as a group. + +Republicans consume three-fourths of the rutabaga produced in the USA. +The remainder is thrown out. + +Republicans usually wear hats and almost always clean their paint brushes. + +Republicans study the financial pages of the newspaper. +Democrats put them in the bottom of the bird cage. + +Most of the stuff alongside the road has been thrown out of car +windows by Democrats. + -- Paul Dickson, "The Official Rules" +% +Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing +between Nixon and the White House. + -- John F. Kennedy, in 1960 +% +Doing business with the government is like fucking sheep. It's easy, but +it's not very satisfying. +% +Don't buy a landslide. I don't want to have to pay for one more vote +than I have to. + -- Joseph P. Kennedy, on JFK's election strategy. +% +Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time. + -- Lt. Col. Ollie North +% +Don't get the idea that I'm one of those goddamn radicals. Don't get the +idea that I'm knocking the American system. + -- Al Capone +% +Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. +% +Don't take a nickel, just hand them your business card. + -- Richard Daley, advising on the safe enjoyment of graft +% +Draft beer, not boys! +% +Draft beer, not people. +% +During the Reagan-Mondale debates: + +Q: "Do you feel that a person's age affects his ability to + perform as president?" +Reagan: "I refuse to make an issue out of my opponent's youth and inexperience." +% +Even God cannot change the past. + -- Joseph Stalin +% +Everlasting peace will come to the world when the last man has slain +the last but one. + -- Adolph Hitler +% +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 +% +"First World" nations are the ones where people drive Japanese cars; +"Second World" nations are where First World residents go on vacation; +and "Third World" nations are the ones where people still dive out of +trees to prove their manhood. + -- Dave Barry +% +"Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a +tail on me, go ahead. They'd be very bored." + -- Gary Hart, announcing his presidential candidacy, + commenting on rumors of womanizing. +% +For those of you how have been looking for evidence that a working +version of "Star Wars" can be built, consider the following proof +offered by Caspar Weinberger: + + "If such a system is so unattainable, why have the Soviets been + working desperately to get it for over 17 years?" + + -- USA Today, 24 June 1986 +% +Forgive your enemies, but don't forget their names. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union. + -- Joseph Stalin +% +Gary Hart's biggest mistake was not getting Teddy Kennedy to drive +Donna Rice home. +% +George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but he +also admitted doing it. Now, do you know why his father didn't punish him? +Because George still had the axe in his hand. +% +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 +% +Going into politics is as fatal to a gentleman as going into a bordello +is fatal to a virgin. + -- H. L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe" +% +Goose pimples rose all over me, my hair stood on end, my eyes filled with +tears of love and gratitude for this greatest of all conquerors of human +misery and shame, and my breath came in little gasps. If I had not known +that the Leader would have scorned such adulation, I might have fallen to +my knees in unashamed worship, but instead I drew myself to attention, raised +my arm in the eternal salute of the ancient Roman Legions and repeated the +holy words, "Heil Hitler!" + -- George Lincoln Rockwell +% +Gorbachev woke up early one morning, and felt great. He walked over to his +window, threw back the curtains, and saw the sun coming up. He felt *so* +good, he crowed, "Good Morning Sun!", and was startled when a great booming +voice came back to him, "Good morning Comrade! Good morning to you and +the great Soviet Socialist Republic!". Of course, this surprised him, but +great politician that he is, he considers the political ramifications. +Gorbachev then woke up Reza and his closest aides, brought them into his +bedroom, and shouted out "Good morning, Comrade Sun!". Again a booming reply, +"Good morning, Comrade. Good morning to you and the rest of the Party!" +Everyone was quite excited about this, and Gorbachev sat down to his +day's work with a feeling of being destiny's favorite child. + Later, in the evening, he was preparing for the ballet. As he +dressed, he noticed that the sun was setting. Walking over to the window, +Gorbachev threw up the sash and again addressed the sun, "Good evening to +you, Comrade Sun!". Once more the great voice boomed out, "Fuck you, +asshole! I'm in the West now!" +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (#21): July 30, 1917 + +On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then +Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought +them off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought +I wouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from +his mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs +in a tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service +men stood lookout. +% + "Haig, in congressional hearings before his confirmatory, paradoxed +his audiencers by abnormaling his responds so that verbs were nouned, nouns +verbed, and adjectives adverbised. He techniqued a new way to vocabulary his +thoughts so as to informationally uncertain anybody listening about what he +had actually implicationed. + "If that is how General Haig wants to nervous breakdown the Russian +leadership, he may be shrewding his way to the biggest diplomatic invent +since Clausewitz. Unless, that is, he schizophrenes his allies first." + -- The Guardian +% +Have you ever really thought about there being a simple solution to +America's problems? Why, we could solve all of our raw materials +difficulties, foreign complications etc. over a long weekend. If we +got up early, early mind you, on Saturday, we could take over Mexico +by 10:00. Panama and most of South America would be a bit more difficult, +but I believe we could do it by 6 or 7 that evening. Turning our +attention northward, Canada would require most of Sunday morning. +General mopping up and execution of the civilian populations would take +up Sunday afternoon. I just don't understand why Washington hasn't +thought of this... +% +He wasn't much of an actor, he wasn't much of a Governor -- Hell, they +_H_A_D to make him President of the United States. It's the only job he's +qualified for! + -- Michael Cain +% +He's a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch. + -- FDR on Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza +% +Heard tell that the Iron Magnolia wanted to divorce ol' Jimmy. Seems he's +screwing everyone but her. +% +Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. + -- Milton Friedman +% +"Here's the holiday schedule for Monday's observation of Martin Luther +King Jr.'s birthday, when the following will be closed: + + * Governmental offices + * Post offices + * Libraries + * Schools + * Banks + * Parts of Palm Beach + +and the mind of Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina." + -- Dennis Miller, "Saturday Night Live" +% +"How do you like the new America? We've cut the fat out of the +government, and more recently the heart and brain (the backbone was gone +some time ago). All we seem to have left now is muscle. We'll be lucky +to escape with our skins!" +% +I acted to show my love for Jodie Foster. + -- John Hinckley +% +I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Congs. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a +professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any +other minority viewpoint -- no matter how distasteful to the majority. + -- Richard M. Nixon + +What are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism? + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +I am not a crook. + -- Richard Nixon +% +I am not now and never have been a girl friend of Henry Kissinger. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute +-- where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) +how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom +to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or +political preference -- and where no man is denied public office merely +because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or +the people who might elect him. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was + + ... an arctic wilderness. + -- Steve Martin +% +I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. + -- Will Rogers +% +I call it the "Madman Theory". I want the North Vietnamese to believe that +I've reached the point where I might do *anything* to stop the war. We'll +just slip the word to them that "For God's sake, you know, Nixon is obsessed +about Communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry -- and he has his +hand on the nuclear button." + -- Richard Nixon +% +"I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and 25 +percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be true." + -- Harry Truman +% +I did not look behind me, 'till I got to St. Omer's & thence fled to America; +here I offer'd to become a Spy for the English Government which was scornfully +rejected; I then turned to Plunder & Libel the Yankees, for which I was fined +5000 Dollars & kicked out of the Country! I came back to England (after +absconding for Seven years) & set up the Crown & Mitre to establish my Loyalty! +-- accepted from the Doctor L400 to print & disperse a pamphlet against "the +Hellfire of Reform" ... but applied the Money to purchase an estate at Botley, +& left ye Doctor to pay the Paper & Printing! Being now Lord of the Manor, I +began by sowing the seeds of discontent through Hampshire; I oppressed the +Poor, sent the Aged to Hell, & damned the eyes of my Parish Apprentices before +they were open'd in the morning! ... and being now supported by a Band of +Reformers, I renewed my old favorite Toast of Damnation to the House of +Brunswick! & being exalted by the sale of 10,000 Political Registers every +week, I find myself the greatest Man in the World! except that Idol of all my +Adorations, his Royal and Imperial Majesty, NAPOLEONE! + -- William Cobbett, British journalist +% +I don't give a shit what happens. I want you all to stonewall it. Let them +plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up, or anything else if it'll save the plan. + -- Richard Nixon +% +I don't see what's wrong with giving Bobby a little experience before +he starts to practice law. + -- John F. Kennedy, upon appointing his brother + Attorney-General. +% +I don't think they are going to give a shit about the Republican +Committee trying to bug the Democratic Committee's headquarters. + -- Richard Nixon, 1972 +% +I don't understand what all the fuss was about in Los Angeles. It's not like +we looted Brooks Brothers when Oliver North got off. + -- P. J. O'Rourke +% +I go the way that Providence dictates. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +I had never been too political, but I knew how white people treated black +people and it was hard for me to come back to the bullshit white people +put a black person through in this country. To realize you don't have any +power to make things different is a bitch. + -- Miles Davis +% +"I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. You sound +like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an eight-ulcer man on a +four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. I have never met you, but if I +do you'll need a new nose and plenty of beefsteak and perhaps a supporter +below. Westbrook Pegler, a guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. +You can take that as more of an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry." + -- President Harry S. Truman +% +I have nothing but utter contempt for the courts of this land. + -- George Wallace +% +I have often looked at women and committed adultery in my heart. + -- Jimmy Carter +% +I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought +it was hell. + -- Harry S. Truman +% +I never trust a man unless I've got his pecker in my pocket. + -- Lyndon Baines Johnson +% +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 shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether +it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether +he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right +that matters, but victory. + -- Adolph Hitler +% +I think any man in business would be foolish to fool around with his secretary. +If it's somebody else's secretary, fine. + -- Barry Goldwater + +I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass. + -- Barry Goldwater +% +I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass. + -- Senator Barry Goldwater, commenting on Jerry Falwell's + suggestion that all good Christians should be against + Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court +% +I was in accord with the system so long as it permitted me to function +effectively. + -- Albert Speer +% +I would have made a good pope. + -- Richard Nixon +% +I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have +gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the +missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme. + -- Oliver North +% +I would not like to be a political leader in Russia. They never know when +they're being taped. + -- Richard Nixon + +I love America. You always hurt the one you love. + -- David Frye impersonating Nixon +% +I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. + -- George McGovern +% +I'm never through with a girl until I've had her three ways. + -- J. F. Kennedy +% +I'm not a lovable man. + -- Richard Nixon. +% +I'm not sure I've even got the brains to be President. + -- Barry Goldwater, in 1964 +% +I'm sorry I missed. + -- Squeaky Fromme +% +I've got Hubert's pecker in my pocket. + -- Lyndon B. Johnson + +Don't see 'em this big out here, do they? + -- Lyndon B. Johnson, exposing himself to reporters in a + public toilet during a tour of the Far East +% +I've never been hurt by anything I didn't say. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +If a man is not a liberal at 25, he has no heart. +If he's not a conservative by 45, he has no brain. +% +If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last +car he ever lays down in front of. + -- George Wallace +% +If Carter is the answer, it must have been a VERY silly question. +% +If clear thinking created sparks, we could safely store dynamite in +James Watt's office. + -- Wayne Shannon, KRON-TV +% +If I made peace with Russia today, I'd only attack her again tomorrow. I +just couldn't help myself. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +If it takes a bloodbath, lets get it over with. No more appeasement. + -- Ronald Reagan +% +If people say that here and there someone has been taken away and maltreated, +I can only reply: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. + -- Hermann Goering +% +If Presidents don't do it to their wives, they do it to the country. + -- Mel Brooks +% +If Reagan is the answer, it must have been a VERY silly question. +% +If the Nazis had television with satellite technology, we'd all be +goose-stepping. Americans are just as suggestible. + -- Frank Zappa +% +If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is +doing the thinking. + -- Lyndon B. Johnson + +Jerry Ford is a nice guy, but he played too much football with his +helmet off. + -- Lyndon B. Johnson + +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 +% +"If we relied conclusively on scientific data for every one of our +findings, I'm afraid all of our work would be inconclusive." + -- Henry Hudson, of the Meese Pornography Commission, on + criticism of its conclusion that pornography causes sex + crimes. +% +If you cannot convince them, confuse them. + -- Harry S. Truman +% +If you have seen one city slum you have seen them all. + -- Spiro Agnew +% +If you really want to do something new, the good won't help you with it. +Let me have men about me that are arrant knaves. The wicked, who have +something on their conscience, are obliging, quick to hear threats, because +they know how it's done, and for booty. You can offer them things because +they will take them. Because they have no hesitations. You can hang them +if they get out of step. Let me have men about me that are utter villains +-- provided that I have the power, the absolute power, over life and death. + -- Hermann Goering +% +If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest +shopping center in the world? + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +If you treat people right they will treat you right -- 90% of the time. + -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt +% +If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. + -- Ronald Reagan +% +Imagine me going around with a pot belly. It would mean political ruin. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +In 1953, Stalin dies. The politburo holds a special meeting to decide +what to do about the body. Nobody will let it be buried near their home. +Finally they decide: + "Aha! Call Israel! Offer them ten million rubles; they'll let us +bury Stalin in Israel! Off goes the message and the politburo waits... +Finally a telegram comes back: + "NO CHANCE STOP ONE RESURRECTION HERE ALREADY" +% +In 1989, the United States, displeased with the policies of the dictator of +Panama, invaded that country and placed in power a government more to its +liking. + +In 1990, Iraq, displeased with the policies of the dictator of Kuwait, +invaded that country and placed in power a government more to its liking. +% +In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death +by slow starvation. The old principle: Who does not work shall not eat, +has been replaced by a new one: Who does not obey shall not eat. + -- Leon Trotsky, 1937 +% +In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the +sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order. + -- Idi Amin Dada +% +In the future, there will be fewer but better Russians. + -- Joseph Stalin +% +In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be +thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +In what can only be described as a surprise move, God has officially +announced His candidacy for the U.S. presidency. During His press conference +today, the first in over 4000 years, He is quoted as saying, "I think I have +a chance for the White House if I can just get my campaign pulled together +in time. I'd like to get this country turned around; I mean REALLY turned +around! Let's put Florida up north for awhile, and let's get rid of all +those annoying mountains and rivers. I never could stand them!" + There apparently is still some controversy over the Almighty's +citizenship and other qualifications for the Presidency. God replied to +these charges by saying, "Come on, would the United States have anyone other +than a citizen bless their country?" +% +It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might +remember. + -- Eugene McCarthy +% +It seems appropriate to me that Mapplethorpe's perverse images should be +situated so close to Congress, which perpetuates a number of unnatural acts +upon the body politic every day, without benefit of artificial lubrication +or foreplay. + -- Pat Calafia's review of Camille Paglia's + "Sex, Art and American Culture" +% +It's easier to be a liberal a long way from home. + -- Don Price +% +It's our fault. We should have given him better parts. + -- Jack Warner, on hearing that Reagan had been + elected governor of California. + +[Warner is also reported to have said, when told of Reagan's candidacy +for governor, "No, Jimmy Stewart for Governor; Reagan for best friend."] +% +Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Joseph Biden and Michael Dukakis were +on a cruise down the Potomac when the ship struck a rock and began to sink. + "Gentlemen," Carter said, "as good Christians, we should let the +women and children aboard the lifeboats first." + "Fuck the women!" Kennedy shouted. + "Do we have time?" Hart asked. + "Do we have time?" Biden asked. + "Did everyone hear that?" Dukakis asked. +% +John Birch Society -- that pathetic manifestation of organized apoplexy. + -- Edward P. Morgan +% +Justice is incidental to law and order. + -- J. Edgar Hoover +% +Laissez Faire Economics is the theory that if each acts like a vulture, +all will end as doves. +% +Lansdale seized on the idea of using Nixon to build support for the +[Vietnamese] elections ... really honest elections, this time. "Oh, sure, +honest, yes, that's right," Nixon said, "so long as you win!" With that +he winked, drove his elbow into Lansdale's arm and slapped his own knee. + -- Richard Nixon, quoted in "Sideshow" by W. Shawcross +% +Law enforcement officers should use only the minimum force necessary in +dealing with disorders when they arise. + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +"Lemme show ya the odds, Sparky... In yer country, ya got 14 million black +people, and 3 million white people. Now, does the name `Custer' mean anything +to you?" + -- Robin Williams, portraying Lester Maddox talking to Prime + Minister Botha of South Africa. +% +... Let me tell you who the actual "front-runners" are. On one side, +you have George Bush, who is currently going through a sort of +fraternity hazing wherein he has to perform a series of humiliating +stunts to win the approval of the Republican Right. For example, they +had him make a speech oozing praise all over William Loeb, deceased +publisher of the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader and Slime Journalist. +Loeb had dumped viciously all over George in the 1980 New Hampshire +primary. But when the Right held a big tribute for Loeb, George came +back to the fold, like a man with a bungee cord wrapped around his neck. + -- Dave Barry, "The Twinkie and the Squid" +% +Let's talk about how to fill out your 1984 tax return. Here's an often +overlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands of dollars: For +several days before you put it in the mail, carry your tax return around +under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want to spend hours poring over +a sweat-stained document. So even if you owe money, you can put in for an +enormous refund and the agent will probably give it to you, just to avoid an +audit. What does he care? It's not his money. + -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" +% +Liberals are the first to dump you if you con them or get into +trouble. Conservatives are better. They never run out on you. + -- Joseph "Crazy Joe" Gallo +% + "Listen to what I say, not what I mean. I mean ...." + -- Mayor Daley +% +Long ago I proposed that unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency +be quietly hanged, as a matter of public sanitation and decorum. +The sight of their grief must have a very evil effect upon the young. + -- H.L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe" +% +Mayor Vincent J. `Buddy' Cianci on the ACLU's suit to have a city +nativity scene removed: + "They're just jealous because they don't have three wise men +and a virgin in the whole organization." +% +Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede that politics is +almost always the choice of the lesser evil. "Tweedledum and Tweedledee," +they say. "I will not vote." Having abstained, they are presented with a +President who appoints the people who are going to rummage around in their +lives for the next four years. Consider all the people who sat home in a +stew in 1968 rather than vote for Hubert Humphrey. They showed Humphrey. +Those people who taught Hubert Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the +Nixon Supreme Court when Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among +the gold and the black. + -- Russel Baker, "Ford without Flummery" +% +More people died at Chappaquidick than at 3-mile island. +% +More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than in nuclear power plants. +% +"Most legislators are so dumb that they couldn't pour piss out of a +boot if the instructions were printed on the heel." +% +Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they don't want +them to become politicians in the process. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +My advice to the women's clubs of America is to raise more hell and fewer +dahlias. + -- William Allen White +% +My rackets are run on strictly American lines, and they're going to +stay that way. + -- Al Capone +% +Nancy Reagan wants to divorce old Ron... seems he's making it hard for +everyone but her. +% +Naturally the common people don't want war... but after all it is the leaders +of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to +drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, +or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people +can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you +have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists +for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same +in every country. + -- Hermann Goering +% +New book out from Gary Hart; "Six Inches from the White House". +% +Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the +interests of the right of nations to self-determination. + -- Lenin, 1918 +% +No television performance takes as much preparation as an off-the-cuff talk. + -- Richard Nixon +% +[Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable. + -- Edwin Meese III +% +Oh, my friend, it is not what they take away from you that counts -- +it's what you do with what you have left. + -- Hubert H. Humphrey +% +Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that +you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease." Disraeli replied, +"That all depends upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress." +% +One day an elderly Jewish Pole, living in Warsaw, finds an old lamp in his +attic. He starts to polish it and (poof!) a genie appears in cloud of smoke. + "Greetings, Mortal!" exclaims the genie, stretching and yawning, "For +releasing me I will grant you three wishes." + The old man thinks for a moment, then replies, "I want Genghis Khan +resurrected. I want him to re-unite the Mongol hordes, march to the Polish +border, decide he doesn't want to invade, and march back home." + "No sooner said than done!" thunders the genie. "Your second wish?" + "Hmmmm. I want Genghis Khan resurrected. I want him to re-unite the +Mongol hordes, march to the Polish border, decide he doesn't want to invade, +and march back home." + "But... well, all right! Your third wish?" + "I want Genghis Khan resurrected. I want him to re-unite his ---" + "OKOKOKOK! Right. Got it. Why do you want Genghis Khan to march +to Poland three times and never invade?" + The old man smiles. "He has to pass through Russia six times." +% +One day President Reagan, Chairman Andropov, the Pope, and a boy scout +were flying together in an airplane. Right out in the middle of nowhere +the plane developed engine trouble and started to go down. Unfortunately, +only three parachutes could be found for the four passengers! Andropov +grabbed one of the parachutes and declared "Comrades, as leader of the +socialist workers revolution, my life must be spared," and he jumped out +of the plane. Then Reagan exclaimed "As leader of the greatest nation on +earth, I must keep the world safe for democracy," and with that he too +jumped to safety. Now if you are following all this (or counting on your +fingers) you must see that there is only one parachute left for the two +remaining passengers. The Pope looked kindly upon the boy scout and said +"I have had a long and productive life, my son. You take the parachute +and leave me in God's hands." "That's very kind of you," the observant +scout replied, "but there is no need. Reagan just jumped out with my +knapsack." +% +"One Saturday afternoon, during the campaign to decide whether or not +there should be a Coastal Commission, I took a helicopter ride from Los +Angeles to San Diego. We passed several state beaches, some crowded and +some virtually empty. They had the same facilities, and in some cases +the crowded and the empty beach were within a quarter mile of each other. +Obviously many beach-goers prefer to be crowded together. Buying more +beaches that people won't go to because they prefer to be crowded +together on one beach is a ridiculous waste of our natural resources and +our taxes." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in +a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave +national emergency... Always there has been some terrible evil to +gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the +exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem +never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real." + -- General Douglas MacArthur, 1957 +% +Our parents were of Midwestern stock and very strict. They didn't want us +to grow up to be spoiled and rich. If we left our tennis racquets in the +rain, we were punished. + -- Nancy Ellis (George Bush's sister), in the New Republic +% +Over 5,000 years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, + "Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and load your camels, +and I will lead you to the promised land." + Not too long ago, Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on +your asses, light a Camel, this is the promised land." + Now Nixon is stealing your shovels, kicking your asses, raising +the price of Camels, and mortgaging the promised land. +% +Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to +realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. + -- Ronald Reagan +% +President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the +vote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting. + -- The Washington Post +% +[Prime Minister Joseph] Chamberlain loves the working man -- he loves +to see him work. + -- Winston Churchill +% +"Queensboro president Donald Mannis, charged with receiving bribes in +exchange for city contracts, resigned on Tuesday. Mannis feels he must +devote more time to impending litigation, some of which might emanate +from a recent statement he made comparing New York Mayor Ed Koch to +Nazi Martin Bormann. A spokesman from the Bormann estate said they are +weighing the odds of a slander suit. Mayor Koch could naturally be +reached for comment, but we chose not to listen." + -- Dennis Miller, "Saturday Night Live" +% +Reagan can't ___act either. +% +REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system? + +SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying that the +country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You can carry a +pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away." I have no idea +why the country folk say this. Maybe there's some kind of chemical +pollutant in their drinking water. That is why I pledge to do all that I +can to protect the environment of this great nation of ours, and put prayer +back in the schools, where it belongs. What we need is jobs, not empty +promises. I realize I'm risking my political career be being so outspoken +on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but that's just the kind of +straight-talking honest person I am, and I can't help it. + -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics" +% +Republicans consume three-fourths of the rutabaga produced in this +country. The remainder is thrown out. +% +Republicans raise dahlias, Dalmatians and eyebrows. +Democrats raise Airedales, kids and taxes. + +Democrats eat the fish they catch. +Republicans hang them on the wall. + +Republican boys date Democratic girls. They plan to marry +Republican girls, but feel they're entitled to a little fun first. + +Democrats make up plans and then do something else. +Republicans follow the plans their grandfathers made. + +Republicans consume three-fourths of the rutabaga produced in the USA. +The remainder is thrown out. + +Republicans tend to keep their shades drawn, although there is seldom +any reason why they should. Democrats ought to, but don't. + +Republicans sleep in twin beds -- some even in separate rooms. +That is why there are more Democrats. + -- Paul Dickson, "The Official Rules" +% +Richard Nixon was the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. +He lied to his wife, his family, his friends, his colleagues in the Congress, +lifetime members of his own political party, the American people, and +the world. + -- Senator Barry Goldwater +% + Robert Kennedy's 1964 Senatorial campaign planners told him that +their intention was to present him to the television viewers as a sincere, +generous person. "You going to use a double?" asked Kennedy. + + Thumbing through a promotional pamphlet prepared for his 1964 +Senatorial campaign, Robert Kennedy came across a photograph of himself +shaking hands with a well-known labor leader. + "There must be a better photo that this," said Kennedy to the +advertising men in charge of his campaign. + "What's wrong with this one?" asked one adman. + "That fellow's in jail," said Kennedy. + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +Ronald Reagan -- America's favorite placebo +% +Russia has abolished God, but so far God has been more tolerant. + -- John Cameron Swayze +% +SAGDEEV CALLED ON THE U.S. TO MAKE A RECIPROCAL GESTURE: + + In a recent speech in London, the irrepressible former head of the +Soviet Space Research Institute noted that the Soviet Government has offered +to convert its gigantic Krasnoyarsk radar in Siberia into an international +space research facility in response to U.S. complaints that the radar would +violate the ABM treaty. Sagdeev suggested that the U.S. reciprocate by +turning the unfinished U.S. embassy in Moscow into a nuclear crisis reduction +center. The communication system, he pointed out, is already in place. + + [The construction contract for the US Embassy in Moscow was--stupidly + --offered for bid to Russians (the Soviet embassy in Washington was + built by workers brought in from the USSR for the purpose). It should + have been no surprise that every support beam had surveillance + equipment embedded in it at the factory. The US *acted* surprised, + when this eventually came to light.] +% +Seems to me that both the Democrats and the Republicans should change their +symbols to a contraceptive device; it stands for inflation, inhibits +production, protects a bunch of pricks and gives everyone a false sense of +security while they're being screwed. +% +Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would + notify you if the record has pornographics material or + material glorifying violence?" +Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me." +Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's legs on + the album cover is good indication that it's not for little + Johnny." + + -- The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock + lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985 +% +Senor Castro has been accused of communist sympathies, but this means very +little since all opponents of the regime are automatically called communists. +In fact he is further to the right than General Batista. + -- "Cuba's Rightist Rebel", The Economist, April 26, 1958 +% +She hates testicles, thus limiting the men she can admire to Democratic +candidates for president. + -- John Greenway, "The American Tradition", on feminist + Elizabeth Gould Davis +% +Sink or Swim with Teddy! +% +Sometimes, at the end of the day, when I'm smiling and shaking their hands, +I want to kick them. + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +Sooner or later, generals will own you. +% +Stalin was dying, and summoned Khruschev to his bedside. Wheezing his last +words with difficulty, Stalin tells Khruschev, "The reins of the country are +now in your hands. But before I go, I want to give you some advice." + "Yes, yes, what is it?" says Khruschev, impatiently. Reaching under +his pillow, Stalin produced two envelopes labeled #1 and #2. + "Take these letters," he tells Khruschev. "Keep them safely -- don't +open them. Only if the country is in turmoil and things aren't going well, +open the first one. That'll give you some advice on what to do. And, if +after that, if things start getting REALLY bad, open the second one." And +with a gasp Stalin breathed his last. + Well, within a few years Khruschev started having problems -- +unemployment increased, crops failed, people became restless. He decided it +was time to open the first letter. All it said was: "Blame everything on me!" +So Khruschev launched a massive deStalinization campaign, and blamed Stalin +for all the excesses and purges and ills of the present system. + But things continued on the downslide, and, finally, after much +deliberation, Khruschev opened the second letter. + All it said was: "Write two letters." +% +Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong. + -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf" +% +Support the right of unborn males to bear arms! + -- A public service announcement from Phyllis Schlafly, + the Catholic Church, and the National Rifle Association +% +Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest +men in national government too. + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +Sure, Reagan has promised to take senility tests. But what if he forgets? +% +"Taxes should hurt. I just mailed my own tax return last night and I +am prepared to say `ouch!' as loud as anyone." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +Teddy Kennedy: A Blonde in Every Pond! +% +Thank God I've always avoided persecuting my enemies. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +That segment of the community with which one has the greatest sympathy as +a liberal, inevitably turns out to be one of the most narrow-minded and +bigoted segments of the community. +% +The American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it Capitalism, +call it what you like, gives each and every one of us a great +opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it. + -- Al Capone +% +The arms business is founded on human folly, that is why its depths will +never be plumbed and why it will go on forever. All weapons are defensive +and all spare parts are non-lethal. The plainest print cannot be read +through a solid gold sovereign, or a ruble or a golden eagle. + -- Sam Cummings, American arms dealer +% +The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion. +Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed +and color, but also on ability. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +"The Army is a place where you get up early in the morning to be yelled +at by people with short haircuts and tiny brains." + -- Dave Barry +% +The broad mass of a nation... will more easily fall victim to a big lie +than to a small one. + -- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" +% +The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other +subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up +every bird watcher in the country. + -- John Mitchell, Atty. General 1969-1972 +% +The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore +be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be +propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war +and they are screened at once from scrutiny. ... In war, then, as in peace, +assert the freedom of speech and of the press. Cling to this as the bulwark +of all our rights and privileges. + -- William Ellery Channing +% +The dangerous Lego Bomb, which targets shag rugs and scatters pieces of +plastic that hurt like hell when you step on them is banned entirely.... +Hiring David Copperfield to pretend to saw the missiles in half will not +be permitted... In order to reduce risk of accidental war, both sides +agree to ban the popular but dangerous 'Simon Says' training drill at +nuclear launch sites... Under no circumstances will either side reveal +that it hammered out the treaty in one afternoon, but spent the last nine +years arguing the Monty Hall and the three doors problem. + -- Little known provisions of the START treaty by James Lileks +% +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 entire work force of the Communist countries is subjected to periodic +purges (called verifications in Newspeak). One of the most severe took +place in 1957 when Novotny, rattled by the Hungarian Revolution the year +before, tried hard to weed out "radishes" (red outside, white inside) from +all but insignificant positions. Any one of the following would often +result in the loss of one's job: Bourgeois or Jewish family background, +relatives abroad, contacts with former capitalists, having lived in a +Western country, insufficient knowledge of Communist literature, and others. + + A man is interviewed by a "Verification Committee." + "What kind of family do you come from?" + "A rich, Jewish family." + "And your wife?" + "A German aristocrat." + "Have you ever been to the West?" + "I spent most of my life in England." + "How did you make a living there?" + "A friend supported me." + "Where did you get the money from?" + "He owned a textile factory." + "Who was Lenin?" + "Never heard of him." + "What is your name?" + "Karl Marx." +% +The fact that Hitler was a political genius unmasks the nature of politics +in general as no other can. + -- Wilhelm Reich +% +The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a +socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave +their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy +capitalism and become lesbians. + -- Pat Robertson, Man of God and serious Republican + presidential aspirant, in a letter to supporters. +% +The government [is] extremely fond of amassing great quantities of statistics. +These are raised to the nth degree, the cube roots are extracted, and the +results are arranged into elaborate and impressive displays. What must be +kept ever in mind, however, is that in every case, the figures are first put +down by a village watchman, and he puts down anything he damn well pleases. + -- Sir Josiah Stamp +% +The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the +Christian Religion. + -- George Washington +% +The great nations have always acted like gangsters and the small nations +like prostitutes. + -- Stanley Kubrick +% +The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +The language of politics is poetry, not prose. Jackson is poetry. +Cuomo is poetry. Dukakis is a word processor. + -- Richard M. Nixon, on Meet the Press, April, 1988 +% +The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +The local minister noticed a little girl standing outside of his +door with a basket of kittens. + "Hello, little girl, what do you have there?" + "These are my Democratic kittens," she replied. +Amused, the pastor said nothing. Two weeks later he saw the same little +girl with (apparently) the same basket of kittens. + "My, I see you still have your Democratic kittens.", he said. + "No, you see, these are Republican kittens," she answered. + "Two weeks ago they were Democratic kittens," he replied, puzzled. + "Two weeks ago they had their eyes closed." +% +The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +The marriage of Marxism and feminism has been like the marriage of +husband and wife depicted in English common law: Marxism and feminism +are one, and that one is marxism. + -- Heidi Hartmann, "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism + and Feminism" +% +[The members of the Chamberlain government] are decided only to be undecided, +resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, all-powerful for impotency. + -- Winston Churchill +% +The Moscow Evening News advertised a contest for the best political joke. +First prize was ten years in prison; second prize, five years; third prize, +three years; and there were six honorable mentions of one year each. +% +The most recent attempt to revive the moribund campus left, a national +conference held at Rutgers University February 5-7, ended when the +participants decided that they were too racist to found a new national +organization. + The stated goal of the conference was the formation of a national +organization that would "give expression to a shared consciousness." The +orientation materials declared that this was "a historic moment" -- you +know, like Port Huron and the Sixties -- and the Rutgers host committee had +every reason to expect their goal would be accomplished. + But it was not to be. Given that this was a conference of *New* +New Leftists, reason had nothing to do with it. + A revealing article by Vania del Borgo and Maria Margaronis in "The +Nation", ["Beyond the Fragments," 3/26/88] says "The defining moment of the +weekend came when the conference was almost at its end. On Sunday morning, +a twenty-five-member students of color caucus confronted the assembled body +with its overwhelming whiteness..." Joined by the Gay & Bisexual Caucus, the +Students of Color Caucus declared that the founding of such an overwhelmingly +white organization would itself constitute a racist act. The four hundred or +so leftist activists were told that they had no right to ratify a constitution +or elect any officers. While recognizing "the need to examine the real +possibilities of a broad-based, racially diverse student movement" and paying +lip service to the need for "dialogue," they threatened to walk out if their +demands were not met. As *The Nation* article describes the scene: "To their +astonishment, their intervention was greeted with a standing ovation." Handed +an ultimatum which demanded that they disband, this would-be successor to the +radical student movements of the Sixties promptly voted itself out of +existence. As del Borgo and Margaronis put it, "After much chaotic discussion +and a confused voice vote, the convention suspended all its other work and +broke into regional groups to discuss 'outreach.'" + -- Libertarian Agenda, May 1988 +% +THE MX IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY. One important reason we have a Defense +Department is that when we give it money, it spends it, which creates +jobs, whereas if we left the money in the hands of civilians, we don't +know what they'd do with it. Probably put it in open trenches and set +it on fire. The MX will create an especially large number of jobs +because of the number of warheads it carries. It carries a total of 10 +warheads. This creates a great deal of employment, because you have +your Warhead Makers, your Warhead Lifters, your Persons Who Tap the +Warheads Gently with Rubber Mallets to Wedge Them All Snugly Into the +Nose Cone, your Persons Who Just Walk Around Playing Soothing Cassettes +by Recording Artists such as Perry Como So We Don't Have Any More +Episodes Where a Worker Who is Experiencing Some Strain Sticks a +Warhead in the Employee Cafeteria Microwave and Sets It On Roast, etc. +We are talking about a lot of jobs. + -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against + Political Fallout" +% +The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve +the state is essentially a Communist notion ... In a free society these +institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their function +is to serve as checks upon the state. + -- Alan Barth +% +The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in +bed with a dead girl or a live boy. + -- Edwin Edwards, Louisiana governor +% + "The policeman isn't there to create disorder. The policeman is +there to ________preserve disorder." + -- Mayor Daley +% +The problem with me is that I am fifty or one hundred years ahead of my +time. My speed is very fast. Some ministers have had to drop out of my +government because they could not keep up. + -- Idi Amin Dada +% +The problems with "Medflies" may have hurt Jerry Brown's chances to become a +Senator. After all, if they won't allow California fruit out of the state, +how is Brown going to get to Washington? +% +The reason we need the MX missile system is that the missiles we +currently have in the ground are the Minuteman model, which is very old. +The Defense Department can't even remember where half of them are. +Insects have built nests in them. People have built houses directly over +the silos. What this means, of course, is that if we ever needed them to +help obliterate all human life on the planet, they could be a real +embarrassment. I mean, maybe YOU'RE comfortable with the prospect of +missiles that are supposed to represent you barging over the North Pole +trailing shreds of polyester carpeting from some recreation room in South +Dakota, but your strategic defense planners are not. + -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against + Political Fallout" +% +The reasons that each of these countries has had to renege on its +financial commitments were all somewhat different: Argentina because of +a war, Poland because of its vast misguided over-investment in heavy +industry, Honduras because the coffee price went sour, Zaire because +nobody in the government there has a clue as to how to run a country. + -- Paul Erdman's Money Book +% +The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be +taken seriously. + -- Hubert Humphrey +% +The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom. + -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas +% +The right to revolt has sources deep in our history. + -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas +% +The rights you have are the rights given you by this Committee [the +House Un-American Activities Committee]. We will determine what rights +you have and what rights you have not got. + -- J. Parnell Thomas +% +The Russians have put a small ball up in the air. That does not raise my +apprehensions one iota. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +"The State of California has no business subsidizing intellectual curiosity." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make them unsafe. + -- Mayor Frank Rizzo +% +The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling +their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the +other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision. Each tends to ascribe to +the other side a consistency, forsight and coherence that its own +experience belies. Of course, even two blind men can do enormous damage +to each other, not to speak of the room. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job. + -- Ronald Reagan in 1973 + +Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. Had he run unopposed he +would have lost. + -- Mort Sahl + +Ronald Reagan is a triumph of the embalmer's art. + -- Gore Vidal + +Ronald Reagan's platform seems to be: Hey, I'm a big good-looking guy and +I need a lot of sleep. + -- Roy G. Blount, Jr. + +You've got to be careful quoting Ronald Reagan, because when you quote him +accurately it's called mudslinging. + -- Walter Mondale +% +The United States also has its native Fascists who say that they are +"100 percent American" ... + -- U. S. Army (1945) +% +The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular +employment of violence. + -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf" +% +The VFW represents many who died to give this country a second chance +to make it what it is supposed to be -- God's guest house on earth. + -- John Wayne +% +"The voters have spoken, the bastards ..." +% +The War on Drugs is just a small part of the War on the United States +Constitution. +% +The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that +would be clearly understood. + -- Alexander Haig +% +There are also a lot of nice buildings in Haiphong. What their +contributions are to the war effort I don't know, but the desire to +bomb a virgin building is terrific. + -- Commander Henry Urban Jr. +% +There are in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of the +two has the following record: The Vietnam War, Watergate, double-digit +inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the 8-cent +postcard. The second is responsible for such things as the transistor, +the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity stereo recording, +sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative feedback, magnetic tape, +magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching systems, microwave radio and TV +relay systems, information theory, the first electrical digital computer, +and the first communications satellite. Guess which one is going to tell the +other how to run the telephone business? I can hardly wait for the results. +% +There are revolutions that are sweeping the world and we in America have +been in a position of trying to stop them. With all the wealth of +America, with all of the military strength of America, those revolutions +are revolutions against a form of political and economic organization in +the countries of Asia and the Middle East that are oppressive. They are +revolutions against feudalism. [1952] + -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas +% +There is a new anti-communist organization that advocates the use of +wooden toilet seats. + +It's called the Birch John Society. +% +There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, Honesty, +Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and love of the +Fatherland. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +There was a man who, every day, would buy a newspaper on the way to work, +glance at the headline, and hand it back to the newsboy. Day after day the +man would go through this routine. Finally the newsboy could not stand it +and he asked the man, "Why do you always buy a paper and only look at the +front page before discarding it?" + The man replied, "I am only interested in the obituaries." + "But they are on page 21. You never even unfold the newspaper." + "Young man," he replied, "the son-of-a-bitch I'm looking for will +be on the front page." + -- Attributed to FDR. +% +There was a plane crash over mid-ocean, and only three survivors were left +in the life-raft: the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley. Unfortunately, +it was a one-man life-raft, and quickly sinking, so they started debating +who should be allowed to stay. + +The Pope pointed out that he was the spiritual leader of millions all over +the world, the President explained that if he died then America would be +stuck with the Vice-President, and so forth. Then Mayor Daley said, "Look! +We're not solving anything like this! The only fair thing to do is to vote +on it." So they did, and Mayor Daley won by 97 votes. +% +There was a young man hitchiking along a road one day. A car stopped and the +driver opened the door and asked, "What political party are you with?" + He replied, "Why, I'm a Democrat." + And the driver slammed the door and rode off. The guy was pretty +discouraged when another car came along, and the driver asked the same +question. + The guy answered, "Uh, I'm a Democrat." + And again, the driver slammed the door and rode off. Now he was +downright confused when another car came along. The driver was an attractive +lady, and she asked the same question. + He answered: "I'm a Republican." + And she answered, "Well, then, hop on in." + They drove on for a few minutes when he began to notice that her +skirt was beginning to get hiked up on her thighs. Finally, he couldn't take +it any more, and said "Ma'am, stop the car and let me out. I've only been +a Republican for 15 minutes, and already I feel like screwing someone!" +% +"There was only six Democrats in all of Hinsdale County and you, you son of +a bitch, you ate five of them." + -- Colorado judge, sentencing Alfred E. Packer for + cannibalism in 1874. +% +These activities have their own rules and methods of concealment which +seek to mislead and obscure. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960 +% +They say it's the responsibility of the media to look at government -- +especially the president -- with a microscope. I don't argue with that, +but when they use a proctoscope, it's going too far. + -- Richard Nixon +% +This Czech walks into police station in 1968 during the Fraternal Assistance. +Czech: Hey, out there in the street, a Swiss soldier knocked me down and + took my Russian watch. +Desk Sergeant: Come again? +Czech: Right out there in the street, a Swiss soldier knocked me down and + took my Russian watch. +DS: You're confused. Why would there be a Swiss soldier here? And who + would want to own a Russian watch? It was a Russian soldier who + knocked you down and took your Swiss watch, right? +Czech: Well, maybe, but you said it, not me. +% +Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution +inevitable. + -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy +% +Three things have been difficult to tame: The oceans, fools, +and women. We may soon be able to tame the ocean. Fools and +women will take a little longer. + -- Spiro Agnew +% +Tip O'Neill is just like Congress; old, fat and out of control. + -- J. LeBoutillier +% +"To be responsive at this time, though I will simply say, and therefore this +is a repeat of what I said previously, that which I am unable to offer in +response is based on information available to make no such statement." +% +To defend the Saigon regime is not worth one more human life. + -- Senator Edmund Muskie +% +To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war. + -- W. Churchill, on Korean War negotiations +% +To the best of my recollection, Senator, I can't recall. +% +To Theodore Roosevelt: + You are like the Wind and I like the Lion. You form the Tempest. +The sand stings my eyes and the Ground is parched. I roar in defiance but +you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, +must remain in my place. While you, like the wind, will never know yours. + Mulay Hamid El Raisuli + Lord of the Riff + Sultan to the Berbers + Last of the Barbary Pirates +% +Tom Hayden is the kind of politician who gives opportunism a bad name. + -- Gore Vidal +% +Uncle Sam comes off as the perverted relative who'll offer you a +bit of candy, but if you won't bend over for him, you get a beating. +% +"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite." + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +Uppers are no longer stylish, methedrine is almost as rare as pure acid +or DMT. "Consciousness Expansion" went out with LBJ and it is worth +noting, historically, that downers came in with Nixon. + -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson +% +Useful Farsi phrases for Americans traveling to Iran: + +AKBAR KHALI-KILI HAFTIR LOTFAN. + Thank you for showing me your marvelous gun. + +FEKR GABUL CARDAN DAVAT PAEH GUSH DIVAR. + I am delighted to accept your kind invitation to lie down + on the floor with my arms above my head and my legs apart. + +SHOMAEH FEKR TAMOMEH QEH GOFTEH BANDE. + I agree with everything you have ever said or thought in your life. +% +Useful Farsi phrases for Americans traveling to Iran: + +AUTO ARRAREGH DAVATEMAN MANO SEPAHEH-HAST. + It is exceptionally kind of you to allow me to + travel in the trunk of your car. + +FASHAL-EH TUPEHMAN NA DEGAT MANO +GOFTAM CHEESHAYEH MOHEMA RAJEBEH KESHVAREHMAN. + If you will do me the kindness of not harming my genital + appendages I will gladly reciprocate by betraying my + country in public. + +KHREL, JEPAHEH MANEH VA JAYEH AMRIKAHEY. + I will tell you the names and addresses of + many American spies traveling as reporters. +% +Useful Farsi phrases for Americans traveling to Iran: + +MAMNOUNAN GHORBAN IN DAFAYEH MEEMUNAM. + It is with greatest pleasure that I sign + this confession of capital crimes. + +MATERNIER GHERMEZ AHLIEH, GHORBAN. + The red blindfold would be lovely, excellency. + +TIKEH NUNEH BA OB KHRELEH BEZORG VA KHRUBE BOYAST INO BEGERAM. + The water-soaked bread crumbs are delicious, thank you. + I must have the recipe. + +ETEHFOR'AN, DEHRATEE, OTAGEH SHOMA MIKRASTAM KHE +DO HAFTAEH BA BODANEH SHEEREEL TEEGZ. + Truly, I would rather be a hostage to your greatly esteemed + self than spend a fortnight upon the person of Cheryl Tiegs. +% + Vice-President Hubert Humphrey's loquacity is legendary, and Barry +Goldwater notes that "Hubert has been clocked at 275 words a minute with gusts +up to 340." + + On the campaign trail during 1964, Republican nominee Barry Goldwater +stated, "The immediate task before us is to cut the Federal Government down +to size... we must take Lyndon's credit card away from him." + + A favorite 1964 campaign stunt of Barry Goldwater's was to poke a +finger through a pair of lensless blackrimmed glasses, saying, "These glasses +are just like [Lyndon Johnson's] programs. They look good but they don't +work." + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +Vote early and vote often. + -- Al Capone's slogan for Big Bill Thompson's anti-reform + campaign for Mayor of Chicago, 1926. Big Bill won. +% +Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and TAX-DEFERRED! +% +Waldheimer's disease is what you have when you can't remember you were a Nazi. +% +Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +Washington, D.C. Wasting your money since 1810. +% +We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to +socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The bad +thing is that socialism, being a victim of its ... Did I say socialism? + -- Fidel Castro +% +We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +We are the unwilling... led by the unqualified... to do the unnecessary... +for the ungrateful... + -- GI in Vietnam, 1970 +% +We are upping our standards ... so up yours. + -- Pat Paulsen for President +% +We cannot put the face of a person on a stamp unless said person is deceased. +My suggestion, therefore, is that you drop dead. + -- James E. Day, Postmaster General +% +We could do that, but it would be wrong, that's for sure. + -- Richard Nixon +% +We could nuke Baghdad into glass, wipe it with Windex, tie fatback on our +feet and go skating. + -- Fred Reed, Air Force Times columnist. +% +We don't have to protect the environment -- the Second Coming is at hand. + -- James Watt, noted ecologist +% +We have gone on piling weapon upon weapon, missile upon missile, new +levels of destructiveness upon old ones. We have done this helplessly, +almost involuntarily: like the victims of some sort of hypnotism, like +men in a dream, like lemmings heading for the sea, like the children of +Hamelin marching blindly along behind their Pied Piper. And the result +is that today we have achieved, we and the Russians together, in the +creation of these devices and their means of delivery, levels of +redundancy of such grotesque dimensions as to defy rational understanding. + -- George Kennan, May 19, 1981 +% +We have no scorched earth policy. We have a policy of scorched Communists. + -- General Efrain Rios Montt, President of Guatemala, 1982 +% +We must finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess. We must condemn +once and for all the formula 'chess for the sake of chess,' like the formula +'art for art's sake.' We must organize shock-brigades of chess-players, and +begin the immediate realization of a Five-Year Plan for chess. + -- Nikolai V. Krylenko, People's Commissar for Justice + (of RFSFR, later of USSR), speaking at a 1932 Congress + of Chess Players, as quoted in Boris Souvarine's + "Stalin," published London, 1939 +% +We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy's side of +the front is always propaganda and what is said on our side of the front +is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace. + -- Walter Lippmann +% +"We should declare war on North Vietnam. We could pave the whole +country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +We should keep the Panama Canal. After all, we stole it fair and square. + -- S. I. Hayakawa +% +WE'RE GOING TO THROW THE MX AWAY AFTER WE BUILD IT. The MX is really +[Don't tell anybody!] just a "bargaining chip" in the nuclear-arms- +reduction talks with the Russians. See, we have a problem with the +Russians. They look at our leaders and they see, for example, George +Bush, who is really a fine and brave man but who happens to have this +unfortunate physical characteristic whereby when he talks he sounds as +though he just inhaled a helium party balloon. If he ever becomes +President, the Russians will deliberately create nuclear crises just so +they can gather around the Hot Line with refreshments and listen to +George talk. + -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against + Political Fallout" +% +Well, here it is, 1983, so it won't be long before you start reading a lot +of boring stories about people like Vance Hartke. Hartke is a governor or +mayor or something from one of the flatter states, and the reason you'll be +reading about him is that he's one of the 50 top contenders for the 1984 +Democratic presidential nomination. These men will spend the next 18 months +going around the country engaging in the most degrading activities +imaginable, such as wearing idiot hats and appearing on "Meet the Press." +"Meet the Press" is one of those Sunday morning public interest shows that +the public is not the least bit interested in. It features a panel of +reporters who ask questions of a guest politician, who wins an Amana home +freezer if he can get through the entire show without answering a single +question ... + -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics" +% +Well, I would -- if they realized that we -- again if -- if we led them +back to that stalemate only because our retaliatory power, our seconds, +or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive they +they couldn't afford it, that would hold them off. + -- President Ronald Reagan, on the MX missile +% +What did Mickey Mouse get for Christmas? + +A Dan Quayle watch. +% +What is the difficulty with writing a PDP-8 program to emulate Jerry Ford? + +Figuring out what to do with the other 3K. +% +What is truth? We must adopt a pragmatic definition: it is what is believed +to be the truth. A lie that is put across therefore becomes the truth and +may, therefore, be justified. The difficulty is to keep up lying... it is +simpler to tell the truth and if a sufficient emergency arises, to tell one, +big thumping lie that will then be believed. + -- Ministry of Information, memo on the maintenance of + British civilian morale, 1939 +% +What luck for the rulers that men do not think. + -- Adolph Hitler +% +"When are you BUTTHEADS gonna learn that you can't oppose Gestapo tactics +*with* Gestapo tactics?" + -- Reuben Flagg +% +When democracy granted democratic methods to us in times of opposition, this +was bound to happen in a democratic system. However, we National Socialists +never asserted that we represented a democratic point of view, but we have +declared openly that we used the democratic methods only to gain power and +that, after assuming the power, we would deny to our adversaries without any +consideration the means which were granted to us in times of our opposition. + -- Josef Goebbels +% +When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that can't happen. + -- Richard Nixon as a boy (on the Teapot Dome scandal) +% +When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +When the President does it, that means it is not illegal. + -- Richard Nixon +% + When, in 1964, New Hampshire Republican Senator Norris Cotton announced +his support of Bary Goldwater in his state's primary election, he was +questioned as to whether this indicated a change of his hitherto "liberal" +political views. + "Well," explained Cotton, "it's like the New Hampshire farmer. He was +driving along in his car one day with his wife beside him when his wife said, +'Why don't we sit closer together? Before we were married, we always sat +closer together.' The old farmer replied, 'I ain't moved.'" + "I ain't moved," added Cotton. "I found the trend of Government has +moved farther to the left." + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +While passing a vacant lot late one night, a jogger was stopped by a man who +held a gun to his head. + "Who are you for," the gunman snarled, "Bush or Dukakis?" + The runner thought for a moment, shifting nervously from foot to foot, +as the muzzle pressed harder into his temple. + "Bush or Dukakis?" the mugger insisted. + Finally, the jogger shrugged his shoulders, closed his eyes and bowed +his head. "Go ahead and shoot." +% +"White House carpenters have reworked the master bedroom, remodeling it +so that Ronnie can sleep with his head in the hall. That way, by the +time he wakes up, somebody will have already shined his hair." +% +Who can take the demands of the SDS seriously? + -- Nathan Pusey +% +Within a month [in 1969] I had met the first of a small but not uninfluential +community of people who violently opposed SALT for a simple reason: It might +keep America from developing a first-strike capability against the Soviet +Union. I'll never forget being lectured by an Air Force colonel about how +we should have "nuked" the Soviets in late 1940s before they got The Bomb. +I was told that if SALT would go away, we'd soon have the capability to nuke +them again -- and this time we'd use it. + -- Roger Molander, former nuclear strategist for the + White House's National Security Council, Washington + Post, 21 March, 1982 +% +"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 and I as individuals can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but +only for a limited period of time. Why should we think that collectively, +as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?" + -- Ronald Reagan +% +You buy a judge by weight, like iron in a junk yard. A justice of the +peace or a magistrate can be had for a five-dollar bill. In the +municipal courts, he will cost you ten. In the circuit or superior +courts, he wants fifteen. The state appellate courts or the state +supreme court is on a par with the Federal courts. By the time a judge +reaches such courts, he is middle-aged, thick around the middle, fat +between the ears. He's heavy. You can't buy a Federal judge for less +than a twenty-dollar bill. + -- Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik +% +You can build a throne out of bayonets, but you can't sit on it for very long. + -- Boris Yeltsin +% +You can't depend on the man who made the mess to clean it up. + -- Richard Nixon, 1952 +% +You can't underestimate the power of fear. + -- Tricia Nixon +% +You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable doubt. + -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict +% +You guys have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it's our turn. + -- Thurgood Marshall, quoted by Justice Douglas +% +You know very well that whether you are on page one or page thirty depends +on whether [the press] fear you. It is just as simple as that. + -- Richard Nixon +% +You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation +as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases +which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. + -- Charles A. Beard +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/privates b/fortunes/off/privates new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5759b67 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/privates @@ -0,0 +1,1012 @@ +A certain bartender decided to try to get a few new customers into his bar +by starting a gimmick involving a horse. His claim was that if anyone could +get the horse to laugh, he would give them drinks on the house. The idea +worked well and business improved until one night a young man walked in and +whispered in the horse's ear. The horse immediately burst into hysterical +laughter and the man won the contest. The next night the same thing +happened: the man whispered in the horse's ear and the horse burst out +laughing. The next night, the bartender decided to change the rules. Now, +a person had to get the horse to cry in order to win the drinks on the +house. Later on that night, the same guy came in and said "Can I take the +horse into the bathroom for a minute? I promise I'll make him cry." The +bartender agreed and sure enough, when the man came out leading the horse, +the horse was crying his eyes out. The bartender could take it no more and +said, "How did you make him laugh the other two nights?" + "I told him that my dick was bigger than his", replied the man. + "How did you make him cry tonight?" + "I proved it." +% +A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not +mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty +trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators. + -- Dave Barry +% +A couple took their young son for his first visit to the circus, and by +chance their seats were next to the elephant pen. When his father left +to buy popcorn, the boy piped up, + "Mom, what's that long thing on the elephant?" + "That's the elephant's trunk, dear," she replied. + "No, not that." + "Oh, that's the elephant's tail." + "No, Mom. Down underneath." + His mother blushed and said, "Oh, that's nothing." + Pretty soon the father returned, and the mother went off to get +a soda. As soon as she had left the boy repeated his question. + "That's the elephant's trunk, son." + "Dad, I know what an elephant's trunk is. The thing at the +other end." + "Oh, that's the elephant's tail." + "No. Down there." + The father took a good look and explained, "That's the elephant's +penis." + "Dad, how come when I asked Mom, she said it was nothing?" + The man took a deep breath and replied, "Son, I've *spoiled* +that woman." +% +A cowboy, his horse and his dog were captured by hostile Indians. +This wasn't really a problem for the animals as the Indians can always use +them, but the cowboy is informed that he will be burned at the stake the +following sunrise. That evening, the Indian chief tells the cowboy that +he can one last wish, within reason, of course, before meeting his fate +the following morning. The cowboy replies that all he really wants is to +see his faithful dog, Rex, one last time. When the dog is brought by the +Indians, the cowboy hugs his companion and whispers something into his ear. +At once the dog runs off over the hill. Amazingly enough, a few hours later, +he returns, accompanied by some two dozen prostitutes from a nearby town. +Needless to say, the braves are delighted and as a reward offer the cowboy +his dog to keep him company through the rest of the night. When the dog is +brought forth the cowboy again runs his hand over Rex's head and then bends +down to whisper into his ear: "This may be my last chance, Rex, so get it +right this time -- go into town and get the posse!" +% +A figure with curves always offers a lot of interesting angles. +% + A great American Olympic wrestler was receiving last-minute advice +from his coach about the upcoming match with the Soviet Champion. + "This Russian guy is really good, very strong and quick. But I think +you can take him. Remember, though, like I've told you before, don't let +him get you in the Pretzel hold. With his strength you'd never get out." + The American leaps onto the mat, and within moments the two behemoths +are going crazy, struggling to get each other pinned. The American slowly +gains ground and appears that he might actually win on points alone, when, in +the blink of an eye, the Russian reverses him and whips him into the fatal +Pretzel hold. + The coach, off by the side, shakes his head in dismay, and sits down +on the bench with his head between his hands. All of a sudden, there's a +scream and the two wrestlers fly apart, the American regaining control and +pinning the Russian. After the match, in the dressing room, the coach +finally gets the winner alone. "Great job! But how the hell did you get out +of the Pretzel Hold? I thought it was over for sure!" + "Well, I did too. I was in the hold, about to be pinned, when I saw +this huge pair of testicles hanging right in front of my eyes. I figured +what the hell, so I stretched forward and bit them as hard as I could. Coach, +you just don't know your own strength 'til you've bitten your own balls!" +% + A group of soldiers being prepared for a practice landing on a tropical +island were warned of the one danger the island held, a poisonous snake that +could be readily identified by its alternating orange and black bands. They +were instructed, should they find one of these snakes, to grab the tail end of +the snake with one hand and slide the other hand up the body of the snake to +the snake's head. Then, forcefully, bend the thumb above the snake's head +downward to break the snake's spine. All went well for the landing, the +charge up the beach, and the move into the jungle. At one foxhole site, two +men were starting to dig and wondering what had happened to their partner. +Suddenly he staggered out of the underbrush, uniform in shreds, covered with +blood. He collapsed to the ground. His buddies were so shocked they could +only blurt out, "What happened?" + "I ran from the beachhead to the edge of the jungle, and, as I hit the +ground, I saw an orange and black striped snake right in front of me. I +grabbed its tail end with my left hand. I placed my right hand above my left +hand. I held firmly with my left hand and slid my right hand up the body of +the snake. When I reached the head of the snake I flicked my right thumb down +to break the snake's spine... did you ever goose a tiger?" +% +A man is talking to his wife when he mentions that there's a "Big Dick" +contest at one of the bars in town and the prize for the winner is $1000. + "Oh, honey," she exclaims, "I don't want you taking that thing +out in public!" + "But baby," he says, "$1000 is a lot of money." + "I don't care!" she says, stamping her foot. "I don't want you +showing that thing to everybody." + And the subject isn't mentioned again, until the following evening +when he hands her $1000. + "Did you enter the contest, even after I told you I didn't want +you to?" she asks. + "Please forgive me, turtle dove," he says. "I thought we could use +the money." + "You mean you took that thing out for everybody to see?" she says, +tears welling up in her eyes. + "Only enough to win, honey, only enough to win." +% + A man walks into a bar with a Leprechaun on his shoulder. He walks +up to the bar and sits down, ordering a beer for himself and one for the +little Leprechaun. + After a few beers, the Leprechaun jumps down off the guy's shoulder, +struts down the bar and comes to a stop in front of a rather large construction +worker. Looking the guy right in the eye, he gives him a rather large, damp, +Bronx cheer. And trots back to sit on his buddy's shoulder. The worker is +pretty upset, but decides to shine on this rather offensive breach of manners. + After another beer and a half though, the Leprechaun hops down and +walks over to his previous victim and goes "PPPPHHHHHHHBBBBTTTTTT" again. +Well, that's too much, and the victim knocks the Leprechaun off the bar and, +after walking over to stand very close to the Leprechaun's escort, tells him +in a rather overloud voice, that if it happens again, he's going to "cut off +his little dick!" + Replies the escort, "Leprechauns don't have dicks." + "Yeah? Well, then," asks the big man, how does he take a piss?" + "PPPPHHHHHHHBBBBTTTTTT!!!!" +% +A man walks into the doctor's office and the doctor says to him, "I've got +some good news and some bad news." + "Tell me the good news first" the patient replies. + "The good news is that your penis is going to be about two inches +longer and about an inch wider," the doctor says. + "That's great!" says his patient. "What's the bad news?" + "Malignant." +% +A man went to a doctor to have his penis enlarged. Well, this +particular procedure involved splicing a baby elephant's trunk onto the +man's penis. Overjoyed, the man went out with his best girl to a very +fancy restaurant. After cocktails, the man's penis crept out of his pants, +felt around the table, grabbed a hard roll and quickly disappeared under +the tablecloth. The girl was startled and exclaimed, "What was that?" + Suddenly the penis came back, took another hard roll and just as +quickly disappeared. The girl was silent for a moment, then finally said, +"I don't believe I saw what I think I just saw... can you do that again?" + With a bit of an uncomfortable smile the man replied, "Honey, I'd +like to, but I don't think my ass can take another hard roll!" +% +A man with no arms walked into a bar and asked for a beer. The bartender +shoved the foaming glass in front of him. + "Look," said the customer, "I have no arms -- would you please hold +the glass for me? + "Sure," said the bartender. + "If," said the customer, "you'll reach in my right hand coat pocket, +you'll find the money for the beer." + The bartender got the money and rang up the bill. + "You've been very kind," said the customer. "Just one thing more. +Where is the men's room?" + "Up the street to the light," said the bartender, "turn left, walk +two blocks, and there's a gas station on the corner." +% +A man's father is very, very old, and the son can't afford very good treatment +for him, so he's in a rather shabby, run-down nursing home. One day the son +wins a lottery -- and the first thing he does is install his father in the best +old age home that money can buy. + On the first day the old man is sitting watching TV, and he starts +to lean a little bit to one side. Right away a nurse runs over and gently +straightens the old man. A little later he's eating dinner, and when he +finishes, he begins to tip a little bit to one side. Another nurse runs +over and gently pushes him upright again. + The son visits his father later that evening and asks him how he's +being treated. + "It's a wonderful place, son," replies the father. "I really like +it here, gourmet food, color TV's in every room, the service is unbelievable, +there's just one little problem." + "What's that, Dad?" + "They won't let you fart." +% +A mouse was sniffing around in a meadow, when an eagle swooped down, +swallowed him whole, and rose up in the air again. The mouse worked +his way through until his head was sticking out of the bird's asshole. + "Say, good buddy," he squeaked, "how high up are we, anyway?" + "Oh, about two thousand feet," answered the eagle. + The mouse's eyes bugged out. "Hey, you wouldn't shit me, would you?" +% +A proctologist is a doctor who puts in a hard day at the orifice. +% +A son takes his Italian immigrant father to his first baseball game. It +happens that it's Old Timer's Day at Yankee stadium and all the baseball +greats are there. The son escorts his father to box seats right on the +third base line and seats him with beer and a Yankees cap. + The first batter up is Mickey Mantle. On the second pitch he +swings that bat and CRACK! The ball ricochets off the wall for a double. +The crowd goes crazy and the father stands up and yells, "Runna Mickey! +Runna Mickey!" + The next batter up is Joe DiMaggio. The pitcher, pitching him +carefully, works him to a 3-2 count and just misses the outside corner. + "Ball four!" yells the umpire and Joe tosses his bat aside and begins +to walk to first base. + The father yells out, "Runna Joe! Runna Joe!" + "No, no, Pop," corrects his son. "He got four balls. He walks." + And the old man clenches his fist and says solemnly, "Walka proud +Joe. Walka proud." +% +A stately-looking matron was walking through the Bronx Zoo, studying the +animals. When she passed the porcupine enclosure she beckoned to a nearby +attendant. + "Young man," she began, "do North American porcupines have sharper +pricks than those raised in Africa?" + The attendant hesitated for a moment. "Well, ma'am," he answered, +"the African porcupine's quills are sharper... but I think their pricks are +about the same." +% +A traveling circus was performing in a small town, around the turn of the +century, when many of the circus animals were still considered to be very +rare and exotic. One night one of the elephants escaped. It was hungry +and found a garden in a little old lady's backyard. The woman, who had +never before seen an elephant, was hysterical and called the police. + +Little Old Lady: "There's a *huge* monster in my garden! +Police: "Calm down, ma'am, everything will be all right. Now exactly what + does it look like?" +LOL: "It's a dark color and it's tremendous! It's pulling up my + vegetables with its tail!" +Police: "With its tail? Then what's it doing?" +LOL: "You wouldn't believe me if I told you!" +% + A white man was traveling with Indian (American) out West. The +Indian stops, puts his ear to the ground, and says, "Buffalo come." + The white man looks around in all directions, sees nothing for +miles and asks the Indian how the hell he knows that. + Replies the Indian, "Ear wet." + -- Lily Tomlin, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent + Life in the Universe" +% +A woman had a followup visit with her doctor after his prescribing fairly high +dosages of testosterone (a male hormone) for her. She was a little worried +about some of the side effects she was experiencing. + "Doctor Keyes, the hormones you've been giving me have helped a lot +with my menopausal symptoms, but I'm really afraid that you're giving me too +much. I've started growing hair in places that I've never grown hair before!" + The doctor reassured her. "A little hair growth is a perfectly normal +side effect of testosterone. Just where has this hair appeared?" + "On my balls." +% +A young boy is told by his puritanical father than he should never have +sex with a woman, because a woman has teeth in her vagina and will bite +off his penis. + The years go by, and the boy finally marries. After a rather +uninspiring honeymoon his wife finally confronts him and demands that he +tell her why he won't make love to her. + "Well, honey," he replies. "You have... teeth... down there." + "What!?" she replies unbelievingly. "No I don't! Honest, darling, +come here and look for yourself." + The man rather hesitantly examines her very thoroughly. + "There!" his wife says triumphantly. "Now do you believe me?" + "Yes," replied her husband. "And your gums are in *terrible* +condition." +% +A young lady friend of mine just swallowed a razor blade... +She performed a tonsillectomy, an appendectomy, a hysterectomy, +three circumcisions, and cut off the finger of a casual friend. +% +Adopting the metric system would have certain psychological advantages -- +such as being able to claim 18 centimeters instead of seven inches. +% +All jobs should be open to everybody, unless they actually require a +penis or a vagina. + -- Florynce Kennedy + +There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis +or a vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +An old maid wanted to travel by bus to the pet cemetery with the +remains of her cat. As she boarded the bus, she whispered to the +driver, "I have a dead pussy." + +The driver pointed to the woman in the seat behind him and said, "Sit +with my wife. You two have a lot in common." +% +And now, the Bing Crosby show, brought to you by the makers of Ex-Lax. +... a brief pause, and then Bing! +% +Anything more than three shakes is for fun. +% +Build a better mousetrap, the saying goes -- and with the brassiere, Yankee +Ingenuity did exactly that. But their true stroke of genius was the new bait. +The old fashioned mousetrap was loaded with cheese; nobody cares much about +cheese, except mice. But when American know-how reloaded the brassiere with +tits, every heterosexual male in the country was hopelessly trapped. + -- Alan Sherman, "The Rape of the A*P*E*" +% +Captain Hook died of jock itch. +% +"Carefully study these two enlarged photographs on display, Mr. Rafferty," +the attorney for a politician suing a newspaper for libel instructed his +client on the witness stand, "and indicate which is your ass and which is +a hole in the ground." +% +Desperate about the state of her social life, a young woman resorted +to the Personal Ads in the back of her local paper. In the ad she made it +quite clear that what she was advertising for was an expert lover; she already +had plenty of sensitive friends and meaningful relationships and what she +now wanted was to get laid, to put it bluntly. Phone calls started coming +in, with each caller testifying to his sexual prowess, but none quite struck +the young woman's fancy. Until one night her doorbell rang. Opening the door +she found a man with no arms or legs, who informed her that he was there in +response to her advertisement. "I'm terribly sorry," she stammered, "but my +ad was quite explicit. I'm really looking for something of a sexual expert, +and you... uh... don't have all the..." + +"Listen," the man interrupted her, "I rang the doorbell, didn't I?" +% +Diet Mountain Dew has the same pH and density of urine. + -- Newsweek, 31 July, 1989 +% +Due to a mixup in urology, orange juice will not be served this morning. +% +Eat prune yogurt for that "get up and go" feeling. +% + Ever thought of putting a ferret down your pants? Yes, ferrets, +those weasel-like animals originally trained to hunt rats and possessing +needle sharp claws and razor sharp teeth. The English do it for sport. + Ferret Legging involves the tying of a competitors's trousers at +the ankles and then dropping into the trousers a couple of vicious ferrets. +No jockstraps or underwear allowed -- nothing but the bodies' own. The +ferrets must be young and in good condition. Neither the ferret or the +contestant may be drugged or drunk -- cold eyed sober only. The trousers +should be loose fitting, to allow the ferret to scramble from one leg to +the other, and are traditionally white, so that the blood shows better. + Normal contestants are able to keep them down for up to 40 seconds. +The champion ferret legger, Reg Mellor, of Yorkshire, holds the world record +of 5 hours and 26 minutes. Mr. Mellor's claims that being the champion is +not so much heroism but, "You just got to be able to have your tool bitten +and not care." +% +Fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full +of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, +long windy ones, quick little merry cracks... + -- James Joyce +% +Four men had been playing golf together for twenty years. After their usual +Saturday game one week, one of the men joined the other three for a post-game +shower for the first time. His friends were surprised - "For twenty years", +one of them says, "you haven't showered after our game, you've just waited for +us in the clubhouse. Why the sudden change?" + "Well", replies their friend, "I was born with a fairly unusual +medical condition. I had both a penis and a vagina. Last month I finally +decided to have the vagina removed." + The other three men look at him in disbelief and disgust. "You +mean," snaps one of them, "you could have played from the women's tee all +these years?" +% +From the outset, the blind date was a fiasco and it was intensified by the +fact that the fellow was too insensitive and ego-ridden to realize it. The +moment of truth came in the supper club as he clutched the girl's thigh and +whispered, + "Baby, how's about our cutting out to my pad so I can slip you nine +inches?" +There was a moment of silence, and then the girl said, + "You know, I really don't think you could get it up three times +in a row!" +% +Good day for water sports. Take a bath with a friend. +% +Grownups are reluctant to take science fiction seriously, and with good +reason: sci-fi is a hormonal activity, not a literary one. Its traditional +concerns are all pubescent. Secondary sexual characteristics are everywhere, +disguised. Aliens have tentacles. Telepathy allows you to have sex without +any nasty inconvenience of touching. Womblike spaceships provide balanced +meals. No one ever has to grow old -- body parts are replaceable, like +Job's daughters, and if you're lucky you can become a robot. As for the +adult world, it's simply not there; political systems tend to be naively +authoritarian (there are more lords in science fiction than on public +television) and are often ruled by young boys on quests. The most popular +sci-fi book in years, Frank Herbert's Dune, sold millions of copies by +combining all these themes: it ends with its adolescent hero conquering the +universe while straddling a giant worm. + -- Arnold Klein +% +Half the posts to this group are about masturbation and the other half +are about penis size. And what I want to know is, if all you're doing +is jerking off, why do you care how big it is? + -- From alt.sex +% +Halt!! Who goes there, friend or enema? +% +Harry came into work on Monday feeling absolutely fine, and so was astonished +when his secretary urged him to lie down on the sofa; even more so when his +boss took one look at him and ordered him to take the day, if not the week, +off. Even his poker buddies wouldn't have anything to do with him, insisting +that he go straight to bed. Finally, tired of resisting everyone's advice, +he went to see his doctor, who took one look at him and rushed over with +a stretcher. + "But doctor," he protested, "I feel fine." +Well, this was a puzzler, conceded the doctor, who proceeded to refer to the +enormous reference tomes behind his desk, muttering to himself. + "Looks good, feels good... No, you look like hell. Looks good, +feels terrible... Nah, you feel fine, right?" +Thumbing furiously through another volume, he said, + "Looks terrible, feels terrible... Nope, that won't do it either." +Finally, "Looks terrible, feels terrific... Aha!! You're a vagina!" +% +He carried me over the stream, striding through the current, his strong, +muscular, thighs scarcely hesitating as he sure-footedly forded the water. +But what was that bulge, small, oblong, solid, that might have been, say, +a pocket camera? + -- An Exciting Journey +% +He who farts in church must sit in his own pew. +% +Her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest +in a yak. + -- Woody Allen +% +HOW TO REMOVE STAINS -- #28 + Semen stains can be removed from computer terminals with + Fantastik or the like. Use Windex on the glass however, and + be sure to turn the power off if you have to clean between + the keys. +% +I can't believe that out of 100,000 sperm, you were the quickest. + -- Steven Pearl +% +I choked Linda Lovelace. +% +I continued wetting my bed for a long time, not just out of contrariness, +but to have the pleasure of feeling my warm urine running down my legs +and wallowing in its odor. + -- Salvador Dali +% + I don't want to say that she had big tits, but one day I asked her +just how big they was, and she said, "7 and 7/8". + I said, "7 and 7/8?! What did you measure 'em with?" + And she replied, "A Stetson." +% +I know what you're up to, you white-feathered fiend! +Go release your bowels on some lesser personage! + -- W. C. Fields, upon seeing a bird overhead +% +"I need a camel that can go without water for at least three weeks," +the American said to an Algerian camel merchant. "Is it possible?" + "All things are possible," replied the merchant. He proceeded to +take a camel out of his barn and lead him to a tank of water. After the +camel had drunk its fill and was about to lift its head out of the tank, +the merchant picked up two nearby bricks, one in each hand, stepped behind +the camel, and smacked his testicles with the bricks. + The camel let out a gigantic "Whhoooosh!" and sucked up what seemed +like twenty more gallons of water. + The American stared incredulously at the camel merchant. "My God, +man!" he exclaimed, "doesn't that hurt?!" + The merchant shrugged. "Only if you get your thumbs in between the +bricks." +% +I tell ya, I knew my morning wasn't going right. When I put on my shirt +the button fell off, when I picked up my briefcase, the handle fell off, +I tell ya, I was afraid to go to the bathroom. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I walked on toward Ploughwright, thinking about feces. What a lot we had +found out about the prehistoric past from the study of fossilized dung of +long-vanished animals. A miraculous thing, really; a recovery from the +past from what was carelessly rejected. And in the Middle Ages, how +concerned people who lived close to the world of nature were with the +feces of animals. And what a variety of names they had for them: the +Crotels of a Hare, the Friants of a Boar, the Spraints of an Otter, the +Werderobe of a Badger, the Waggying of a Fox, the Fumets of a Deer. +Surely there might be some words for the material so near to the heart of +Ozy Froats [an academic studying feces] than shit? What about the +Problems of a President, the Backward Passes of a Footballer, the +Deferrals of a Dean, the Odd Volumes of a Librarian, the Footnotes of a +Ph.D., the Low Grades of a Freshman, the Anxieties of an Untenured Professor? + -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels" +% +I was a cock-teaser at Rooster Rama. +I used to enrage the bantams before the big bouts. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +I was toilet-trained at gunpoint. + -- Billy Braver +% +I will not be briefed or debriefed, my underwear is my own. +% +I'm not laughing behind your back; everything funny is in front! + -- Rodney Dangerfield's wife +% +In France they piss on Main Street. (In pissoirs, Mama, not cheap display). + -- Joni Mitchell +% +In outer space, nobody can hear you fart. +% +It is recounted that at King's College in the Strand around the time of the +war, the Chief of Services would inevitably begin the year's rounds by +teaching "a singularly important principle of medicine." He asked a nurse +to fetch him a sample of urine. He then talked at length about Diabetes +mellitus. "Diabetes," he said, "is a greek name; but the Romans noticed that +the bees like the urine of diabetics, so they added the word mellitus which +means sweet as honey. Well, as you know, you may find sugar in the urine +of a diabetic ..." + By now the nurse had returned with a sample of urine which the +registrar promptly held up like a trophy. We stared at that straw-colored +fluid as if we had never seen such a thing before. The registrar then +startled us. He dipped a finger boldly into the urine, then licked his +finger with the tip of his tongue. As if tasting wine, he opened and closed +his lips rapidly. Could he perhaps detect a faint taste of sugar? The sample +was passed on to us for an opinion. We all dipped a finger into the fluid, +all of us foolishly licked that finger. + "Now," said the Registrar grinning, "You have learnt the first +principle of diagnosis. I mean the power of observation." We were baffled. +We stood near the sluice room outside the ward, and in the distance, some +anonymous patient was explosively coughing. "You see," the registrar said +continuing triumphantly, "I dipped my MIDDLE finger into the urine, but +licked my INDEX finger -- not like all you chaps. +% +It takes leather balls to play rugby. + (Blood makes the grass grow!) +% +It was at the eighth annual mouse convention and mice from near and far had +gathered for the ball. A pretty little female mouse waltzed by the stag +line and one of the males whistled a low, dirty whistle to himself. +Turning to another mouse he said, "Look at the legs on that bitch, aren't +they beautiful?" + "Just fair," was the answer. + "You're crazy," said the first mouse and then turning to another, +asked his opinion. + "They're nice," said the third mouse, "but nothing to get excited +about." + "Some mice have no appreciation," exclaimed the first mouse. "Now +you," he said to a fourth mouse, "what did you think?" + "To tell you the truth," was the reply, "I'm no authority on legs; +I'm a tit mouse myself." +% +Joan, the rather well-proportioned secretary, spent almost all of +her vacation sunbathing on the roof of her hotel. She wore a bathing suit +the frist day, but on the second, she decided that no one could see her +way up there, and she slipped out of it for an overall tan. She'd hardly +begun when she heard someone running up the stairs; she was lying on her +stomach, so she just pulled a towel over her rear. + "Excuse me, miss," said the flustered little assistant manager of +the hotel, out of breath from running up the stairs. "The Hilton doesn't +mind your sunbathing on the roof, but we would very much appreciate your +wearing a bathing suit as you did yesterday." + "What difference does it make," Joan asked rather calmly. "No one +can see me up here, and besides, I'm covered with a towel." + "Not exactly," said the embarrassed little man. "You're lying on +the dining room skylight." +% +Konrad Lorenz, the great animal behaviorist, was scrupulous about cultivating +fruitful confusion. Lorenz lived among his research subjects: dozens of +species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes. He did not quantify, control, +or consciously experiment. He got to know each creature individually, then +threw them together, watching for the unexpected, the unusual, or the bizarre +in the chaos that followed. For example, his interest in one of ethology's +most important concepts, that of intention movements (motions with meaning, +such as the head bobbing in birds that serves as an alarm signal before +flight), derived from an inadvertent experiment. He had trained a free-flying +raven to eat raw meat from his hand and had been feeding the bird for several +hours one day. He would reach into his pants pocket and take out a piece of +meat, and the raven would swoop down to grab it in its bill. By and by, Lorenz +went to relieve himself near a hedge. When the raven saw him put his hand +into his pants and pull out another morsel of meat, it swooped down, hungrily +grasping the new mouthful in its bill. Lorenz howled in pain. But the event +left a deep impression on him -- about how faithfully animals respond to +intention movements, that is. + -- The Sciences, May/June, 1988, N.Y. Academy of Science. +% +Ladies, here's a hint: If you're playing against a friend who has big +boobs, bring her to the net and make her hit backhand volleys. That's +the hardest shot for the well endowed. "I've got to hit over them or +under them, but I can't hit through," Annie Jones used to always moan +to me. Not having much in my bra, I found it hard to sympathize with her. + -- Billie Jean King +% +Lady to Golf Pro: "I was stung by bees on your golf course!" +Pro: "Ummm, well, where?" +Lady: "Between the 1st and 2nd holes." +Pro: "That's going to real tough to treat." +% +... like, what do they mean when they say 'feminine protection'? What's that? +A chartreuse flamethrower? + -- Opus +% +Man in stall: + Hey, buddy? Is there any toilet paper out there? +Man at sink: + No, I don't see any. Just a second... Nope, none in + any of the other stalls either. +A minute passes. +Man in stall: + Say, buddy? +Man at sink: + Yeah? +Man in stall: + You got change for a ten? +% +Man who dance in crowded ballroom dance cheek to cheek with woman behind him. +% +Man who keep money in jockstrap has financial matters all balled up. +% +Many a bachelor feels the need to insert his masculinity. +% +May Allah blow sand in your Preparation H. +% +May the fairy god-camel leave a lump on your pillow! +% +Maybe if the guy who developed Twinkies hadn't had such a low +opinion of himself they would have been an inch or two longer! +% +"Mind you, not as bad as the night Archie Pettigrew ate some sheep's testicles +for a bet... God, that bloody sheep kicked him!" + -- Ripping Yarns +% + Mr. Hersh came home to find his wife sitting naked in front of the +mirror, admiring her breasts. + "And what do you think you're doing?" he asked. + "I went to the doctor today and he said I have the breasts of a +twenty-five-year-old." + "Oh yeah? And what did he have to say about your forty-year-old ass?" + "Nothing," she replied. "Your name didn't come up at all." +% +Mr. Rection, Mr. Hugh G. Rection, please pick up a white courtesy telephone! +% +My mother didn't breast-feed me. She said she liked me as a friend. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +My wife has breast cancer. She told me to start dating. + -- Howard Stern +% +Naked children are so perfectly pure and lovely. I confess I do not admire +naked boys. They always seem to me to need clothes -- whereas one hardly +sees why the lovely forms of girls should ever be covered up. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +Naked couple in bed, woman says to man: + "When I said I had a foot fetish, I was referring to cocks." +% +Oh, ya doesn't have ta call me 'Johnson'! Well, you can call me 'Ray', or +you can call me 'Jay', or you can call me 'R.J.', or you can call me 'Ray +J.', or you can call me 'R.J.J.', or you can call me 'Ray J. Johnson', or +you can call me 'R.J. Johnson', but ya DOESN'T have to call me 'Johnson'... +% +Once in a medieval times...there was a King who was getting sort of +bored after dinner one night. He decided to hold a contest of who at the +court had the mightiest "weapon". The first knight stood up and proclaimed +that he had the mightiest weapon... he pulled down his pants and tied a 5 +pound weight around it. The weapon doth rose. The crowds cheered... the +women swooned... the children waved multi-colored banners... and the band +played appropriate music. + Another knight stood up and claimed that he had the mightiest weapon. +He dropped his pants and tied a 10 pound weight to himself. The weapon doth +rose. The crowds cheered... the women swooned... the children waved +multi-colored banners... and the band played appropriate music. + After several more knights tried to prove their superiority... the +King finally spoke out. "I have the mightiest weapon of them all!" He dropped +his pants and tied, not a 10 pound, not a 20 pound, not ever a thirty pound, +but a 40 pound weight, plus a coffe pot, to himself. The weapon doth rose. +The crowds cheered... the women swooned... the children waved multi-colored +banners... and the band played "God Save the Queen." +% +Once you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. +% +One day a mouse was driving along the road in his Mercedes when he heard an +anguished roaring noise coming from the side of the road. Stopping the car, +he got out and discovered a lion stuck in a deep ditch and roaring for help. +Reassuring the lion, the mouse tied a rope around the axle of the Mercedes, +threw the other end down to the lion, and pulled the beast out of the ditch. +The lion thanked the mouse profusely and they went their separate ways. + Two months later the lion was out for a stroll in the country when +he heard a panicked squeaking coming from the side of the road. Investigating +the noise, what should he come across but the mouse stuck in the same hole. +"Oh, please help me, Mr. Lion," squeaked the terrified mouse. "I saved you +with my car once, remember?" + "Course I'll help you, little fellow," roared the lion. "I'll just +lower my dick down to you, you hold on to it, and we'll have you out of there +in a jiffy." Sure enough, a few minutes later the mouse was high and dry on +the roadside, trying to convey his eternal gratitude to the lion. + "Don't give it another thought," said the lion kindly. "It just goes +to show that if you've got a big dick, you don't need a Mercedes." +% +One day, in a bar, a young man walks in with a little dwarf about one foot +tall on his shoulder and orders a beer. The bartender serves the man a beer; +to his astonishment, the little guy walks down the man's arm, takes a swallow +of the brew and spits it in his face. After a few minutes the customer +orders another beer and the exact same thing happens. Well, by this time, +the bartender is getting pretty upset; he figures that the man should take +care of the dwarf. So he asks the guy, "Why are you letting that guy drink +all your beer and spit it in my face?" + "Well, sir, when I was on a contract in Saudi Arabia I met this genie +and he granted me three wishes. I asked for a million dollars, the most +beautiful woman in the world, and a twelve-inch prick. +% +One who does not know a burro from a burrow does not know his ass from a +hole in the ground! +% +Opinions are like assholes -- everyone's got one, but nobody wants to look +at the other guy's. + -- Hal Hickman +% + PLAYGIRL, Inc. + Philadelphia, Pa. 19369 + +Dear Sir: + Your name has been submitted to us with your photo. I regret to +inform you that we will be unable to use your body in our centerfold. On +a scale of one to ten, your body was rated a minus two by a panel of women +ranging in age from 60 to 75 years. We tried to assemble a panel in the +age bracket of 25 to 35 years, but we could not get them to stop laughing +long enough to reach a decision. Should the taste of the American woman +ever change so drastically that bodies such as yours would be appropriate +in our magazine, you will be notified by this office. Please, don't call +us. + Sympathetically, + Amanda L. Smith + +p.s. We also want to commend you for your unusual pose. Were you + wounded in the war, or do you ride your bike a lot? +% +Prior to this year's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame cermony, [Cash] went to +the bathroom. "I was standing at the urinal, and Keith Richards walked +in... He said, 'Look at this, I'm pissing with Johnny Cash. We need a +picture of this.' I said, 'No, Keith, we *don't* need a picture of this.'" + -- Rolling Stone interview with Johnny Cash. +% +Raquel Welch: 36-24-36 +Bo Derek: 35-24-36 +Ann-Margaret: 37-25-36 +Bette Middler: 37-25-36 +Marilyn Monroe: 37-24-37 +Jane Russell: 39-27-38 +Jayne Mansfield: 40-23-37 +Sophia Loren: 37-25-36 +% +Rugby is a game played by men with peculiarly shaped balls. +% +Seems like this duck waddles into a pharmacy, waddles up to the prescription +counter and rings the bell. The pharmacist walks up and asks, "Can I help +you?". + The duck replies, "Yes, I'd like a box of condoms, please." + "Certainly", says the pharmacist, "will that be cash or would +you like me to put it on your bill?" + Snarls the duck, "Just what kind of duck do you think I am?" +% +Seems this fellow was suffering from terrific headaches, and went to his +doctor about it. The physician made a number of tests, and informed the man +that the only thing for his headaches was castration. After a few more +months, the headaches became so intense that the man agreed to the operation. +Naturally enough, the ruination of his sex life depressed him tremendously, +and he decided to purchase a new wardrobe to make himself feel better. +He enters a men's clothing store and a salesman wanders over, looks him +up and down, and says, "Well, let's start with shirts... 15 neck, 34 sleeve." + The guy is amazed. "How'd you know?" + "Well, I've been here nearly 30 years, and I can tell sizes within +a quarter inch on every piece of clothing." The salesman's claim is borne +out. Slacks, 34 waist, 32 inseam; jacket: 42 long. And so on and so forth. +When the man has been completely outfitted he decides that he'd better buy +some new underwear. + The salesman looks at him and says, "Okay, that'll be a 34." + "No, that's wrong," says the man. "I've always worn a 32." The +salesman insists, pointing out his accuracy so far. The man argues, agreeing +that while he's been right so far, he has always worn a 32 in shorts. + Finally in exasperation, the salesman says, "Listen, I tell you, +you *have* to wear a 34. Otherwise, you'll get these *awful* headaches." +% +Short man who dance with tall woman gets bust in mouth. +% + Shortly after arriving at their honeymoon destination, the +still-nervous groom became worried about the state of his bride's innocence. +Deciding on a direct confrontation, he quickly undressed, pointed at his +exposed manhood and asked his mate, "Do you know what this is?" + Without hesitation, she blushingly answered, "That's a wee-wee." + Delighted at the idea of instructing his naive wife in the ways of +love, the husband whispered, "From now on, dearest, this will be called a +prick." + "Oh, come now," the girl chided. "I've seen lots of pricks and I +assure you, that's a wee-wee." +% +Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper. +% +Size counts. +% +Sniff sniff... Hey! Who farted? +% +Snow White: + "Gee guys, I've always dreamed of getting ten inches... + but not an inch-and-a-half at a time! +% +... So this is a very confusing situation, and what makes it even +worse is, our standards keep changing. Take Playboy magazine. Back in the +1950s, when I started reading it strictly for the articles, Playboy was +considered just about the raciest thing around, even though all it ever +showed was women's breasts. Granted, any given one of these breasts would +have provided adequate shelter for a family of four, but the overall effect +was no more explicit than many publications we think nothing of today, such +as Sports Illustrated's Annual Nipples Poking Through Swimsuits Issue. + -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" +% +Sometimes guys'll say to you, "Have a good one." I say, "I already have +a good one. Now I'm looking for a longer one." + -- George Carlin +% +Success is like a fart -- only your own smells nice. + -- James P. Hogan +% +The difference between this school and a cactus plant is that the +cactus has the pricks on the outside. +% + The new patron was amazed by the cleanliness of the restaurant. A +waiter approached the table. "Good afternoon, sir. What may I serve you?" + "I'll have the steak dinner," the man answered. + As the waiter headed for the kitchen, the diner noticed that he +wore a spotless white apron and clean white gloves. Soon the waiter +returned, bearing a casserole dish on a cart which he uncovered to reveal +two tempting filet mignons. From a covered pocket in his apron he produced +a small pair of shining silver tongs and with them he transferred the meat +from the steaming casserole to the diner's plate. "We never touch anything +with our hands," he explained. + The waiter continued serving. "Confidentially," he said, "we even +have a special set of rules about visiting the lavatory. Do you see this +little piece of string attached to my apron?" + "Yes," the diner replied. "I noticed that all the aprons had one." + The waiter put a large browned potato on the plate with his tongs. +"Well," he began, "if I should have to go to the bathroom, that string +comes in very handily. I simply unzip my pants and take it out with that +piece of string. That way everything stays sanitary." + "But how do you put it back?" + "Well, I don't know about the other guys," the waiter confided, "but +I use the tongs." +% +The only way for writers to meet is to share a quick pee over a common lamppost. + -- Cyril Connolly, "Journal and Memoir" +% +The real trouble with women is that they have *all* the pussy. +% +The word "spine" is, of course, an anagram of "penis". This is true in +almost fifty percent of the languages of the Galaxy, and many people +have attempted to explain why. Usually these explanations get bogged +down in silly puns about "standing erect". + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% + The young male race horse came from a long line of winners, and did +wonderfully in time trials. However, in actual races he proved a little too +romantic, and could never quite bring himself to pass a mare. + So one day the trainer went to him and told him he'd have to be +castrated. The young horse, knowing that it was either this or the glue +factory, took it philosophically. After all, having the operation was +almost a certain guarantee of a long and illustrious racing career. + After a short recovery period, the horse was again run in time +trials, and found to do as well as ever. But the first time he actually +ran in a race, he only went about ten paces, before getting a dejected look +on his face, turning around, and ambling back to the starting gates. + "What's the matter?" asked the trainer, "you were doing great!" + "Yeah, well how would you feel" replied the horse, "if five thousand +people took one look at you and shouted `they're off!'?" +% +The young man-about-town enjoyed luxury but didn't always have the means +to buy it, and so he huffily walked out of the Miami Beach hotel when he +found out the charges for room, meals and golf privileges were $300 a day. +He registered across the street at an equally elegant hotel, where the +rates were only $70. The following morning he went down to the hotel's +golf course and asked Scotty, the pro, to sell him a couple of golf balls. +"Sure," said Scotty. "That'll be $25 apiece." + "What?" screamed the bachelor. "In the hotel across the street +they only charge $1 a ball!" + "Naturally," replied the pro. "Over there they get you by the +rooms." +% +There was once a salesman who had an outstanding record for selling tooth- +brushes. His boss, wondering at his unlikely success, sent a man out to +follow the salesman on rounds to see what pitch he gave that brought such +good results. It was soon found that this particular salesman went to the +corner of a busy street and opened up his briefcase, and on one side was the +assortment of toothbrushes, and on the other side various chips and garnishes +and a bowl of brownish stuff. He would grab a likely customer and give them +the following pitch. + "Good morning, ma'am, this is a commercial promotion for --- brand +of chip dip. Would you care to give it a try?" + At that point the person would try it, then spit it out and scream +in utter disgust, "This tastes like shit!" + The salesman would smile and say, "It is. You want to buy a +toothbrush?" +% +There's a vas deferens between men and women. +% + This 600-pound guy decides he can't go on living this way, so he seeks +the help of a clinic and proceeds to go on a drastic diet. It works: four +months later he's down to 160 pounds and feeling great, except for one problem. +He's covered with great folds of flesh where the fat used to be. He calls +up the clinic, and the doctor tells him not to worry. "There's a special +surgical procedure to correct this condition," the doctor assures him. "Just +come on over to the clinic." + "But doctor," the man pleads, "you don't understand. I'm too +embarrassed to be seen in public like this." + "Don't give it another thought," says the doctor. "Simply pull up +all the folds as high as they'll go, pile the flesh on top of your head, put +on a top hat, and come on over." + The guy follows the instructions and provokes no comments until he +reaches the clinic and is standing in front of the admitting nurse's desk, +dying of self-consciousness. "The doctor will be right with you," says the +nurse. "Say, what's that hole in the middle of your forehead?" + "My navel," blurts out the guy, "how d'ya like my tie?" +% +This fellow rushed into a crowded tavern on Saturday night. Men and women +stood three-deep at the bar. Our man, who felt nature calling strongly, +looked about him but couldn't see anything that resembled a john. He saw a +stairway and bounded up the steps to the second floor in his increasingly +desperate search. Just as his bowels threatened to erupt, he spotted a +one-foot by one-foot hole in the floor. Now, at the end of his control, he +decided to take advantage of the hole. He dropped his pants, hunched over it, +and did his thing. Thoroughly relieved and relaxed, he sauntered down the +steps to find, to his surprise, that the crowded bar was now empty. + "Hey!" he yelled to the seemingly empty room, "Where is everyone?" + From behind the bar a voice responded, "Hey! Where were you when +the shit hit the fan?" +% +This guy, see, was walkin' down the street sportin' two -- not one, but two +-- black eyes; a coupla real shiners. He chanced upon his buddy walkin' th' +other way... they stopped to talk... "Hey guy," sez his buddy, "where'd'ja +git them good lookin' shiners? Musta been a helluva fight." + "Well, actually, I got them in church," sez he. + "Nowwaitaminnit," sez the friend, "nobody gits black eyes in church!" + "I swear I did," sez he, "and here's how it happened. We all got up +to sing a hymn, you see, and the fat lady in front of me got her dress all +stuck up in the crack of her butt, so bein' as how I'm a real gennulman an' +all, well, I leaned forward and pulled it out for her. And you know what? +She just turned around, hauled off and slugged me one!" + "Well," his buddy replies, after he can talk again, "that shore 'nuff +explains one of 'em. Howdja git th' other one?" + "Well," sez he, "like I said, I'm a gennulman, even when somebody does +me wrong, so when I saw she didn't like it like that, I stuck it back in." +% +This hot and dusty cowboy rode in from the mesa, filthy and exhausted. He +obviously had had nothing but his horse for company for a couple of weeks +and was looking forward to a couple of cold beers in the saloon. Swinging +off his horse and hitching it to the rail, the cowboy gave his horse an +affectionate slap on the neck. Then he astonished an old cowhand lounging +on the porch by moving around to the horse's hindquarters, lifting up its +tail and planting a demure kiss on its asshole. + "What'd you do that for?" asked the cowhand, completely repulsed. + "Chapped lips," said the cowboy, heading for the saloon doors. + "Wait a minute," said the old guy. "Whaddaya mean, chapped lips?" + "Keeps ya from lickin' 'em," explained the cowboy. +% +Tonight's piss is tommorrow's Tang. + -- An American astronaut +% +Two Peace Corps doctors who had just returned to a stateside hospital +were in front of the main desk in the midst of a heated argument that +went along these lines: + (1st doctor) "No, no, no! It's 'waaaahmmmb'" + (2nd doctor) "No you're wrong! It's 'woooooommmb'" +and this continued for quite sometime. + Finally a nurse stepped in and said: "The correct pronunciation is +'womb'" and trotted off. + (1st doctor) "That shows you what she knows." + (2nd doctor) "Yeah. I bet she's never even SEEN a hippopotamus, +let alone heard one fart underwater." +% +USENET is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- +massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and +a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least +expect it. + -- Gene Spafford +% +Well, God gave me a bust. What am I supposed to do with it? + -- Martha Mitchell +% +What a man enjoys most about a woman's clothes are his fantasies of how +she would look without them. + -- Brendan Francis +% +While away at a convention, an executive happened to meet a young woman who +was pretty, chic, and intelligent. When he persuaded her to disrobe in his +hotel room, he found out she had a superb body as well. Unfortunately, as +will happen, the executive sadly found himself unable to perform. + On his first night home, the executive padded naked from the shower +into the bedroom to find his wife swathed in a rumpled bathrobe, her hair +curled, her face creamed, munching candy loudly as she pored through a movie +magazine. And then, without warning, he felt the onset of a magnificent +erection. + Looking down at his throbbing member, he snarled, "Why you ungrateful, +mixed-up, son-of-a-bitch! Now I know why they call you a prick!" +% +Why not, for example, offer a brand-new Mustang convertible to every girl +who consents to having her Fallopian tubes tied in a Gordian knot? ... It +would have the additional benefit of eliminating from the gene pool those +stupid enough to consent to such a deal. + -- Edward Abbey +% +Working hard around here is like pissing on yourself in a dark suit; +you get a warm feeling but nobody notices. +% +Would you rather have a 5-inch hard or an 8-inch floppy? +% +Ya know, Quaker Oats make you feel good twice! +% +You are witty, charming, handsome and above average in length. +% +You know what burns my ass? A flame about three feet high. +% +You should be a hemorrhoid, you're such a pain in the ass. +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/racism b/fortunes/off/racism new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6506f34 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/racism @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the +entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family. + -- Saul Alinsky +% +They don't suffer. They can't even speak English. + -- George F. Baer, answering a reporter's + question about the suffering of starving miners. +% +We are giving instruction to FBI agents in the various Chinese +dialects ... to handle present and likely future contingencies. + -- J. Edgar Hoover +% +The whole white race is a monster who is always hungry, and what he +eats is land. Chiksika, (Shawnee) +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/religion b/fortunes/off/religion new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff1911b --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/religion @@ -0,0 +1,1383 @@ +A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove +anything. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +A Catholic and a Methodist were carpooling to work one morning, when a brick +fell out of the sky, which startled the driver and caused him to swerve off +the road and into a telephone pole, totaling the car. + The two stumbled out of the wreckage, both feeling quite fortunate +to be alive. The Catholic crossed himself. Then the Protestant crossed +himself in an accentuated manner. + "Hey," said the Catholic, "I why did you cross yourself, you're not +Catholic!" + "Just checking," replied his friend, crossing himself again, +"spectacles, testicles, wallet, pen." +% +A Christian is a man who feels repentance on Sunday for what he did on +Saturday and is going to do on Monday. + -- Thomas Ybarra +% +A clever prophet makes sure of the event first. +% +A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than +he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men +favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter +facts of life in bandages of self-illusion. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +A key to the understanding of all religions is that a God's idea of a +good time is a game of Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs. +% + A man dies and is getting his tour of heaven. His guide is pointing +out the various features and landmarks when the man asks, "What's that cliff?" + "Oh, you don't want to look down there. That's hell!" + The man creeps up to the edge and looks over. He sees lush, green +valleys, verdant farmland and trees everywhere. "This doesn't look so bad," +he says. + Puzzled, the guide comes over and looks down. "Damn!" he snaps, +"Those Mormons have been irrigating again!" +% +A man fell off a mountain and, as he fell, saw a branch and grabbed for it. +By superhuman effort he was able to get a precarious grip on it. As he +was hanging there for dear life, he looked up and cried out, + "Is anybody there?" +A deep majestic voice answered, + "Yes my son, I am here. What do you need?" + "Help me!!" cried the man. + "I will help you", said the voice, "Just let go of the branch and +you'll be safe. All you have to do is trust." +The man thought for a moment and cried out: + "Anybody ELSE up there?" +% +A man without a God is like a fish without a bicycle. +% +"A Mormon is a man that has the bad taste and the religion to do what a +good many other people are restrained from doing by conscientious +scruples and the police." + -- Mr. Dooley +% +A myth is a religion in which no-one any longer believes. + -- James Feibleman, "Understanding Philosophy" +% +A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone, somewhere, is +having fun. +% +A rabbi and a priest are sitting together on a train, and the rabbi leans +over and asks, "So, how high can you advance in your organization?" + The priest replies, "Well, if I am lucky, I guess I could become a +Bishop." + "Well, could you get any higher than that?" + "I suppose that if my works are seen in a very good light that I +might be made an Archbishop." + "Is there any way that you might go higher than that?" + "If all the Saints should smile, I guess I could be made a Cardinal." + "Could you be anything higher than a Cardinal?" + Hesitating a little bit, the priest said, "I suppose that I could +be elected Pope, but only if it's God's will." + "And could you be anything higher than that, is there any way to go +up from being the Pope?" + "What?! I should be the Messiah himself?!" + The rabbi leaned back and smiled. "One of our boys made it." +% +"Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western +religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of +Western science." + -- Gary Zukav, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" +% +All Gods were immortal. + -- Stanislaw J. Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts" +% +All religions issue Bibles against Satan, and say the most injurious things +against him, but we never hear his side. + -- Mark Twain +% +All the waters of the earth are in the armpit of the Great Frog. + -- R. Crumb +% +Already the spirit of our schooling is permeated with the feeling that every +subject, every topic, every fact, every professed truth must be submitted +to a certain publicity and impartiality. All proffered samples of learning +must go to the same assay-room and be subjected to common tests. It is the +essence of all dogmatic faiths to hold that any such "show-down" is +sacrilegious and perverse. The characteristic of religion, from their point +of view, is that it is intellectually secret, not public; peculiarly revealed, +not generally known; authoritatively declared, not communicated and tested +in ordinary ways...It is pertinent to point out that, as long as religion +is conceived as it is now by the great majority of professed religionists, +there is something self-contradictory in speaking of education in religion +in the same sense in which we speak of education in topics where the method +of free inquiry has made its way. The "religious" would be the last to be +willing that either the history of the content of religion should be taught +in this spirit; while those to whom the scientific standpoint is not merely +a technical device, but is the embodiment of the integrity of mind, must +protest against its being taught in any other spirit. + -- John Dewey, "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 +% +An atheist is a man with no invisible means of support. +% +"And Bezel saideth unto Sham: `Sham,' he saideth, `Thou shalt goest +unto the town of Begorrah, and there thou shalt fetcheth unto thine +bosom 35 talents, and also shalt thou fetcheth a like number of cubits, +provideth that they are nice and fresh.'" + -- Dave Barry, "Getting Religion" +% +...And have you ever noticed that you never see the Father, the Son, and +the Holy Ghost partying together at the same time? Oh, sure, everybody +talks like they aren't the same person, but I wonder... +% + And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" + They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground +of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood +revealed." + And Jesus replied, "What?" +% +...and no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured +we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful +inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion +as it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the +naive. As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we +might be advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do +us the same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their +protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear +that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in +God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect +for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the most +virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians are +frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure of Jesus +because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. Such ambiguity +is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every recognized Bible scholar +is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, resort to formal lying to +obscure such reality. + -- Steve Allen +% + And on the third day, Christ arose, pushed aside the rock that had +served as the tomb door, and walked again on the earth. + And as he departed, a passer-by pointed at the door Jesus had left +open. "What's the matter with you?" he said. "Born in a barn?" +% +Ankh if you love Isis. +% +Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent. + -- Lazarus Long +% +As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject of +religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction in the +methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless conversions -- +to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and has, after eleven +years, left the sect he was associated with. The problem is that once the +untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy -- +and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and +high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational -- the powers of reason are +surprisingly ineffective in changing the believer's mind. + -- Steve Allen +% +As the Catholic church becomes more and more tolerant, some day they will +have to consider the possibility of a gay pope. Possibly the largest +issue will be having to decide whether he is "absolutely divine" or "just +simply marvelous." +% +As the recent sightings of bumper stickers reading "IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS +VEHICLE WILL BE UNMANNED" have created a great deal of confusion, Fortune +offers the following excerpts from the 1989 printing of the State of Maryland +Driver's Handbook: + If you notice a glorious light in the sky, a sound as of an infinite +choir of unearthly voices, and a host of winged beings descending from the +heavens, do not panic. If you are on the freeway, move to the shoulder as +soon as it is safe to do so, activate your hazard blinkers, and wait for the +end of the world. If you are Saved, it is especially important that you do +this BEFORE you are carried to your Eternal Reward, in order that your vehicle +not become a hazard to others. Remember, Rapture is the number one cause of +automobile accidents during major spiritual upheavals. You may experience a +feeling of discorporation ("being pulled from one's body") while driving. To +ensure the safety of your passengers and other drivers, move to the shoulder +as soon as you notice any of the following symptoms: + -- An overwhelming sense of peace and happiness. + -- Visions of the faces of deceased family members. + -- A glorious figure in white, beckoning from the end of a tunnel of +white mist (do not confuse this with traffic control or maintenance officers, +who wear dark blue and safety orange.) + Once the feeling has passed, inspect your surroundings. If still in +your car, you have probably suffered a stroke and should have someone drive +you to a hospital at once. If you find yourself in the Kingdom of God, consult +the local officials for information on local traffic rules and regulations. +% +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 +% +Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, +If God won't have you, the devil must. +% +Atheism is a non-prophet organization. +% +Better the prince of some inferior court, +Than second, or less, in beatific light. + -- Lucifer, Joost van den Vondel's "Lucifer" +% +Beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The +danger already exists that the mathematicians have made covenant with +the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell. + -- St. Augustine +% +Brother Jim's recent appearance on the William and Mary campus this past +week was cut short by an ingenious device designed by two computer science +students. A three-foot bar of extruded aluminum was precisely machined, +with a hole milled down the center of precisely the dimensions of one of +the small Gideon bibles. The end capped off, a CO2 canister was connected +to provide up to 2,000 PSIG. Prelimary estimates during field testing +revealed a muzzle velocity of approximarly 120-150 MPH for bibles exiting +the tube. Sufficient ammunition was obtained during a previous visit to +campus by another religious organization, and the system was first used on +Brother Jim, who suffered a broken rib and numerous small bruises, in +addition to the usual humiliation. +% +Campus crusade for Cthulhu -- it found me. +% +Catholicism has changed tremendously in the recent years. Now when +Communion is served there is also a salad bar. + -- Bill Marr +% +Christ died for our sins, so let's not disappoint Him. +% +Christianity and Judaism aren't all that different, really. Growing up in +a Christian family, the feeling of guilt for Man's sins comes from God. +In a Jewish family, it comes from your parents. +% +Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found +difficult and not tried. + -- G. K. Chesterton +% +Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +"Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple +and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and +because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be +more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our +entire intellectualy heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing +honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment +to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any +general understanding of science as an enterprise? + -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer" +% +Crucifixes are sexy because there's a naked man on them. + -- Madonna +% +Cthulhu Cthucks! +% +Cthulhu for President! + (If you're tired of choosing the lesser of two evils.) +% +Cthulhu Saves -- in case He's hungry later. +% +David was just a shepherd who liked to get his rocks off in leather. +% +Dear Ann Landers: + My husband watches the TV preachers every Sunday. He claims +one minister said there are 350 different sins. My husband wants to +know if you can get the list. He thinks he is missing something. + -- E. J. Mayfield +% +Dianetics is a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of +fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and the arch. + -- L. Ron Hubbard +% +Did you ever wonder what you'd say to God if He sneezed? +% +Didja hear about the dyslexic devil worshipper who sold his soul to Santa? +% +... difference of opinion is advantagious 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" +% +Driving through a Swiss city one day, Alfred Hitchcock suddenly +pointed out of the car window and said, "That is the most frightening +sight I have ever seen." His companion was surprised to see nothing +more alarming than a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand +on the child's shoulder. "Run, little boy," cried Hitchcock, leaning +out of the car. "Run for your life!" +% +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 +% +Enemy -- SP (Suppressive Person) Order. Fair Game. May be deprived of +property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline +of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed. + -- L. Ron Hubbard, "Fair Game Doctrine" +% +Ere the cock crows thrice one of you will betray me. + -- Early Jewish Resistance Leader +% +Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company." + -- Mark Twain +% +Go to the Scriptures... the joyful promises it contains will be a balsam to +all your troubles. + -- Andrew Jackson + +The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the +teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith +in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country. + -- Calvin Coolidge + +Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality and +religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted +on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be +secure which is not supported by moral habits. + -- Daniel Webster +% +God did not create the world in seven days; he screwed around for six +days and then pulled an all-nighter. +% +God is a polytheist. +% +God is an atheist. +% +GOD is applied POWER + which is applied GOVERNMENT + which is applied POLITICS + which is applied ADVERTISING + which is applied SOCIOLOGY + which is applied PSYCHOLOGY + which is applied BIOLOGY + which is applied CHEMISTRY + which is applied PHYSICS + which is applied MATH + which is applied PHILOSOPHY + which is applied BULLSHIT +% +"God is as real as I am," the old man said. My faith was restored, for +I knew that Santa would never lie. +% +"God is big, so don't fuck with him." +% +God is not dead -- he's been busted. +% +God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's. +% +God is not dead. He is alive and well and working on a much less +ambitious project. +% +God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent -- it says so right here +on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these +divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No +checks, please. Cash and in small bills. + -- Lazarus Long +% +God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. +% +God isn't dead, He's just trying to avoid the draft. +% +God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. +% +God must love assholes -- She made so many of them. +% +God said it, I believe it and that's all there is to it. +% +God votes Republican. +% + God wanted to have a holiday, so He asked St. Peter for suggestions on +where to go. + "Why not go to Jupiter?" asked St. Peter. + "No, too much gravity, too much stomping around," said God. + "Well, how about Mercury?" + "No, it's too hot there." + "Okay," said St. Peter, "What about Earth?" + "No," sighed God, "They're such horrible gossips. When I was +there 2000 years ago, I had an affair with a Jewish woman, and they're +still talking about it." +% +God wants us to know that if we see a bumper sticker saying "Honk if you love +Jesus" it is a bad idea to honk to express an opinion about Jesus because it +will annoy the turkey who put the bumper sticker on as well as everyone else +in the vicinity. However, it is just fine to honk to annoy the turkey simply +for being a turkey, for God told Man to be fruitful and multiply, and to rule +over the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, and that includes the +turkeys who buy such bumper stickers. Of course, God understands that innocent +bystanders will also be annoyed, but He has wisely created traffic cops to +impose some constraint on how much we may annoy the turkeys within city limits, +for God's wisdom comprehends full well that thou shalt not make an omelette +without breaking eggs. God only wishes they were turkey eggs, so such moral +dilemmas shall be fewer in number in the future, when the generations a-coming +(hallelujah) won't have so many turkeys to deal with. But God knows full well +that such things take time, and the turkeys are showing more resilience than +expected, and may be with us for a long time yet. +% +He has been known by many names; the Prince of Lies, the Director, Lucifer, +Belial, and once, at a party, some obnoxious drunk kept calling him "Dude". + -- Stig's Inferno +% +Heaven and earth were created all together in the same instant, on October +23rd, 4004 B.C. at nine o'clock in the morning. + -- Dr. John Lightfoot, + Vice-chancellor of Cambridge University +% +History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion -- +i.e., none to speak of. + -- Lazarus Long +% +However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There +is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. +There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, +or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any +powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used +sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are +not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force +government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree +with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they +threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and +tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen +that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and +"D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to +claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more +angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group +who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll +call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step +of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans +in the name of "conservatism." + -- Senator Barry Goldwater, Congressional Record +% +I am an atheist, thank God! +% +I call Christianity the one great curse, the one enormous and innermost +perversion, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are +too venomous, too underhand, too underground and too petty -- I call it +the one immortal blemish of mankind. + -- Fredrich Nietzsche +% +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 feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with +sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. + -- Galileo Galilei +% +I don't care what star you're following, get that camel off my front lawn! + -- Heard in Bethlehem +% +I figure that if God actually does exist, He's big enough to understand an +honest difference of opinion. + -- Isaac Asimov +% + "I think he said 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'" + "Nonsense, he was obviously referring to all manufacturers of dairy +products." + -- The Life of Brian +% +"I'd like to start a new religion. One that doesn't use a dead young +man as its logo." + -- Bill Cain, "Stand Up Tragedy" +% +I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from man. +% +I'm an evolutionist; I refuse to believe that I could have been created by man. +% +If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is +identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a +collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I +have no doubt, and I think few people doubt, that atheists are as +plentiful as blackberries. + -- Leslie Stephen +% +If Christianity was morality, Socrates would be the Saviour. + -- William Blake +% +If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. + -- Voltaire, "Epitres, XCVI" +% +"If God had wanted us to use the metric system, Jesus would have had 10 +apostles." +% +If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows. + -- Yiddish saying +% +If Jesus Christ came to this town, people would say, great guy; terrible +carpenter. + -- Gene Kirkwood, on Hollywood +% +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 one inquires why the American tradition is so strong against any connection +of State and Church, why it dreads even the rudiments of religious teaching +in state-maintained schools, the immediate and superficial answer is not +far to seek. ... The cause lay largely in the diversity and vitality of the +various denominations, each fairly sure that, with a fair field and no favor, +it could make its own way; and each animated by a jealous fear that, if any +connection of State and Church were permitted, some rival denomination would +get an unfair advantage. + -- John Dewey, "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 +% +If the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, +this would be a better world. + -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" +% +If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, +I would have recommended something simpler. + -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile, + Commenting on the Almagest, by Ptolemy. +% +If you can believe ten impossible things before breakfast, then you +should join + + THE CHURCH OF COUNTERFACTUAL BELIEF + +The Church of Counterfactual Belief has been set up to cater to all who +don't allow demonstrable truth to get in the way of their beliefs. In +addition to creation science and the flatness of the earth, the +following beliefs have been certified by Pope Duane as Church dogma: + + -- That there is a hole in the Earth at the North Pole from which + UFOs come. + -- That pi equals precisely 3.000. + -- That sex can be enjoyed only by blacks and homosexuals. + -- That Billy Joe Wilson (Hoopla, Miss.) has successfully squared + the circle. + -- That Harry Truman is still president, and doing a fine job. + -- That pi equals precisely 22/7. + +Several other important counterfactual beliefs are presently being +studied, including Reaganomics, A.I., and that the moon landings were +done in a Hollywood special effects studio. These will be the subject +of a forthcoming Papal Bull ... +% +If you don't count some of Jehovah's injunctions, there are no humorists +in the Bible. + -- Mordecai Richler +% +If you liked the Earth you'll love Heaven. +% +Imagine there's no heaven... it's easy if you try. + -- John Lennon, "Imagine" +% +"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with +reality at any point." + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +In regards to Oral Roberts' claim that God told him that he would die unless +he received $20 million by March, God's lawyers have stated that their client +has not spoken with Roberts for several years. Off the record, God has stated +that "If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time +ago." + -- Dennis Miller, SNL News +% + In the beginning, God created the Earth and he said, "Let there be mud." + And there was mud. + And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud +can see what we have done." + And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was +man. Mud-as-man alone could speak. + "What is the purpose of all this?" man asked politely. + "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. + "Certainly," said man. + "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all of this," said God. + And He went away. + -- Kurt Vonnegut, Between Time and Timbuktu" +% +"Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time +someone writes `bible thumpers?' + -- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu +% +It is convenient that there be gods, and, as it is convenient, let us +believe there are. + -- Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) +% + It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all +primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach +of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings +arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself +completely. ... Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged +once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or +subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son, +man. + -- Fred Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy +% +"It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then +god is dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side." + -- Frank Zappa +% +It seems that a rabbi, a priest and a minister decided to go fishing one +sunny afternoon. All three climbed into the boat and headed for the middle +of the lake. After several hours of relaxation, the minister decided that +"nature was calling", and climbed out of the boat and walked ashore. In +a few moments, he walked back out to the boat and climbed back in. + The rabbi was absolutely astonished, but decided not to mention +the apparent miracle. + A few minutes later, the priest also decided to go ashore for a +moment, and climbed out of the boat, walked to shore, and a few minutes +later came back. + By now the rabbi was in great distress and had begun to doubt his +beliefs and wonder if there might be some validity to the Christian +teachings. But he immediately reaffirmed the fact that his faith WAS JUST +AS STRONG as either the priest's or the minister's and decided that anything +they could do, with God's help, he could do as well. + The rabbi then announced that he needed relief and would walk to +shore. He climbed out of the boat and went straight to the bottom of the +lake. While the rabbi was thrashing about in the water, the priest turned to +the minister and said, "So... do you think we ought to tell him where the +rocks are?" +% +It seems that there was this Christian about to be thrown to the lions. He +was shoved into the middle of the arena and the lion was released. Being +a good Christian, as the lion approached he knelt and prayed, asking God for +forgiveness for his (few) sins, and begging that the lion might be dissuaded +from eating him for its breakfast. Much to his dismay, the lion didn't stop +but kept coming, getting faster and faster, now almost running, so the +Christian took off too. There they were, running around and around the arena, +the lion getting closer and the Christian praying harder and harder between +gasps for breath. The lions breath was now hot upon his heels and he could +even feel droplets of the lions saliva splashing on his bare feet. So he +pulled out all the stops, promising God that if the lion will only spare him, +he will devote the rest of his life to spreading the Christian faith, +forsaking all temptation and possessions. Suddenly he no longer felt the +lions breath, no longer heard the great beast's snarls close behind him. +Slowing to a stop, he turned around and saw the lion on its knees, eyes rolled +upward, paws held together. The lion appeared to be muttering something so +the Christian approached until he could make out what the lion was saying. + +"Dear Lord, for what I am about to receive..." +% +... 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 +% +Jehovah is an alien and still threatens this planet! +% +Jesus died for your sins. Make it worth his time. +% +Jesus has just stopped the crowd from stoning Mary Magdalene to death +and is berating the self-pious with the famous speech, "Let the one +among you who is without sin cast the first stone..." + Right about then, a rock comes winging through the air and hits +Jesus upside the head. He whirls around and shouts "Alright, Mom, c'mon! +I'm trying to make a point, here!" +% +Jesus Never Fails + +(He's never taken the Massachusetts Bar Exam, either.) +% +Jesus Saves! + +(And Esposito scores on the rebound!) +% +Jesus Saves, +Moses Invests, +But only Buddha pays Dividends. +% +Jesus Saves, +Moses Invests, +But only Buddha pays Dividends. +% +"Jesus saves...but Gretzky gets the rebound!" + -- Daniel Hinojosa +% +Jesus was killed by a Moral Majority. +% +John Paul II is famous for his touring, and his quaint habit of pressing +his lips to foreign soil on his arrival. This sparked some wit to remark: + "The Pope has it backwards: he kisses the ground, and walks on +the women!" +% +LET Jesus be YOUR anchor! + +So when Satan rocks your boat, THROW Jesus overboard! +% +Little Herbie had been blind since birth. One day at bedtime, his mother +told him that the next day was a very special one. If he prayed extra +hard, he'd be able to see when he woke up the next morning. The next +morning she came into Herbie's room and asked him if he'd prayed hard +the night before. + "Yes, Mommie," was his reply, "all night long!" + "Well, then," she said, "open your eyes and you'll know that +your prayers have been answered." +Little Herbie opened his eyes, only to cry out, + "Mother! Mother! I still can't see!" + "I know, dear," said his mother, "April Fool." +% +Man proposes, God disposes. + -- Thomas `a Kempis +% +Many a long dispute between divines may thus be abridged: It is so. It +is not so. It is so. It is not so. + -- Benjamin Franklin, "Poor Richard's Almanack" +% +Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God +is a cruel and capricious tyrant. + -- Edward Gibbon +% +Militant agnostic: I don't know, and you don't either. +% +My daddy's brains was so scrambled he thought he was Jesus. They put him +in a nut house for 5 years and when he got out, he didn't think he was +Jesus, he thought he was *God*! ... Which made me Jesus. + -- T. Bywater +% +Newsflash: + Apparently the rapture did occur last Tuesday as was originally +predicted. All true believers were transported to heaven while the rest +of us were left behind to await the Anti-Christ and the end of the world. + Widespread reports that the rapture had not occurred stemmed from +expectations that the effect would be more widespread than it turned out +to be. The definition of "true believer" was apparently more restrictive +than expected, however, and the only qualifiers were a family of five, +living in Stenton, North Dakota. +% +"Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends." + -- Woody Allen +% +Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind- +bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers +have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence +of God. The argument follows: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, +"for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, +"the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved +by chance, thus proving that you exist, therefore by your own arguments, +you don't. QED." "Oh, dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and +promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. + -- D. Adams +% +Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each +of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice. + +In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called +it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" and went to +synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each +other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Hanukka!" or (to +the atheists) "Look out for the wall!" + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Once I belonged to a group that really had THE WORD. I fought like hell +for them. But another group came along and exposed the word of my group +as shallow and degenerate. They had a better word. So I quit the first +group and lost all the friends I had made and I joined up with this new +group. I fought like hell for them. But another group came around. They +exposed the word of my group as false and materialistic. Their word was +very much better. So I quit the second group and lost all the friends I +had made. And I joined up with this new group. I fought like hell for them. +Till this one guy came along and proved that there wasn't any word at all. +That I should go off as an individual and grow! So I quit the last group +and lost all the friends I had made. And now I sit home alone all day and +all I do is grow. It would be nice to join up with some others who feel +the way I do. + -- J. Feiffer +% +One man's theology is another man's belly laugh. +% +One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible +from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at +least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts +are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but +when He's good, nobody can touch Him. + -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983 +% +One thing I have no worry about is whether God exists. But it has +occurred to me that God has Alzheimer's and has forgotten we exist. + -- Jane Wagner, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent + Life in the Universe" +% +One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned at +the stake while the votes were being counted. + -- Thomas B. Reed +% +Pain is just God's way of hurting you. +% +Paster Crosstalk: What items are specifically mentioned by GOD as being + unclean? Now did you know... preying birds... praying mantises... + All birds of prey, all carrion eaters, fish eaters -- no good, can't + eat those. Nothing that does not have both fins and scales. Most + CREEPING things... +Alvarado: How 'bout caterpillars? +P: A caterpillar doesn't have a backbone. Nothing without a backbone + can get in. +A: How do you know? You char a caterpillar, it gets real stiff! +P: Well, I don't think that the Lord meant us to eat CHARRED + CATERPILLARS! +[...] +P: The hog, the squirrel... little squirrels. Who would want to eat + a LITTLE SQUIRREL? +A: If you're starving. If you're starving in the park one day. +P: You'd probably just CHAR 'em to get 'em stiff, wouldn't ya? +A: No, you SINGE 'em. You SINGE 'em and eat 'em. *I* read about the + Donner Pass, I know what man does when he's hungry. +P: Squirrels eating squirrels -- my GOD, that's sick! +A: That's sick, SURE. But a MAN eating a squirrel -- that's (heh, heh) + par for the course, Charlie. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +Pope Goestheveezl was the shortest reigning pope in the history of the +Church, reigning for two hours and six minutes on 1 April 1866. The +white smoke had hardly faded into the blue of the Vatican skies before it +dawned on the assembled multitudes in St. Peter's Square that his name +had hilarious possibilities. The crowds fell about, helpless with +laughter, singing + Half a pound of tuppenny rice + Half a pound of treacle + That's the way the chimney smokes + Pope Goestheveezl +The square was finally cleared by armed carabineri with tears of laughter +streaming down their faces. The event set a record for hilarious civic +functions, smashing the previous record set when Baron Hans Neizant +B"ompzidaize was elected Landburgher of K"oln in 1653. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. + -- Stephen Coonts, "The Minotaur" +% +Prisons are built with stones of Law, brothels with bricks of Religion. + -- Blake +% +Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin. + -- Anatole France +% +Religion is a crutch, but that's okay... humanity is a cripple. +% +Religion is fine, Churchianity sucks. +% +Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. + -- Napoleon +% +Religions revolve madly around sexual questions. +% +Seems like these four rabbis had a series of theological arguments, and three +were always in accord against the fourth. One day, the odd rabbi out, with +the usual "3 to 1, majority rules" statement that signified that he had lost +again, decided to appeal to a higher authority. "Oh, God!" he cried. "I +know in my heart that I am right and they are wrong! Please show me a sign, +so they too will know that I understand Your laws." + It was a beautiful, sunny day. As soon as the rabbi finished his +plaint, a storm cloud moved across the sky above the four. It rumbled once +and dissolved. "A sign from God! See, I'm right, I knew it!" But the other +three disagreed, pointing out that stormclouds form on hot days. + So he asked again: "Oh, God, I need a bigger sign to show that I am +right and they are wrong. So please, God, a bigger sign." + This time four stormclouds appeared, rushed toward each other to form +one big cloud, and a bolt of lightning knocked down a tree ten feet away from +the rabbis. The cloud dispersed at once. "I told you I was right!" insisted +the loner, but the others insisted that nothing had happened that could not +be explained by natural causes. + The insisting rabbi is all ready to ask for a *very big* sign when +just as he says "Oh God..." the sky turns pitch black, the earth shakes, and +a deep, booming voice intones, "HEEEEEEEE'S RIIIIIIIGHT!" + The sky returns to normal. The one rabbi puts his hands on his hips +and snarls, "Well?" "Okay, okayyyy," replied another, "so now it's 3 to 2!" +% +Seems like this farmer purchased an old, run-down, abandoned farm with plans +to turn it into a thriving enterprise. The fields are grown over with weeds, +the farmhouse is falling apart, and the fences are collapsing all around. +During his first day of work, the town preacher stops by to bless the man's +work, praying, "May you and God work together to make this the farm of your +dreams!" + A few months later, the preacher stops by again to call on the farmer. +Lo and behold, it's like a completely different place -- the farm house is +completely rebuilt and in excellent condition, there is plenty of cattle and +other livestock happily munching on feed in well-fenced pens, and the fields +are filled with crops planted in neat rows. "Amazing!" the preacher says. +"Look what God and you have accomplished together!" + "Yes, reverend," replies the farmer, "but remember what the farm was +like when God was working it alone!" +% +She say, Miss Colie, You better hush. God might hear you. Let 'im hear me, +I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a +different place, I can tell you. + -- Alice Walker, "The Color Purple" +% +Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer. + [If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.] + -- Voltaire +% +Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the Vulgate +Bible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automatically +excommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text. +This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personally +examined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the published +Vulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to be +printed and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wry +comments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus had +no recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy. +% +Smile, Cthulhu Loathes You. +% +So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of +intelligence. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +So, if there's no God, who changes the water? + -- New Yorker cartoon of two goldfish in a bowl +% +So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway? And why can't he ever remember +his Bible? +% +So... how come the Corinthians never wrote back? +% +Some people seem to think that "damn" is God's last name. +% +Some things have to be believed to be seen. +% +Such evil deeds could religion prompt. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +Sure banking is Biblical! + +How about when Onan received a substantial penalty for early withdrawal? +Or when Pharaoh's daughter went into the bulrushes and came out with a +little prophet? And it was Moses who led the Children of Israel to the +Banks of the Jordan! +% +Taoism: Shit Happens. +Confucianism: Confucious say, "Shit Happens". +Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit. +Hinduism: This shit has happened before. +Protestantism: Shit happens, but it happens to someone else. +Catholicism: Shit happens, but you deserved it. +Judaism: Why does shit always happen to US? +% +Termiter's argument that God is His own grandmother generated a surprising +amount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one hand considered +the argument unsupported by scripture but on the other hand were unwilling +to risk offending God's grandmother. + -- Len Cool, "American Pie" +% +Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a pagan, +and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city until about +his 35th year, when he became a Christian. [...] To him is ascribed the +sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe because it is absurd). +This does not altogether accord with historical fact, for he merely said: + "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because it + is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain because it + is impossible." +Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of +philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it. + -- C. G. Jung, "Psychological Types" + [Tertullian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church. Ed.] +% +"That's no answer," Job said, "And for someone who's supposed to be +omnipotent, let me tell you 'tabernacle' has only one l." + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could +never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; +the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a +military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and +private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; +and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes +who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. + -- Edward Gibbons, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" +% +The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being +as his Father, in the womb of a virgin will be classified with the fable of +the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the +dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with +this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine +doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% + The devout Jew was beside himself because his son had been dating +a shiksa, so he went to visit his rabbi. The rabbi listened solemnly to +his problem, took his hand, and said, "Pray to God." + So the Jew went to the synagogue, bowed his head, and prayed, "God, +please help me. My son, my favorite son, he's going to marry a shiksa, he +sees nothing but goyim..." + "Your son," boomed down this voice from the heavens, "you think +you got problems. What about my son?" +% +The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in +the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, +and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity. + -- John Adams +% +"The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly +teaches me to suspect that my own is also." + +"I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it +or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his +hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. +But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life -- hence it is a +valuable possession to him." + +"I do not see how eternal punishment hereafter could accomplish any good +end, therefore I am not able to believe in it. To chasten a man in order +to perfect him might be reasonable enough; to annihilate him when he shall +have proved himself incapable of reaching perfection mught be reasonable +enough; but to roast him forever for the mere satisfaction of seeing him +roast would not be reasonable -- even the atrocious God imagined by the Jews +would tire of the spectacle eventually." + -- Mark Twain +% +The ecumenical movement has reached a milestone with the agreement on the +text of the first Jewish-Catholic prayer -- one that begins "Oy vay, Maria". +% +... 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 +% +The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is +the Bible. + -- John Quincy Adams + +All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated through this Book; +but for the Book we could not know right from wrong. All the things desirable +to man are contained in it. + -- Abraham Lincoln + +... the Bible ... is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of +life, the nature of God and spirtual nature and need of men. It is the only +guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation. + -- Woodrow Wilson +% +The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty +prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant +with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell. + -- St. Augustine +% +The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. +That is why they invented hell. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +The Israelites were all waiting anxiously at the foot of the mountain, +knowing that Moses had had a tough day negotiating with God over the +Commandments. Finally a tired Moses came into sight. + "I've got some good news and some bad news, folks," he said. "The +good news is that I got Him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery's +still in." +% +The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. +Indian Giver be the name of the Lord. +% +The Messiah will come. There will be a resurrection of the dead -- all +the things that Jews believed in before they got so damn sophisticated. + -- Rabbi Meir Kahane +% +The Most Unsuccessful Version Of The Bible + The most exciting version of the Bible was printed in 1631 by Robert +Barker and Martin Lucas, the King's printers at London. It contained +several mistakes, but one was inspired -- the word "not" was omitted from +the Seventh Commandment and enjoined its readers, on the highest authority, +to commit adultery. + Fearing the popularity with which this might be received in remote +country districts, King Charles I called all 1,000 copies back in and fined +the printers L3,000. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The nearer to the church, the further from God. + -- John Heywood +% +The new priest was so nervous about performing his first mass that he could +hardly speak. He asked his Monsignor how he could relax. The Monsignor +replied that it might help relax him to add just a bit of vodka to the water +pitcher. The next Sunday, after following the Monsignor's advice, the priest +returned to the rectory to find a note from that worthy. + + (1) Next time sip rather than gulp. + (2) There are ten commandments, not 12. + (3) There are 12 disciples, not 10. + (4) We do not refer to the cross as the "Big T". + (5) The recommended grace before meals is not, + "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, Yaaaay, God!" + (6) Do not refer to our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and his + Apostles as "J.C. and the Boys". + (7) David slew Goliath, he did not kick the shit out of him. + (8) The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost are never referred + to as, "Big Daddy, Junior, and the Spook". + (9) It is always the Virgin Mary, never The Mary with the Cherry. + (10) Last, but not least, next Wednesday there will be a + Taffy-Pulling Contest at St.Peter's, not a Peter-Pulling + Contest at St. Taffy's. +% +The only excuse for God is that he doesn't exist. + -- Stendhal +% +The only thing that stops God from sending a second Flood is that +the first one was useless. + -- Nicolas Chamfort +% +The priest at Sunday mass noticed that Michael took a ten-dollar bill and two +one-dollar bills from the collection plate, instead of putting something in. +He thought to himself, I'd better watch out for Michael. The next week he +noticed the same thing. So he waited outside church when mass was over, and +as Michael came out, he accosted his and said, + "Michael, tell me -- why did you take out a ten-dollar bill and two +singles two weeks in a row, instead of putting money into the collection?" + Michael replied, "Father, I'm embarrassed, but I did it because I +wanted to go downtown for a blow job." + The priest looked surprised but said to Michael, "Listen, don't do +that anymore. I'll be watching you from now on." + When he got back to the rectory, the priest was still perplexed. +Finally he decided to call Mother Agatha at the convent. He said, "Mother, +you've been such a great friend of mine, I have a question I need to ask you. +What is a blow job?" + Mother Agatha replied, "Oh, twelve dollars, same as downtown." +% +The reason Roman Catholics are allowed to use the rhythm method of birth +control is that it doesn't work. +% +The somewhat old and crusty vicar was taking a well-earned retirement from +his rather old and crusty parish. As is usual in these cases, a locum was +sent to cover the transition period. This particular man was young and +active, and had the strange notion that church should also be active and +exciting. As a consequence he was more than a little dissapointed with the +dull and tradition-bound church. He decided to do something about it. + For his first Sunday, he didn't wear the traditional robes and +vestments, but lead the service wearing a nice 2-piece suit. The congregation +was horrified! He changed the order of the service. The congregation was +horrified! Then came the children's lesson. + For this he came out of the pulpit, and sat on the communion table. +The congregation was mortified! He sat there swinging his legs against +the table as the children gathered around him. + He asked the children, "What's small, brown, furry and eats nuts?" + There was total silence. + He asked again, "What's small, brown, furry and eats nuts?" + Total silence. + Eventually, one timid youngster put up his hand and said, "Please, +sir, I know the answer is Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me." +% +The Unitarians are really just a bunch of atheists who really like going to +church. +% +The Utah version of this joke goes: + One of the Council of the Twelve runs breathlessly into the Presidents' +office one day. The President looks up and says "Brother, what is so important +that you ran all the way here, losing your breath?" + The Council member finally regains his breath, and says "The Savior is +in the lobby!!" + The President immediate starts for the door, crying "It has come! The +prophecies are fulfilled! We are all about to be uplifted!" + The Council member says "Wait! You didn't let me finish! She's... +black, and SHE IS PISSED!" +% +The wages of sin are high -- unless you know someone who does it for nothing. +% +The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence +from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum. + -- Havelock Ellis +% +Theology is an attempt to explain a subject by men who do not understand +it. The intent is not to tell the truth but to satisfy the questioner. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the existence +of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any marginally +competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat engine and make +some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is obviously impossible. + -- Richard Davisson +% +"There is a God, but He drinks" + -- Blore +% +There is a limit to the admiration we may hold for a man who spends +his waking hours poking the contents of chickens with a stick. + -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" +% +There is no ox so dumb as the orthodox. + -- George Francis Gillette +% +This story concerns a man who, after putting his son to bed each night, would +stand by his boy's door and listen to his son saying his prayers. One night, +the boy ended his prayers with, "God specially bless Granddad, who won't be +with us much longer." The man thought this was rather curious, but passed it +off as childish whimsy. The next day, however, he received a call from his +mother, informing him that his father had passed away early that morning. +During the next few weeks, he listened particularly closely to his son's +prayers, but noticed nothing unusual. Then, one night, the boy ended his +prayers with, "God specially bless Grandmom, who won't be with us much longer." +Although the shock of the original incident had worn off during the intervening +weeks, he nonetheless phoned his mother to inquire as to her health. He went to +bed reassured, only to be awakened in the night by his sister calling with the +news that their mother had died suddenly in the night. The father had a series +of psychological tests done; nothing unusual was uncovered. About a month +later, the boy ended his prayers with, "God specially bless Daddy, who won't +be with us much longer." The man was panic-stricken, certain that he was +going to die during the night. He resolved to stay awake all night; if awake +and alert he should be able to prevent any tragedy. Morning came. Breathing +a huge sigh of relief, he went to get the paper off the porch. There, lying +dead on the doorstep, was the milkman. +% +To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects +but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own. + -- Lionel Strachey +% +To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. + -- Sri Aurobindo +% +TO THOSE OF YOU WHO DESIRE IT, I GRANT YOU MADRAK'S BLESSING: + + Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care +what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you +may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. + Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else be required +to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the +destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted +or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your +receiving said benefit. + I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between +yourself and that which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving +as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may +in some way be influenced by this ceremony. + Amen. + -- Roger Zelazny, "Creatures of Light and Darkness" +% +"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." + -- Woody Allen +% +Unitarians pray "To whom it may concern". +% +Vatican upholds ban on contraceptives: "To heir is humane," claims the Pope. +% +We ... make the modern error of dignifying the Individual. We do everything +we can to butter him up. We give him a name, assure him that he has certain +inalienable rights, educate him, let him pass on his name to his brats and +when he dies we give him a special hole in the ground ... But after all, he's +only a seed, a bloom and a withering stalk among pressing billions. Your +Individual is a pretty disgusting, vain, lewd little bastard ... By God, +he has only one right guaranteed him in Nature, and that is the right to die +and stink to Heaven. + -- Ross Lockridge, quoted in "Short Lives" by Katinka Matson +% +We may not be able to persuade Hindus that Jesus and not Vishnu should govern +their spiritual horizon, nor Moslems that Lord Buddha is at the center of +their spiritual universe, nor Hebrews that Mohammed is a major prohpet, nor +Christians that Shinto best expresses their spiritual concerns, to say +nothing of the fact that we may not be able to get Christians to agree among +themselves about their relationship to God. But all will agree on a +proposition that they possess profound spiritual resources. If, in addition, +we can get them to accept the further proposition that whatever form the Deity +may have in their own theology, the Deity is not only external, but internal +and acts through them, and they themselves give proof or disproof of the +Deity in what they do and think; if this further proposition can be accepted, +then we come that much closer to a truly religious situation on earth. + -- Norman Cousins, from his book "Human Options" +% +We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to +the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his +children smart. + -- H. L. Mencken, "Minority Report" +% +"Well, we've come full circle, Lord; I'd like to think there's some +higher meaning to all this. It would certainly reflect well on you." +% +Well, you see there was this neighborhood that had a priest, a minister, and +a rabbi who lived near each other. One summer afternoon the priest went out +and bought himself a new car, and the minister and rabbi, not to be outdone, +did the same. + The next day the priest went out and blessed his car. The minister +hired a crane and baptized his car in a swimming pool. The rabbi, after +thinking seriously for a bit, got a hacksaw and cut three inches off the end +of the tail pipe. +% + "What are you doing?" + "Examining the world's major religions. I'm looking for something +that's light on morals, has lots of holidays, and with a short initiation +period." +% +What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow +in his footsteps? +% +What if there had been room at the inn? + -- Linda Festa on the origins of Christianity +% +What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the +will to power, power itself. What is bad? Everything that is born of +weakness. Not contentedness but more power; not peace but war; not virtue +but fitness. The weak and the failures shall perish: first principle of +our love of man. And they shall even be given every possible assistance. +What is more harmful than any vice? Active pity for all the failures and +all the weak: Christianity. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% + "What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought you didn't +believe in God." + "I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears, "but the God I +don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the +mean and stupid God you make Him out to be." + -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" +% +When Cthulhu calls, He calls collect! +% +When somebody protested at [Pope Alexander VI's] wholesale distribution of +pardons for the most heinous crimes -- one of which included the murder of +a daughter by the father -- he retorted easily, "It is not God's will that +a sinner should die, but that he should live -- and pay." + -- E. R. Chamberlin, "The Bad Popes" + +Judas sold Christ for 30 denari, this man [Pope Alexander VI] would sell +him for 29. + -- Ottaviano Ubaldini, chamberlain to Pope Alexander VI +% +Why attack God? He may be as miserable as we are. + -- Erik Satie +% +Why I am an atheist: + +1. Atheists do not believe in higher powers. +2. God is the highest power. +3. Therefore, God must be an atheist. +4. We should all strive to be like God. +5. We should all be atheists. +% +Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is +wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits that +unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant? Is it +not a spectacle to make the angels laugh? We are a company of ignorant +beings, feeling our way through mists and darkness, learning only be +incessantly repeated blunders, obtaining a glimmering of truth by falling +into every conceivable error, dimly discerning light enough for our daily +needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe the ultimate +origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures to declare that +we don't know the map of the universe as well as the map of our infintesimal +parish, he is hooted, reviled, and perhaps told that he will be damned to all +eternity for his faithlessness. + -- Leslie Stephen, "An Agnostic's Apology", + Fortnightly Review, 1876 +% +Yeah, God is dead, he laughed himself to death. +% + "You little (such a one who, while wearing a copper nose ring, +stands in a footbath atop Mount Raruaruaha during a heavy thunderstorm and +shouts that Alohura, Goddess of Lightning, has the facial features of a +diseased uloruaha root)!" + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +Your chances of getting hit by lightning go up if you stand under a tree, +shake your fist at the sky, and say, "Storms suck!" + -- Johnny Carson +% +Cold is God's way of teling us to burn more Catholics. + -- Lady Whiteadder, "Blackadder II" +% +"It don't matter, Sail, ... Could be worse. The fam'ly might be +donatin' the proceeds to the Cath'lic Church, or the Mormons or +somethin'. One cult's the same another." + -- Lula Pace Ripley, "Consuelo's Kiss" +% +"I don't know whether God exists or not, but it makes no difference to me." +"It's not like He's passing out free money or anything." + -- Townsperson in Estard, Dragon Warrior VII +% +"I've recently noticed "as if for the first time" that when people pray +they always look "upward" -- i.e. perpendicular to whatever place they're +standing -- or kneeling or groveling. I deduce that they conceive of their +"god" as topologically isomorphic to a huge donut, about a thousand miles +wider than Earth." + -- Robert Anton Wilson +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/riddles b/fortunes/off/riddles new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a33cf2d --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/riddles @@ -0,0 +1,1111 @@ +Did you know that some people your age have sex thirty-seven times in a week? +And die immediately after? +% +Did you know that Spiro Agnew is an anagram of "Grow a Penis"? +% +Did you know that there are 71.9 acres of nipple tissue in the U.S.? +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #3 + +You have prepared a proposal for your supervisor. The success of this +proposal will mean increasing your salary 20%. In the middle of your +proposal your supervisor leans over to look at your report and spits into +your coffee. You: + + (a) Tell him you take your coffee black. + (b) Ask him if he has any communicable diseases. + (c) Show him who's in command; promptly take a piss in his + "In" basket. + (d) Take a sip and comment how much better it tastes. +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #4 + +You are at a business lunch when you are suddenly overcome with an +uncontrollable desire to pick your nose. Since this is definitely a +no-no, you: + + (a) Pretend to wave to someone across the room and with one + fluid motion, bury your forefinger in your nostril right up + to the 4th joint. + (b) Get everyone drunk and organize a nose picking contest with a + prize to the one who makes his nose bleed first. + + (c) Drop your napkin on the floor and when you bend over to pick + it up, blow your nose on your sock. +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #5 + +You have just returned from a trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin in January and +tell your boss that nobody but ladies of the evening and football players +live there. He mentions that his wife is from Green Bay. You: + + (a) Pretend you are suffering from amnesia and don't + remember your name. + (b) Ask what position she played. + (c) Ask if she is still working the streets. + (d) Pull lacy underwear from your raincoat pocket and ask + if he recognizes the label. +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #6 + +You are having lunch with a prospective vendor talking about what could be +your best deal of the year. During the conversation a blonde walks into +the restaurant and she is so stunning you draw your companion's attention +to her and give a vivid description of what you would do if you had her alone +in your hotel. She walks over to your table and the vendor introduces her as +his daughter. Your next move is to: + + (a) Ask for her hand in marriage. + (b) Pass out and hope for sympathy. + (c) Forget the business; repeat the conversation to the + daughter and get her number. + (d) Turn red and slink off into the men's room. +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #9 + +You are making a sales presentation to a group of corporate executives +in the plushest office you've ever seen. The enchillada casserole and +egg salad sandwich you had for lunch react, creating severe pressure. +Your sphincter loses control and you break wind, causing the glass +bookcase doors to shatter and a secretary to pass out. You: + + (a) Offer to come back next week when the smell has gone away. + (b) Point to the Chief Executive and accuse him of the offense. + (c) Challenge anyone in the room to do better. +% +He: "Hey, Baby, I'd sure like to get in your pants!" +She: "No, thanks, I've already got one asshole in there now." +% +He: Am I... am I your first? +She: Well, honey, I could have sworn your face looked familiar... +% +He: So, what do you say to little fuck? +She: I say, "get lost, little fuck." +% +Hear about... + one penile desensitizer that's so effective that you + have to stroke the tube for five minutes to get the cap off? +% +Hear about... + the 97-year-old prostitute who got herself listed in the Yellow + Pages and now claims to be the oldest trick in the book? +% +Hear about... + the absent minded nurse who made the patient without disturbing + the bed? +% +Hear about... + the absent minded sculptor who put his model to bed and + started chiseling on his wife? +% +Hear about... + the absent-minded exhibitionist who was arrested for exposing + his whatchamacalit? +% +Hear about... + the ambitious secretary who walked into her boss's office and + demanded a salary on next week's advance? +% +Hear about... + the Ayatollah Khomeini Doll? + Wind it up and it takes Ken and Barbie hostage. +% +Hear about... + the basketball player who was so tall that his girlfriend had to + go up on him? +% +Hear about... + the butcher who dropped his cleaver and went home half-cocked? +% +Hear about... + the careless canary that did it for a lark? +% +Hear about... + the careless contortionist who accidentally swallowed his pride? +% +Hear about... + the cinema buff that's very excited by current trends in films? + The hero still gets the girl in the end, but he's never sure + which end it will be. +% +Hear about... + the compulsive gambler who drove to Las Vegas, pulled up to + a parking meter, put a dime in -- and lost his car? +% +Hear about... + the couple on the stalled elevator who got off between floors? +% +Hear about... + the cross-eyed shoe fetishist who was always getting off on the + wrong foot? +% +Hear about... + the doctor that prescribed sex for insommia? His patients didn't + get any more sleep, but they had more fun staying awake. +% +Hear about... + the drunken midget who walked into a home for girls and kissed + everybody in the joint? +% +Hear about... + the elderly gentleman who was stung on the privates by a bee and + asked the doctor to relieve the pain but leave the swelling? +% +Hear about... + the Eskimo girl who spent the night with her boyfriend and + next morning found she was six months pregnant? +% +Hear about... + the farmer who couldn't keep his hands off his wife so he fired them? +% +Hear about... + The fellow who chased his girlfriend up a tree and kissed + her between the limbs? +% +Hear about... + the fellow who got ten years for pumping Ethyl behind the station? +% +Hear about... + the fellow who maintains a special register of particularly + accommodating girls? He refers to it as his little blew book. +% +Hear about... + the fellow who was descended from a long line his mother heard? +% +Hear about... + the fellow who, upon being told by his shrewish wife that she + would dance on his grave, promptly provided for a burial at sea? +% +Hear about... + the female activist who went berserk during a demonstration and + attacked a karate-trained cop with a deadly weapon. She ended + up a chopped libber? +% +Hear about... + the fine, upstanding young woman who's wonderful laying down? +% +Hear about... + the freaky WAC who was court-martialed for contributing to the + delinquency of a major? +% +Hear about... + the French soldier who kissed his wife's cheeks before he went + to the front? +% +Hear about... + the freshman coed who decided not to sign up for a course in sex + education when she heard the final exam would be oral? +% +Hear about... + the frustrated musician who worked all week on an arrangement and + then his wife didn't leave town? +% +Hear about... + the fun-loving young lady who insists she won't even consider + marriage until she's gotten some experience under her belt? +% +Hear about... + the gay tattoo artist who had designs on several of the local + sailors? +% +Hear about... + the girl that wanted to impress her new boyfriend, + so she put on her low-cut dress to show him a thing or two? +% +Hear about... + the girl who called her boyfriend Amaretto, 'cause he was + such a sweet liquor? +% +Hear about... + the girl who was so undesirable that she even turned her vibrator off? +% +Hear about... + the girl with the big wardrobe who started with just a little slip? +% +Hear about... + the guru who refused Novacain while having a tooth pulled because + he wanted to transcend dental medication? +% +Hear about... + the guy who couldn't find his way to the orgy -- you might say he + lost his ball bearings? +% +Hear about... + the guy who had his vasectomy done by Sears? + Every time he gets a hard-on, the garage door goes up. +% +Hear about... + the guy who took a course in exotic lovemaking and announced that + he'd never be able to face his girl again? +% +Hear about... + the guy who was an incurable romantic until penicillin came along? +% +Hear about... + the guy who was so well endowed that he had a fiveskin? +% +Hear about... + the guy who wore a tux to his vasectomy, because he figured that + if he was going to be impotent he might as well look impotent. +% +Hear about... + the handsome bachelor Senator who hired a ravishing blonde as his + assistant and then made her the object of a long Congressional probe? +% +Hear about... + the high school drum major who dated two of the majorettes and + so enjoyed the breasts of both whirlers? +% +Hear about... + the hurricane that recently struck Fire Island -- Hurricane Bruce? +% +Hear about... + the inexperienced stenographer who discovered that she could lose + a lot more than letters behind the files? +% +Hear about... + the insurance salesman who says his greatest successes are + with young housewives who aren't adequately covered? +% +Hear about... + the little boy that found a fifty cent piece, so he went home + for some money? +% +Hear about... + the loner who gave up his solitary vice for Lent? Except on + Palm Sunday, of course. +% +Hear about... + the man who never worried about his marriage until he moved from New + York to California and discovered that he still had the same milkman? +% +Hear about... + the mother of 12 who was called upon to use her diaphragm so often + that she kept it tacked to the headboard of her bed? +% +Hear about... + the new breakfast cereal called "Swingers". They don't go snap, + crackle, or pop; they just lie there and go bang, bang, bang? +% +Hear about... + the new breakfast cereal called Queerios? You simply add milk + and they eat each other. +% +Hear about... + the new German microwave oven? + Seats 500. +% +Hear about... + the new instrument of credit especially designed for use in + Los Angeles single bars? It's called Bang Americard. +% +Hear about... + the new rule at the girls' school? + Lights out by ten, candles by eleven. +% +Hear about... + the new sorority girl doll? + You put a ring on her finger and her hips expand. +% +Hear about... + the new vitamin made from chicken blood? + It makes men cocky and women lay better. +% +Hear about... + the nurse they thought had drowned until they found her under the doc? +% +Hear about... + the nymphomaniac teenager popularly known as Little Often Annie? +% +Hear about... + the over-eager bride who came, walking down the aisle? +% +Hear about... + the perverted australian who left his wife and returned to Sydney? +% +Hear about... + the pessimistic historian whose latest book has chapter headings + that read "World War One","World War Two" and "Watch This Space"? +% +Hear about... + the plastic surgeon who hung himself? +% +Hear about... + the poor Greek fisherman who got his upper torso wedged into + a porthole and couldn't get out to save his ass? +% +Hear about... + the real smart girl who could play post-office all night + without getting any mail in her box? +% +Hear about... + the recent cigarette survey that disclosed that 99% of the + men who have tried Camels have gone back to women? +% +Hear about... + the San Franciscan who backed off the bus because he thought + someone would grab his seat? +% +Hear about... + the secretary that got fired because she had one too mini? +% +Hear about... + the sultan who had ten wives, nine of them had it soft. +% +Hear about... + the swinger who labelled his little black book "Future Shack"? +% +Hear about... + the tight end who got two years for possession and came out a + wide receiver? +% +Hear about... + the truck driver who pulled out to avoid a child and fell + off the sofa? +% +Hear about... + the ultimate in singles bars. It's a place where girls have + to show their I.U.D.'s to be admitted? +% +Hear about... + the wild office Christmas party in a completely automated + company -- the photocopier got drunk and tried to undo the + typewriter's ribbon? +% +Hear about... + the woman who says two martinis usually make her feel like a new man? +% +Hear about... + the young lady attacked in San Francisco? + By two men, one held her down while the other one did her hair. +% +Hear about... + the young thing who is fondly known to the men in the office as + Secretariat -- not just because she's a good secretary but because + she's a wonderful mount? +% +Hear that... + bookstores will soon be stocking a volume called "The Unsensuous + Census Taker"? It's about a guy who comes once every ten years. +% +Hear that... + the Masters and Johnson clinic may well be the only organization + in the world from which a man resigns when he becomes a member + in good standing? +% +Hear that... + the only thing worse than coming home with lipstick on your + collar is being caught with leg make-up on your ears? +% +Hear that... + the Pope's next pronouncement on birth control is to be titled + "Paul's Epistle to the Fallopians"? +% +Hear that... + there's an establishment near the White House that caters to kinky + tastes? There's a House whip in attendance, of course? +% +Hear that... + they cancelled Easter this year? + Found the body. +% +Hear that... + those new edible candy pants are about to be distributed in a male + version -- with nuts of course? +% +If being bi increases your chance of getting a date, does being poly +increase your chance of getting dumped? +% +If girls are all sugar and spice, why do they taste like anchovies? +% +If God hadn't intended man to eat pussy, would He have made it look like +a taco? +% +If guns are outlawed, how will we shoot the liberals? +% +If Helen Keller is alone in a forest and falls, does she make a sound? +% +If women ran the military complex, would the missiles be shaped differently? +% +If you were attacked by a homosexual, would you beat him off? +% +If you're really into astrology, tell me, what happens when Mercury is in +the Fish, and Jupiter enters the Virgin? +% +Q. How do you keep an Aggie busy at a terminal? +A. While he's not looking, switch it to "local". +% +Q. What do you call a TV set that fixes itself? +A. A Christian Science Monitor. +% +Q. What's the capital of Canada? +A. American. +% +Q. What's the difference between Los Angeles and yogurt? +A. Yogurt has a living, active culture. +% +Q: "How many Romulans does it take to screw in a light bulb?" +A: "Twelve; one to screw the light-bulb in, and eleven to self-destruct + the ship out of disgrace." + + [Warning: do not tell this joke to Romulans or else be ready for + a fight. They consider this it to be a disgrace, though it's + pretty good for a LBJ. Ed.] +% +Q: "What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic + existentialist?" +A: "Is there a dog?" +% +Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his + very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God? +A: Yes, up to isomorphism! +% +Q: Do you know how to tell a Polack at a cockfight? +A: He's the only one with a duck. + +Q: Do you know how to tell an Aggie at a cockfight? +A: He's the only one who bets on the duck. + +Q: And do you know how to tell the Mafia is at the cockfight? +A: The duck wins! +% +Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is? +A: One per person. +% +Q: Have you ever been picked up by the fuzz? +A: No, but I bet it hurts like hell. +% +Q: Have you heard about the man who didn't pay for his exorcism? +A: He got re-possessed! +% +Q: Heard about the who couldn't spell? +A: He spent the night in a warehouse. +% +Q: How can a real man tell when his girl friend's having an orgasm? +A: Real men don't care. +% +Q: How can we get the Beatles to reunite for one more concert? +A: With three more bullets. +% +Q: How can you tell if a woman is ticklish? +A: Give her a couple of test tickles. +% +Q: How can you tell if an elephant is having an affair with your wife? +A: You have to wait 22 months. +% +Q: How can you tell if an elephant is sitting on your back in a hurricane? +A: You can hear his ears flapping in the wind. +% +Q: How can you tell the bride at a WASP wedding? +A: She's the one kissing the golden retriever. +% +Q: How can you tell when a Polish girl's been sucking cock? +A: She has a mouthful of feathers. +% +Q: How can you tell when a WASP is sexually aroused? +A: By the stiff upper lip. +% +Q: How can you tell when your girlfriend has had an orgasm? +A: Who cares? +% +Q: How did Hellen Keller burn the side of her face? +A: She answered the iron. + +Q: How did she burn the other side of her face? +A: They called back. +% +Q: How did the elephant get to the top of the oak tree? +A: He sat on a acorn and waited for spring. + +Q: But how did he get back down? +A: He crawled out on a leaf and waited for autumn. +% +Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence? +A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence. +% +Q: How do you catch a unique rabbit? +A: Unique up on it! + +Q: How do you catch a tame rabbit? +A: The tame way! +% +Q: How do you fit 1000 dead babies into a phone booth? +A: Cusinart. + +Q: How do you get them back out? +A: Doritos. +% +Q: How do you get a woman to stop having sex with you? +A: Propose. +% +Q: How do you hide an elephant in a cherry tree? +A: Paint his balls red and his toenails green. + +Q: Ever see an elephant in a cherry tree? +A: No -- so it must work pretty well! + +Q: How did Tarzan die? +A: Picking cherries!!! +% +Q: How do you keep a moron in suspense? +% +Q: How do you know when it's time to wash the dishes? +A: Look inside your pants; if you have a penis, it's not time. +% +Q: How do you know when you're in the section of Vermont? +A: The maple sap buckets are hanging on utility poles. +% +Q: How do you know your elephant had her period? +A: There's a nickel on your dresser and your mattress is missing. +% +Q: How do you make a dead baby float? +A: With 2 scoops of dead baby and some rootbeer. +% +Q: How do you make an elephant float? +A: You get two scoops of elephant and some rootbeer... +% +Q: How do you pick up a quarter off of Polk Street? +A: Kick it over to Van Ness. +% +Q: How do you play religious roulette? +A: You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets + struck by lightning first. +% +Q: How do you tell if an Elephant has been making love in your backyard? +A: If all your trashcan liners are missing ... +% +Q: How do you tell if you're making love to a nurse, a schoolteacher, + or an airline stewardess? +A: A nurse says: "This won't hurt a bit." + A schoolteacher says: "We're just going to have to do this over + and over again until we get it right." + An airline stewardess says: "Just place this over your mouth and + nose and breathe normally." + +... and bank tellers say "Substantial penalty for early withdrawal." +... and saleswomen say "Thank you, come again soon!" +... and WASP's say "Do you have that in a bigger size?" +... and piano teachers say "Keep those fingers arched! TEMPO! TEMPO!" +% +Q: How do you tell that your roommate's gay? +A: When his cock tastes like shit. +% +Q: How does a girl know she's sleeping with a Computer Scientist? +A: It isn't hard. +% +Q: How does a mink get babies? +A: The same way babes get minks. +% +Q: How does a single woman in New York get rid of cockroaches? +A: She asks them for a commitment. +% +Q: How does a WASP propose marriage? +A: "How would you like to be buried with my people?" +% +Q: How does the Polish Constitution differ from the American? +A: Under the Polish Constitution citizens are guaranteed freedom of + speech, but under the United States constitution they are + guaranteed freedom after speech. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Q: How many Aggies does it take to eat an armadillo? +A: Three, one to eat it, and two to watch for traffic. +% +Q: How many Californians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: Five. One to screw in the lightbulb and four to share the + experience. (Actually, Californians don't screw in + lightbulbs, they screw in hot tubs.) + +Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all + those Californians trying to share the experience. +% +Q: How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Three, but they're really only one. +% +Q: How many Democrats does it take to enjoy a good joke? +A: One more than you can find. +% +Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: NONE! AND THAT'S NOT FUNNY!! + +Q: How many Radcliffe girls does it take to change a light bulb? +A: It's "Women"... AND IT'S NOT FUNNY!! +% +Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light + bulb, in San Fransisco? +A: Both of them. +% +Q: How many lesbians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: Ten. One to do it, and nine to talk about how gratifying it was + without a man. +% +Q: How many people from New Jersey does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Three. One to do it, one to watch, and the third to shoot the witness. +% +Q: How many pre-meds does it take to change a lightbulb? +A: Five: One to change the bulb and four to pull the ladder + out from under him. +% +Q: How many right-to-lifers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Two. One to screw it in and one to say that light started when the + screwing began. +% +Q: How much money do you give to a 900 foot Jesus? +A: As much as he wants. +% +Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried? +A: 9 edge down. +% +Q: If Tarzan was Jewish, and Jane was a princess, what would Cheetah be? +A: A fur coat. +% +Q: What can you use used tampons for? +A: Tea bags for vampires. +% +Q: What did Jesus tell the Aggies? +A: Play dumb until the second coming. +% +Q: What did Snow white say when told she was pregnant? +A: "I'd like to thank all the little people who made this possible..." + +Presumably this all started that evening when she was feeling Happy... +% +Q: What did the little ghetto-dweller get for Christmas? +A: Your bicycle. +% +Q: What do a blonde and your computer have in common? +A: You don't know how much either of them mean to you until + they go down on you. + +Q: What's the advantage to being married to a blonde? +A: You can park in the handicapped zone. + +Q: Why did the blonde get so excited after she finished her jigsaw + puzzle in only 6 months? +A: Because on the box it said "From 2-4 years". +% +Q: What do a walrus and a tupperware container have in common? +A: They both like a tight seal. +% +Q: What do elephants use instead of tampons? +A: Sheep. Well, they used to, anyway. There have been so many cases + of Toxic Flock Syndrome recently that their ewes has been discouraged. + +Q: Why do elephants have trunks? +A: Sheep don't have strings. +% +Q: What do two WASPs say after making love? +A: Thank you very much. It'll never happen again. +% +Q: What do WASPs do instead of making love? +A: Rule the country. +% +Q: What do you call a brunette between two blondes? +A: An interpreter. + +Q: Why do blondes have square breasts? +A: They forgot to take the tissues out of the box. + +Q: What do you call ten blondes in a row? +A: A wind tunnel. +% +Q: What do you call a dog with no legs? +A: What does it matter? He can't come anyway. + + [I've got a dog with no legs -- I call him Cigarette. + Every night, I take him out for a drag. Ed.] +% +Q: What do you call a group of kids with low IQ's, drinking diet cola, + eating fruit, and singing? +A: The Moron Tab and Apple Choir. +% +Q: What do you call a million cats at the bottom of Lake Michigan? +A: A good start. +% +Q: What do you call a monk who has had a sex change operation? +A: A transsister. +% +Q: What do you call a truck load of vibrators? +A: Toys for twats. +% +Q: What do you call a woman who can suck a golf ball through 50 feet + of garden hose? +A1: Darling. +A2: Often! +% +Q: What do you call couples that use that rhythm method? +A: Parents. +% +Q: What do you call someone with herpes, AIDS, syphilis, and gonorrhea? +A: An incurable romantic. +% +Q: What do you do if an Irishman throws a pin at you? +A: Run like hell, he's got a grenade in his mouth!! +% +Q: What do you do with an elephant with three balls? +A: Walk him and pitch to the rhino. +% +Q: What do you get when cross a lawyer with a sorority girl?? +A: A woman that, when she goes down on you, gets blood. +% +Q: What do you get when you cross a computer and a JAP (Jewish + American Princess)? +A: A computer that won't go down. +% +Q: What's the difference between a JAP (Jewish American Princess) + and a baby elephant? +A: About 10 pounds. + +Q: How do you make them the same? +A: Force feed the elephant. +% +Q: What do you get when you cross a pit bull with a prostitute? +A: Your last blowjob. +% +Q: What do you get when you cross a rooster with a telephone pole? +A: A thirty foot cock that wants to reach out and touch someone! +% +Q: What do you get when you cross an onion with a donkey? +A: Well, most of the time you get an onion with big ears, but every + once in a while you get a piece of ass that will bring tears to + your eyes... +% +Q: What do you get when you cross James Dean with Ronald Reagan? +A: A rebel without a clue. +% +Q: What do you get when you stuff a flaming stick down a rabbit-hole? +A: Hot cross bunnies! +% +Q: What do you have if you have a moth ball in one hand and a + moth ball in the other hand? +A: One hell of a big moth! +% +Q: What does a blonde do first thing in the morning? +A: She goes home. + +Q: Why does blonde have fur on the hem of her dress? +A: To keep her neck warm. + +Q: How do you make a blonde laugh on Monday? +A: Tell her a joke on Friday. +% +Q: What goes + Click. "Did I get it?" + Click. "Did I get it?" + Click. "Did I get it?" + Click. "Did I get it?" +A: Stevie Wonder doing the Rubik's Cube. +% +Q: What goes green, red, green, red, pink, pink, pink? +A: A frog in a blender. + +Q: What do you get if you add 2 eggs to it?? +A: Frognogg. If you drink it, you croak. +% +Q: What goes red, white, red, white, pink, pink, pink? +A: Baby in a blender. + +Q: Why do you put a baby in a blender feet first? +A: So you can watch the expression on its little face. +% +Q: What goes: Sis! Boom! Baaaaah! +A: Exploding sheep. +% +Q: What is green and comes in Brownies? +A: Boy Scouts. +% +Q: What is Smoorplay? +A: What Smurfs do before they smuck! +% +Q: What is the difference between snow-men and snow-women? +A: Snowballs! +% +Q: What is the last thing a Kansas stripper takes off? +A: Her bowling shoes. +% +Q: What is the mating call of a blonde? +A: I think I'm drunk. + +Q: What's the call of a disappointed blonde? +A: I *said*, I *think* I'm drunk! + +Q: What is the mating call of the ugly blonde? +A: (Screaming) "I said: I'm drunk!" +% +Q: What is the sound of one cat napping? +A: Mu. +% +Q: What is the worst story Helen Keller ever read? +A: A cheese grater. +% +Q: What's a JAP's (Jewish American Princess) dream house? +A: Fourteen rooms in Scarsdale, no kitchen, no bedroom. +% +Q: What's black and white and red all over and can't go through + revolving doors? +A: A nun with a javelin through her head. +% +Q: What's black and white and red all over? +A: Half a nun. +% +Q: What's black and white and red all over? +A: Two nuns in a chainsaw fight. +% +Q: What's bruised, bleeding, and lies in a ditch? +A: Somebody who tells Aggie jokes. +% +Q: What's invisible and smells like carrots? +A: Bunny farts. +% +Q: What's Jewish foreplay? +A: Two hours of begging. +% +Q: What's meaner than a pit bull with AIDS? +A: The guy that gave it to him. +% +Q: What's more fearsome than a grizzly bear with AIDS? +A: The guy he got it from. +% +Q: What's red and covered with little dents? +A: Snow White's cherry. +% +Q: What's the Blonde's cheer? +A: I'm blonde, I'm blonde, I'm B - L - O - uhh ... ah ... oh well.. + I'm blonde, I'm blonde, yea yea yea... + +Q: What do you call it when a blonde dies their hair brunette? +A: Artificial intelligence. + +Q: How do you make a blonde's eyes light up? +A: Shine a flashlight in her ear. +% +Q: What's the difference between "Oooh" and "Aaah"? +A: About three inches. +% +Q: What's the difference between a cocker spaniel and a doberman + pinscher humping your leg? +A: You let the doberman finish. +% +Q: What's the difference between a dog and a fox? +A: About four drinks. +% +Q: What's the difference between a Fairy Tale, and a War Story? +A: Nothing, except Fairy Tales start off with "Once upon a time". + War Stories start off with "No shit, this really happened". + + [I thought Fairy Tales started off, "Honey, I'm gonna be at the + office a little late, tonight... Ed.] +% +Q: What's the difference between a hold-up and a stick-up? +A: Age. +% +Q: What's the difference between a man and a toilet? +A: A toilet doesn't follow you around for a week after you flush it. +% +Q: What's the difference between a man and the weekend? +A: The weekend never comes too soon. +% +Q: What's the difference between a RHU cheerleader and a whale? +A: The moustache. +% +Q: What's the difference between a sorority girl and a fast car? +A: Not everyone's been in a fast car. +% +Q: What's the difference between an oral and a rectal thermometer? +A: The taste. +% +Q: What's the difference between Bell Labs and the Boy Scouts of America? +A: The Boy Scouts have adult supervision. +% +Q: What's the difference between erotic and kinky? +A: Erotic is when you use a feather. Kinky is when you use the + whole bird... +% +Q: What's the difference between George Washington, Richard Nixon + and Ronald Reagan? +A: One always told the truth, one always lied, and one can't tell the + difference. +% +Q: What's the difference between hard and dark? +A: It stays dark all night. +% +Q: What's the last thing that goes through a grasshopper's mind when + he hits your windshield? +A: His ass. + +Q. What's the second-to-last thing to go through a grasshopper's + mind when he hits your windshield? +A. Oh, SHIT!! +% +Q: What's the worst thing about being an atheist? +A: No one to talk to when you're having an orgasm. +% +Q: What's white and crawls up your leg? +A: Uncle Ben's Perverted Rice. +% +Q: What's worse than getting raped by Jack the Ripper? +A: Getting fingered by Captain Hook! +% +Q: Where can you buy black lace crotchless panties for sheep? +A: Fredrick's of Ithaca, New York. +% +Q: Where does Catwoman go for a good time? +A: To the batpoles, Robin! +% +Q: Where does virgin wool come from? +A: Ugly sheep. +% +Q: Why are babies born with soft spots on their heads? +A: So you can pick 'em up five at a time. +% +Q: Why are Unix emulators like your right hand? +A: They're just pussy substitutes! +% +Q: Why can't Hellen Keller have children? +A: Because she's dead. +% +Q: Why did Captain Kirk piss on the bridge? +A: He wanted to boldly go where no man had gone before! +% +Q: Why did God invent booze? +A: So ugly men could get laid too. +% +Q: Why did Hellen Keller go all the way on her first date? +A: She'd never been taught to say no. +% +Q: Why did Ted Kennedy report the accident 8 hours after Mary + Jo Kopechne drowned? +A: Do you have any idea how hard it is to dress a woman underwater? +% +Q: Why did the blonde climb over the glass wall? +A: To see what was on the other side. + +Q: Why do blondes like tilt steering wheels? +A: More head room. + +Q: How does a blonde turn on the light after having sex? +A: She opens the car door. +% +Q: Why did the epileptic cross the road? +A: He couldn't help it. + +Q: What do you do if an epileptic has a seizure in the bathtub? +A: Throw in the dirty clothes and some laundry detergent. +% +Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope? +A: To get to the other slide. +% +Q: Why did the mathematician name his dog "Cauchy"? +A: Because he left a residue at every pole. +% +Q: Why do dogs lick their balls? +A: 'Cause they can! + +(Real answer: 'Cause they can't curl their little paws into fists...) +% +Q: Why do elephants wear springs on their feet? +A: So they can jump into trees and rape mice. + +Q: What is the most fearsome sound in the world to a mouse? +A: BOING!! BOING!! BOING!! +% +Q: Why do men die before their wives? +A: They want to. +% +Q: Why do men marry women? +A: You can't teach sheep to do housework. +% +Q: Why do mice have such small balls? +A: Very few of them know how to dance! +% +Q: Why do Scotsmen wear kilts? +A: Because a sheep can hear the sound of a zipper from fifty feet away. + -- Iain MacKintosh, Glasgow folksinger +% +Q: Why do women have vaginas? +A: So when they're drunk, you can carry them like a six-pack. +% +Q: Why do women love Pacman? +A: Only place you can get eaten three times for a quarter. +% +Q: Why does an elephant have 4 feet? +A: Because 8 inches isn't enough. +% +Q: Why does Helen Keller masturbate with one hand? +A: So she can moan with the other! +% +Q: Why don't blind people skydive? +A: It scares the dogs! + +Q: How can a blind skydiver tell when he is near the ground? +A: The leash goes slack. +% +Q: Why don't blondes eat pickles? +A: Because they get their head stuck in the jars. + +Q: Why do blondes wear underwear? +A: To keep their ankles warm. + +Q: How do you kill a blonde? +A: Put spikes in her shoulder pads. +% +Q: Why is Mrs. Carter always on top when she and Jimmy make love? +A: Because all Jimmy Carter can do is fuck up. +% +Q: Why is Sister Pat the way she is? +A: Because when she was 16, a group of boys tied her up and + gang-rejected her. +% +Q: Why should blondes not be given coffee breaks? +A: It takes too long to retrain them. + +Q: What's the mating call of the brunette? +A: All the blondes have gone home! + +Q: How do you tell if a blonde's been using the computer? +A: There's white-out on the screen. +% +Q: Why was Cinderella banished from the Magic Kingdom? +A: For sitting on Pinocchio's face and screaming, "Tell the truth! + Tell a lie! Tell the truth! Tell a lie!" +% +Q: What's the difference between VMS and PMS? + +A1: PMS is only a problem for some people. +A2: PMS is only a problem for part of the month. +A3: The drugstore has remedies for PMS. +A4: People with PMS get sympathy. +A5: People with PMS don't wish they were UNIX. +% +Q: What do you say to a Puerto Rican in a three-piece suit? +A: Will the defendant please rise? +% +What do hookers do on their nights off, type? + -- Elayn Boosler +% +What's on the floor of the old hen-house? +Doo-doo, doo-doo. + -- Foghorn Leghorn, to "Camptown Ladies" +% +Why does Dr. Pepper come in a bottle? + +Because his wife left him. But things are looking up for their reconciliation. +Seems that when she left, she took his word processor, and she's been renting +it out occasionally in Japan. That is, every now and then she gets a yen for +his Wang. +% +Why is it that there are so many more horses' asses than there are horses? + -- G. Gordon Liddy +% +Q: Heard about the who couldn't spell? +A: He spent the night in a warehouse. +% +Q: How do you know when you're in the section of Vermont? +A: The maple sap buckets are hanging on utility poles. +% +Q: What does friendship among Soviet nationalities mean? +A: It means that the Armenians take the Russians by the hand; the + Russians take the Ukrainians by the hand; the Ukranians take + the Uzbeks by the hand; and they all go and beat up the Jews. +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/sex b/fortunes/off/sex new file mode 100644 index 0000000..99c7847 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/sex @@ -0,0 +1,4600 @@ + (1) I'm Not Rudolph; That's Not My Nose + (2) The Nutcracker Swede + (3) Santa Goes Round-The-World + (4) Not-So-Tiny Tim + (5) Ninja Reindeer Killfest '88 + (6) Yes, Yes, Oh God Yes, Virginia + (7) Crisco Kringle + (8) Babes in Boyland + (9) Santa's Magic Lap +(10) Hot Buttered Elves + -- David Letterman's "Top Ten Christmas Movies in Times Square" +% +10 greatest lies of all time: + + (1) I love you. + (2) This won't hurt a bit. + (3) The Mercedes is paid for. + (4) The check is in the mail. + (5) I was just going to call you. + (6) I've always worn cowboy boots. + (7) I swear I won't come in your mouth. + (8) Of course I'll respect you in the morning. + (9) We have a really challenging assignment for you. + (10) I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Man: + + (1) A beer NEVER leaves the toilet seat up. + (2) A beer lasts longer than seven seconds. + (3) A beer doesn't want to watch pro wrestling. + (4) A beer won't expect you to cook dinner when you're not hungry. + (5) A beer will never leave dirty socks on the floor. + (6) A beer doesn't mind when your mother visits. + (7) A beer does as many chores as a man, with a LOT less complaining. + (8) A beer won't leave you for a younger woman. + (9) A beer won't leave you for a younger man either. + (10) A beer won't tease you because you once liked Barry Manilow. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Man: + + (1) A beer will never invite friends home for dinner without calling. + (2) A beer won't think less of you if you can't name the Steelers' + quarterback. + (3) A beer won't even act amazed if you can. + (4) You don't have to let a beer win. + (5) Just because you have dinner with a beer doesn't mean you have to + sleep with it, too. + (6) A beer helps with the housework. + (7) A beer will never fumble with your bra. + (8) A beer will never take the newspaper apart before you've read it. + (9) A beer doesn't want you to raise its children. + (10) A beer wouldn't mind if you wanted it to wear a condom. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Man: + + (1) Having a beer can't make you pregnant. + (2) A beer doesn't wouldn't trade you in on a sports car. + (3) If a beer did have a sports car, it wouldn't love it more than you. + (4) A beer doesn't want to go out alone with the other beers. + (5) A beer wouldn't waste its money on Playbeer magazine. + (6) You don't have to worry about getting AIDS from a bisexual beer. + (7) A beer won't switch the TV channel. + (8) A beer doesn't snore. + (9) A beer doesn't care that you can't find your car's carbueretor. + (10) A beer doesn't think black leather bikinis are neat. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: + + (1) A beer won't make you go to church. + (2) A beer is more likely to know how to spell "carburetor" than a + woman. + (3) A beer doesn't think baseball is stupid simply because the guys + spit. + (4) A beer doesn't give a [expletive deleted] if you keep a bunch of + other beers on the side. + (5) A beer will not call you a sexist pig if you say "doberman" + instead of "doberperson". + (6) A beer won't get a job as a DJ and play 5 straight hours of + lesbian folk music on yer fave radio station. + (7) A beer understands why The Three Stooges are funny. + (8) A beer won't raise a fuss about a little thing like leaving the + toilet seat up. + (9) A beer doesn't think that a "three-hundred-fifty cubic-inch V8" + is an enormous can of vegetable juice. + (10) A beer won't smoke in your car. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: + + (1) Beer understands the difference between shooting down an + unidentified aircraft in a war zone and blowing a Korean airliner + out of the sky. + (2) A beer would never own a car with an automatic transmission. + (3) A beer never fishes for compliments. + (4) Beer tastes good. + (5) A beer can enjoy an evening of watching "Johnny-the-Wadd-Holmes' + Greatest Hits" as much as you do. + (6) An ice-cold beer will nonetheless let you have your way with it. + (7) A beer won't ask you to pick up some tampons when you go to the store. + (8) Beer never asks you to change the station. + (9) A beer won't fill up your 'Vette with 85-octane gas because it's + twenty cents less expensive. + (10) A beer won't make you eat experimental vegetarian meals that taste + like grass. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: + + (1) You can enjoy a beer all month. + (2) Beer stains wash out. + (3) Beer doesn't go crazy once a month. + (4) Beer never makes you wait. + (5) A beer doesn't get jealous when you grab another beer. + (6) Beer doesn't have a lawyer "in the family". + (7) A beer won't get upset if you come home with beer on your breath. + (8) Beer doesn't demand equality. + (9) Beer labels come off without a fight. + (10) Beer doesn't mind being in the "wet spot" that IT left. +% +11 reasons a cucumber is better than a man: + + (1) Cucumbers can stay up all night, + and you won't have to sleep in the wet spot. + (2) Cucumbers don't play the guitar and try to find themselves. + (3) You won't find out later that your cucumber + ...is married + ...is on penicillin + ...likes you -- but loves your brother! + (4) A cucumber won't care what time of the month it is. + (5) A cucumber never wants to get it on when your nails are wet. + (6) Cucumbers don't say "Let's keep trying until we have a boy". + (7) Cucumbers won't tell you size doesn't count. + (8) A cucumber won't leave you for a cheerleader or an ex-nun. + (9) Cucumbers don't fall asleep on your chest or drool on the pillow. + (10) Cucumbers don't care if you make more money than they do. + (11) With a cucumber, the toilet seat is always the way you left it. +% +15 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Man: + + (1) A beer doesn't care that you don't balance your checkbook. + (2) Tall, dark, good-looking beers are common. + (3) A beer won't steal all the covers. + (4) A beer doesn't have friends who will drink all your beer. + (5) A beer wouldn't yell if you dented the car. + (6) A beer doesn't buy everything labelled "turbo". + (7) You don't have to laugh at a beer's jokes. + (8) A beer is not kinky unless you want it to be kinky. + (9) A beer always lets you read the Sunday comics first. + (10) A beer doesn't think poetry is queer. + (11) If the beer is finished before you are, you can have another beer. + (12) A beer won't talk about the women who had it before you. + (13) A beer's life does not revolve around the world series. + (14) A beer won't mind at all if you're not in the mood for beer. + (15) A beer will NEVER call you "Babe". Or "Sugar". +% +20 Reasons Why a Beer is Bettern than a Man: + + (1) A beer never leaves the toilet seat up. + (2) A beer doesn't want to watch pro wrestling. + (3) A beer does as many chores as a man, with a LOT less complaining. + (4) You don't have to worry about getting AIDS from a bisexual beer. + (5) A beer won't tease you because you once liked Barry Manilow. + (6) A beer doesn't want to go out alone with the other beers. + (7) A beer doesn't care that you can't find your car's carburator. + (8) A beer doesn't think black leather bikinis are neat. + (9) A beer won't steal the covers. + (10) A beer doesn't buy everything labelled "turbo". + (11) A beer doesn't think poetry is queer. + (12) A beer can't talk about the women who had it before you. + (13) A beer tastes good. + (14) A beer will never invite friends home for dinner without calling. + (15) A beer won't think less of you if you can't name the Steelers' + quarterback. + (16) You don't have to let a beer win. + (17) A beer always lets you read the Sunday comics first. + (18) A beer will never call you "Babe". Or "Sugar-hips". + (19) A beer doesn't care that you don't balance your checkbook. + (20) You don't have to laugh at a beer's jokes. +% +6802 hackers make great use of the SEX instruction. +% +69 + 69 = dinner for 4. +% +77. HO HUM -- The Redundant + +------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme +--- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife +------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working +---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop the +---X--- (9) GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates to +--- --- (8) nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex. + +Nine in the second place means: + The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune. + +Six in the third place means: + In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue + Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble! +% +8 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: + + (1) You rarely (if ever) find beer labels on the shower curtain rod. + (2) A beer doesn't care when you come. + (3) Beer doesn't have a mother. + (4) Beer doesn't need much closet space. + (5) A beer won't accuse you of lying when you say you read Playboy + "just for the articles". + (6) Beer doesn't mind seeing Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson flicks. + (7) Beer doesn't always want to go to the 'powder room' with everyone + else's beer. + (8) When you're through with a beer, the thought of another beer + doesn't make you ill. +% +9 reasons a taco is better than a woman: + + (1) Tacos don't put frilly covers on the toilet seat so the lid won't + stay up. + (2) Tacos don't use your razor on their legs. + (3) Tacos don't say "That's okay, it doesn't have to be good for me." + (4) Tacos don't get upset if you eat another taco, "Just for fun." + (5) Tacos will never contest a divorce, demand a property settlement, + or seek custody of anything. + (6) Tacos won't ask you about your last lover, or speculate about your + next one. + (7) A taco will never make a scene because there are other tacos in the + refrigerator. + (8) It's easy to drop a taco. + (9) Tacos don't want to sleep on your chest. +% +A beachcomber of 25 had been shipwrecked on a desert island since the age of +six. One day, while in search of food, he stumbled across a beautifully +sensuous female lying on the beach nearly naked; she'd been washed ashore from +another shipwreck that morning. After they got over their initial surprise +at seeing each other, the girl wanted to know how long he had been alone on +this barren bit of land. + "Almost twenty years," he answered. + "Twenty years!" she exclaimed. "But how ever did you survive?" + "Oh, I fish, dig for clams, and gather berries and coconuts," he +replied. + "And what do you do for sex?" she asked. + "What's that?" He looked puzzled. + Whereupon the maiden pulled the innocent young man down onto the sand +beside her and proceeded to demonstrate. After they had finished, she asked +how he had enjoyed it. + "Great!" was the reply. "But look what it did to my clamdigger!" +% +A beautiful, voluptous woman goes to see a gynecologist. The doctor takes +one look at this woman and his professionalism is a thing of the past. Right +away he tells her to undress. After she has disrobed he begins to stroke her +thigh. As he does this he says to the woman, "Do you know what I'm doing?" + "Yes," she says, "you're checking for any abrasions or dermatological +abnormalities." + "Correct," says the doctor. He then begins to fondle her breasts. +"Do you know what I'm doing now?" he says. + "Yes," says the woman, "you're checking for any lumps or breast +cancer." + "That's right," replies the doctor. He then gradually proceeds to +having sexual intercourse with her. "Do you know," he pants, "what I'm doing +now?" + "Yes," she says. "You're getting herpes." +% +A big store buyer had been on the road for nearly two months. Each week he +would send his wife a telegram saying, + "Can't come home yet. Still buying." +His wife knew that these buying trips usually involved more than business. +She tolerated this particular jaunt for a while, but when the third month +rolled by and she'd still seen nothing of her husband but the weekly telegrams, +she wired him, + "Better come home. I'm selling what you're buying." +% +A bisexual is a man who likes girls as well as the next fellow. +% + A business executive is consumed by jealousy: he suspects his wife +of cheating on him. The suspicion grows and grows, and one morning as he +drives to work he can't take it any more. He thinks to himself, "she +probably just waited until I left so she could meet with her lover." + When he gets to his office, he calls home. The maid answers. He +says, "Hello. Is my wife there?" + "Yes, sir", the maid whispers. + "Is she with her lover?" + The maid pauses, and then says, "Yes, sir, she is, and I must say +that I feel terrible about how she treats you." + The man yells, "That no good **#*&!!. If you feel as badly as you +say you do, you must do this for me: go to my dresser and get my gun. Check +to make sure that it's loaded. Then go upstairs and shoot both that cheating +two-timing whore and her lover. Dispose of the gun, and then come back to +the phone and tell me that it's over. Don't worry -- I'll protect you." +The man hears footsteps, a drawer being opened, a click, more footsteps, +silence... and then two shots. More footsteps. Finally the maid comes back +to the phone and says "It's done." + The man asks, "What did you do with the gun?" + "I threw it behind the statue in the garden", the maid replies. + "Statue in the garden? Say, what number is this, anyway?" +% +A businessman was awe-struck by the beautiful redhead at the hotel bar. +Seeing his interest, she quietly informed him that she was a prostitute +and that her price was $500. He was taken aback by the price, but after +a few minutes of thought he took her up to his room. She spent a few +minutes in the bathroom and was shocked when she came out to see him +masturbating furiously on the bed. "What are you doing?", she asked. + "Baby, for $500, you're not going to get the easy one!" +% +A chiseler is a man who goes stag to a wife-swapping party. +% +A drunk was sitting at the end of the bar in a popular single's place, +watching a young, good-looking man working his way through the women. The +guy didn't appear to be having much luck, and he was only spending a few +moments with each woman. As he worked his way closer, while he couldn't +hear what the young man was saying, he realized that the women were somewhat +shocked at his approach. Finally, the man approaches a pretty brunette and +they hit it off immediately. After a bit of quiet conversation, she handed +the young man her hotel key and they started off for the elevators. As they +passed the drunk, he stopped the lucky one and asked him what his method was. + "Well," the man replied, "It's simple. You say 'Tickle your ass +with a feather?' If she sounds interested, you take it from there. If she +sounds angry, you smile and say 'Typically nasty weather.'" + The drunk says "Ohhhhh, got it, I got it!" and walks over to a woman +at the end of the bar to try out his new approach. Getting her attention, +he smiles and says "Fuck me!" + "What?!?!?" she screams. + "Raining like hell, isn't it?" +% +A farmer decides that his three sows should be bred, and contacts a +buddy down the road, who owns several boars. They agree on a stud fee, and +the farmer puts the sows in his pickup and takes them down the road to the +boars. He leaves them all day, and when he picks them up that night, asks +the man how he can tell if it "took" or not. The breeder replies that if, +the next morning, the sows were grazing on grass, they were pregnant, but if +they were rolling in the mud as usual, they probably weren't. + Comes the morn, the sows are rolling in the mud as usual, so the +farmer puts them in the truck and brings them back for a second full day of +frolic. This continues for a week, since each morning the sows are rolling +in the mud. + Around the sixth day, the farmer wakes up and tells his wife, "I +don't have the heart to look again. This is getting ridiculous. You check +today." With that, the wife peeks out the bedroom window and starts to laugh. + "What is it?" asks the farmer excitedly. "Are they grazing at last?" + "Nope." replies his wife. "Two of them are jumping up and down in +the back of your truck, and the other one is honking the horn!" +% +A fool is a man who worries about whether or not his lover has integrity. +A wise man, on the other hand, busies himself with deeper attributes. +% +A friend of mine received a note through the mail advising him, + +"If you don't stop making love to my wife, I'll kill you." + +The trouble is, the note wasn't signed. +% +A gambler was telling a friend about his first junket to Las Vegas and how +hard it was to get any sleep. + "I was awakened at one, two and four in the morning by a +drunken chorus girl banging on the door and screaming," he recalled. + "That's terrible," the friend said." How'd you ever get any sleep?" + "At five o'clock I unlocked the door and let her out." +% +A gorgeous young sophomore is having an affair with her English +professor. She goes home to visit her family for Christmas vacation +and when she gets back, she immediately invites him over for the +night. As soon as he walks through the door she hugs him and +asks, "Were you blue while I was away?" + "Blown, my dear," the professor corrects her, "blown." +% +A group of scientists discovered an apelike creature in the jungle, which +they hoped would prove to be the missing link. The proof of their theory, +however, required that a human mate with the animal so that they could see +what characteristics the offspring would assume. Needing volunteers, the +scientists placed an ad in the paper: "$5000 to mate with ape." + Almost immediately, they received response from a man who said he +would be willing to take part in the experiment, with three conditions. + "First," he said, "my wife must never know. Second, any children +must be baptized. And, third, I'd have to pay in installments." +% +A guy comes into a bar with a frog and sets it down next to the prettiest +girl there. + "This is a very special frog," he informs her. "His name is Charlie." + "What's so special about this frog?" she asks. +He's reluctant to tell her, but when pressed, explains that, + "This frog can eat pussy." +The girl slaps him, knocking him off his chair, and accuses him of telling her +a filthy lie. But no, he assures her, it's completely true. And after much +discussion, she agrees to come back to his apartment to see the frog in action. +She positions herself appropriately, the guy carefully takes out the frog, and +says, "Okay, Charlie, do your stuff!" The frog is immobile, despite his +owner's exhortations, and the girl starts to snicker. + "Okay, Charlie, do your stuff!" + "C'mon Charlie, do your stuff!" +By now, the girl is laughing openly. + "Okay, Charlie," says the guy, moving the frog out of the way, "I'm +only going to show you one more time." +% + A guy finishes his 9 to 5, but, instead of going straight home, stops +in at a local bar for a drink. He gets his beer, turns around to sit down, +and finds himself face to face with a ravishing blonde. The two strike up a +conversation, and really hit it off. After a couple drinks they leave the bar +go back to her pad, to peruse her etchings. Which doesn't take long -- by +seven they were happily engaged in intimate scratching. + 'Round about midnight the guy rolled over in bed and spotted the clock: +"Midnight! Already! I gotta get home! Honey, you have any baby powder?" +He jumps out of bed and starts pulling his pants on, trying to find his shoes. + "Baby powder?" she asks. But she comes back from the bathroom and +hands him the powder. He frantically shakes it all over his hands, kisses her +goodbye, and runs out the front door. + He gets home, and sure enough, there's his wife, waiting in the +doorway. + "Okay," she mutters, "let's have it." + "Well," he says sheepishly, looking down at his feet. "Okay. I went +to a bar after work and met a gorgeous blonde and we really hit it off. We +had a few drinks and went back to her place, and well, see..." + "Oh yeah?" she says, "let me see your hands... Don't you lie to me! +You've been bowling again!" +% +A hand in a bird is worth two on 'er bush. +% +A hand in the bush is worth two on the bird. +% +A hard man is good to find. +% +A hunter saved a native boy from a boa constrictor. In gratitude, the boy gave +the hunter a magic gorilla prick. The lad said the prick would do anything you +told it to do until you told it to do something else. When the hunter returned +home to England, he put the magic gorilla prick on the mantle along with some +of his other trophies. His wife thought it quaint and his story charming. But +soon, the hunter went a-safariing again. He was away for months. One evening, +the woman eyed the MGP carefully and whispered, "Gorilla Prick, fuck me." +Whereupon the thing jumped off the mantle and began to bang her with great +thoroughness and ferocity. For the first twenty minutes it was pure heaven, +but after the next few minutes it became fatiguing, and she said, "Stop it, +Gorilla Prick," but it didn't. After a bit more she was screaming "Stop! +Stop!" at the thing and trying to pull it out of her smoking hole. But nothing +worked. Finally, the butler bursts into the room, summoned by her screams. + "Saunders, help me please!" + "But what is it, Madame?" + "It's a Magic Gorilla Prick!" + "Gorilla prick, my ass!! ... AAAaaeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiii!!!!!!" +% +A husky foreigner, looking for sex, accepted a prostitute's terms. When +she undressed, he noticed that she had no pubic hair. The man shouted, +"What, no wool? In my country all women have wool down there." + The prostitute snapped back, "What do you want to do, knit or fuck?" +% +A lively case was in progress in the District Court at Lick Skillet. Judge +Flannery was presiding, and on the witness stand was Tush Bumpass. + "From where ah was standin'", drawled Tush, "Ah could see he'd +backed 'er up agin' thet there wall, and ef Ah ever sawed a screwin' match, +thet one wuz!" + "Mr. Bumpass," the Judge interrupted, "I'd prefer that you not use +the word 'screw' in the courtroom. Say 'intercourse' instead." + Tush looked puzzled. "Intercourse? Whut's thet, Judge?" + His Honor sighed. "It's a technicality of language that you're +probably not aware of. Never mind. Please continue." + "Well, like ah said, he had 'er shoved up agin' thet wall, an' he +was... uh... intercoursin' 'er, an' he give 'er the crossjostle, the Chicago +Stroke, an she let out with a holler thet..." + "One moment," interrupted the Bench. "What is this, ah, Chicago +Stroke, Mr. Bumpass?" + "Well, thet's a technicality of screwin', Judge, thet you're probably +not aware of!" +% +A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. + -- Thomas Hardy +% +A man and a woman got married. Although it is the first time for the +husband, it is the woman's second marriage. As they go to bed on their +wedding night, the wife says to her husband: + + "Dear, there's something I must tell you. I'm a virgin." +Naturally, the husband is surprised. + "You've been married before!", he says, "How can you still be a +virgin?" + "Well, it's all quite simple," she retorted, "my husband was a +computer programmer." + "What's so odd about that?", he asked. "Why would you still be +a virgin after a marriage to a programmer?" + "Well", she said, "all he did was sit on the edge of the bed and +tell me how great it was going to be." +% +A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen +or twenty mistakes she's a tramp. + -- Joan Rivers +% +A man goes into a hospital for a routine appendectomy. When he wakes up +from the anesthesia, he sees a large group of doctors gathered anxiously +around his bed. + "What happened?" he asks worriedly. + "Well," says one of the doctors, "there was a small clerical error, +and you got mixed-up with another patient. Instead of an appendectomy, we +performed a sex-change operation. Your penis has been removed and a vagina +has been crafted into place." + "WHAT!!!" screams the man. "That's horrible! What am I going to +tell my wife? Can't you reverse it? This means I'm never going to experience +another erection!" + "Well, you will, you *will*," reassures the doctor, "but it will, of +course, have to be someone else's." +% +A man is as old as the woman he feels. + -- Groucho Marx +% +A man is driving down the road on his way to Salerno. By the roadside he +sees a man hitchhiking and stops to pick him up. As the man gets into his +car he suddenly pulls out a gun and makes the driver get out of the car. + "All right, buddy," says the man, "I want to you jerk off." + "What!?" says the man, disbelievingly. + "Go ahead, do it!" says the hitchhiker. + So the driver masturbates, and when he is through, says, "All right, +I did what you wanted, can I go now?" + "Nope," says the hijacker. "Do it again." + "Again?" the driver exclaims. "I just did it." + "Do it again." + It takes a little longer this time, but he manages to come again. +Panting, he turns to his tormenter and again asks if he can leave. + "Yes," the man replies, "but only after you've done it one more +time." + The guy is really scared now; he's starting to sweat. It takes him +twenty minutes, this time, but he finally comes a third time. + "Listen, buddy, can I please leave now?" + "Yeah," says the man, lowering his gun. "And this is my daughter; +I want you to drive her into Salerno." +% +A man is marooned on a desert island with a female sheep and a male Doberman +for companionship. The animals soon get it on sexually, and all goes well +until the man becomes unbearably horny and makes his move for the ewe, at +which point the dog interposes himself, snarling, fangs bared. Months later, +a raft drifts into sight. The sailor swims out, finds a beautiful girl on it, +takes her to shore and feeds and comforts her. + "You are so good to me," she responds gratefully. "I'd do absolutely +anything to show my gratitude." + "Would you?" smiles the sailor as he unfastens the length of rope +that holds up his ragged pants. "Well, then, here -- use this as a leash +and take that damn dog for a walk!" +% +A man is playing golf at a very exclusive country club when he hits a hole- +in-one. As he takes his ball from the cup, a genie appears. + "Since you've made a hole in one, you may have a single wish. What +is your heart's desire?" + "Great!", replies the man. I want a longer penis." + "Your wish is granted," says the genie, and promptly disappears. + As the golfer continues through the rest of the course he can +feel his penis slowly growing, to an extent that it's becoming uncomfortable. +By the time he completes the 18th hole it's extended down his pants leg to +his knee. Thinking to himself that this isn't quite what he had in mind, he +grabs a bucket of balls and heads back out onto the course. Three weeks later, +he manages another hole-in-one and the genie reappears. + "Since you've made a hole in one, you may have a single wish. What +is your heart's desire?" + "Yeah, I know all that," replies the man. "Listen, could you make +my legs longer?" +% +A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be +bothered with sex and all that sort of thing. + -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Circle" +% + A man met a beautiful young woman in a bar. They got along well, +shared dinner, and had a marvelous evening. When he left her, he told her +that he had really enjoyed their time together, and hoped to see her again, +soon. Smiling yes, she gave him her phone number. + The next day, he called her up and asked her to go dancing. She +agreed. As they talked, he jokingly asked her what her favorite flower was. +Realizing his intentions, she told him that he shouldn't bring her flowers +-- if he wanted to bring her a gift, well, he should bring her a Swiss Army +knife! + Surprised, and not a little intrigued, he spent a large part of the +afternoon finding a particularly unusual one. Arriving at her apartment +he immediately presented her with the knife. She ooohed and ahhhed over it +for a minute, and then carefully placed it in a drawer, that the man couldn't +help but see was full of Swiss Army knives. + Surprised, he asked her why she had collected so many. + "Well, I'm young and attractive now", blushed the woman, "but that +won't always be true. And boy scouts will do anything for a Swiss Army knife!" +% +A man needs a mistress, just to break the monogamy. +% +A man never minds being in the doghouse as long as he can get his tail outside. +% +A man sat down next to another passenger on a train recently and couldn't +help overhearing his conversation out the window with a man standing on +the train platform. + "Thanks for putting me up while I was here, Sam," said the passenger. + "Glad to do it," said the other man. + "Thanks for the food and the drinks -- everything was wonderful." + "It was a pleasure," said the man. + "And thank your wife, Sam, she was great," said the passenger, +"she was a truly great lay." + The man was rather taken aback by this exchange and he later turned +to his fellow passenger and said: "Pardon me sir, but did I understand you +to say that your friend's wife was a great lay?" + "Well," said the other passenger, "I didn't REALLY enjoy it. But +Sam is a helluva nice guy." +% +A man was just settling down into his seat for a cross-country +flight when he noticed a beautiful woman sitting next to him, wearing a +large button with the letters "NAA" on it. + "What's that?" he asked, pointing to her button. + "Nymphomaniacs Association of America" she replied. + After a moments thought he said, "Well, if you wouldn't mind my +asking, but I've always wanted to know, who are the best, ummm, `endowed' +men?" + "Well, it's not what you think. Native Americans. They're better +hung than *anybody*." + "And is it true that the French are the best lovers?" + "No, Jewish men. Once you finally get them going they can last +all night. By the way, my name is Sue. What's yours?" + "Running Bear Sheldon." +% +A man was playing golf one day when a little frog hopped out the water at a +water hazard and croaked, "I am a magic frog, and since you are the 10,000th +person to play through here, I'm prepared to offer you one of two magic gifts: +First, for a whole year you can have the most fabulous sex life that anyone +ever had; beyond your wildest dreams. Or, second, for a whole year you can +be the best golfer the world has ever known. Which do you prefer?" The man +thought a bit and said that he'd take the golf. Well, the man holed his wood +shot from where he was, completed the course in an average of 2 per hole, and +went round in 22. Quickly he attracted the attention of the sports world, +and became the world's best-known golfer, setting course records wherever +he went. A year later he was playing the same course inhabited by the frog, +and at the water hazard the frog hopped out and said, "Well, the year is up, +and you now revert to the 18-handicap player you were before. But tell me, I +was a little surprised that you chose the golf -- I take it your sex life is +outstanding?" The man said, "Well, I have no complaints in that department +at all, which is why I chose the golf." "How many times did you engage in sex +last year?" inquired the frog. The man thought a little and said, "Oh, eight +or ten times, I guess." "Damn," said the frog, "that doesn't strike me as very +satisfactory." "Oh, I don't know," replied the man, "it doesn't seem so bad +for a Catholic priest from a little town in South Dakota." +% +A man was traveling cross-country one summer from New York to LA. +He arrived in Needles, CA late one night and pulled into an Exxon for some +gas. When he pulled up to the gas pumps, he noticed that all of the lights +were off. Suddenly, he heard a faint sound from outside. He wasn't sure +what he'd heard, so he rolled down his window and heard a faint cry, +"Help... help... help". He got out of his car, and sure enough there was +a guy stooped down in the corner, stark naked with his wrists tied to his +ankles. He walked up to the guy and said, "Hey, man, what happened to you?" + "These guys pulled me out of my car, took my money, my wallet, my +clothes, tied my wrists to my ankles, and then stole my car!!" + "Damn!", replied the first man as he unzipped his pants. "This just +hasn't been your day, has it?" +% +A man who likes to lie in bed can usually find a girl willing to listen to him. +% +A midget had a date with a very tall girl. It was a quiff-hanger. +% +A mother and her daughter came to the doctor's office. The mother +asked the doctor to examine her daughter. "She has been having some strange +symptoms and I'm worried about her," the mother said. + The doctor examined the daughter carefully. Then he announced, +"Madam, I believe your daughter is pregnant." + The mother gasped. "That's nonsense!" she said. "Why, my little +girl has never even been out with a man, let alone... let alone..." She +turns to the girl and said, "Tell the doctor, Susie!" + "Yes, Mumsy," said the girl. "Doctor, I have never so much as +kissed a man!" + The doctor looked from the mother to daughter, and back again. Then, +silently he stood up and walked to the window. He stared out. He continued +staring until the mother felt compelled to ask, "Doctor, is there something +wrong out there?" + "No, Madam," said the doctor. "It's just that the last time anything +like this happened, a star appeared in the East and I was looking to see if +another one was going to show up." +% +A new lumberjack had just finished his first month in the lonely wilds of +Alaska, where there were no women for miles. He finally couldn't take it +anymore and nervously asked the foreman what the other men did to relieve +the pressure. + "Try the hole in the barrel outside the shower," suggested the +foreman. "The other men swear by it." + The lumberjack dubiously tried it out and had the experience of +his life. "That barrel is fantastic! Warm! Wet! I'm going to use it +every day!" + "Every day but the third Wednesday of the month," one of the +other men replied. + "Why not then?" + "That's your day in the barrel." +% +A Norse god decides to assume human form, come down from Valhalla, and check +out the local action. He finds himself in the piano bar of Caesar's Boardwalk +Regency in Atlantic City, and sits down to sip an Acquavit or two. After a few +minutes, an extremely attractive young woman, having been taken with his form +and features, sends a drink down to him, then joins him. The chemistry between +them is immediate and total. They have the next drink in her room, and spend +the night repeatedly making passionate love. The woman has no idea of her +partner's true identity; all she knows is he's driving her mad. In the +morning, the Norse god jumps into the shower. Reflecting on the previous +night he decides that he wants to be honest with his new lover. Without even +bothering to wrap himself in a towel, he leaps from the shower into the room, +where the woman is still in bed, exhausted. He kneels beside the bed, looks +deep into her eyes and says, "Honey, I have something very important to tell +you -- I'm Thor!". + +The woman looks at him. "You're Thor?", she says. "My inthides feel +like grated cheeth!" +% +A nubile female virtually never experiences difficulty in finding willing +sexual partners, and in a natural habitat nubile females are probably always +married. The basic female "strategy" is to obtain the best possible husband, +to be fertilized by the fittest available male (always, of course, taking +risk into account), and to maximize the returns on sexual favors bestowed: +to be sexually aroused by the sight of males would promote random matings, +thus undermining all of these aims, and would also waste time and energy +that could be spent in economically significant activities and in nurturing +children. A female's reproductive success would be seriously compromised +by the propensity to be sexually aroused by the sight of males. + -- Donald Symons, "The Evolution of Human Sexuality", + attempting to explain the lack of female interest in + pornography. +% +A nymph hits you and steals your virginity. +% +A pair of suburban couples who had known each other for quite some time +talked it over and decided to do a little conjugal swapping. The trade +was made the following evening and the newly arranged couples retired to +their respective houses. After about an hour of bedroom bliss, one of +the wives propped herself up on an elbow, looked at her new partner and +said: "Well, I wonder how the boys are getting along?" +% +A pederastic necrophiliac is a gentleman who is true to the very end of +the end of a friend. +% +A performing octopus could play the piano, the zither and a piccolo, and his +trainer wanted him to add the bagpipe to his accomplishments. With this in +mind, a bagpipe was placed in the octopus's room, and the trainer awaited +results. Hours passed, but no bagpipe music was heard. Since the talented +octopus usually learned quickly, the trainer was disturbed. Opening the door +the next morning, he asked the octopus, + "Have you learned to play that thing yet?" + "Play it!" retorted the octopus. "I've been trying to lay it all +night!" +% +A policeman is walking his beat when he finds an inebriated man collapsed +against a building, weeping uncontrollably and holding his car keys in his +hands. He's moaning something about how "They took my car!" Seeing that +the man is well-dressed, the officer suspects that he may have a real case +of theft on his hands and attempts to question the man. + "What happened to your car?" + "My car, it was right on the end of my key, and those bastards +stole it! Please officer, get my Porsche back. My God, it was right on +the end of my key! Where is it? They stole it and it was right here; +right on my key!" + "OK, OK, stand up, we'll see what we can do. You'll have to come +down to the stat... Mister, your fly's unzipped and you're exposing +yourself!" + "Oh my God, they stole my girlfriend!" +% + A proper elderly English couple visiting Australia decided to hire a +car to take a look at the outback. "We know it's rough country, but it's safe +and decent, isn't it?" the husband inquired of the rental-agency manager. +Upon being assured that it was, the couple drove off. + Later that day, they returned, upset and angry. "You said it was +decent country," the Englishwoman upbraided the rental agent, "but we hadn't +driven too far when we saw a man in a field copulating with a kangaroo!" + "And not too long after that," complained her husband, "a one-legged +aborigine leaning against a tree by the side of the road grinningly waved +at us with one hand while he brazenly masturbated himself with the other!" + "Guv'nor," responded the Aussie, "yer wouldn't expect a poor bugger +like that, with only one leg, to catch a 'roo, would you?" +% +A real estate agent, looking over a farmer's house for possible sale, +commented to the farmer how sturdy the house looked. + The farmer replied, "Yep, built it with my bare hands... did it +the hard way. The steps to the front door, here, carved 'em out of +field stones... did it the hard way. That hardwood floor in the living +room, dovetailed the pieces myself... did it the hard way. The ceiling +beams, made 'em out of my own oak trees... did it the hard way." + Just then, the farmer's gorgeous daughter walked in. The farmer +looks over at the real estate agent who is trying not to stare too +obviously and smiles. "Yep... standing up in a canoe." +% + A secretary entered her boss's office with the announcement: "I have +some good news and some bad news." + He muttered, "It's quarterly report day, Sally -- just the good news." + She replied, "You're not sterile." +% +A shy young man, preparing himself for what he hoped would be the ultimate sex +act with a pretty young lady, went into a drugstore to inquire about sizes and +styles of condoms. The lusty proprietress, a buxom widow, saw an opportunity +for fun at the lad's expense. + "Come in the back and try some on for size," she said, taking his hand. +The widow unzipped the youth's fly and watched the small instrument grow in +her hand as she measured it. When the weapon had unfurled to a rosy seven and +a half inches, the young man, unable to contain himself, had an orgasm with a +tremendous discharge. After recovering, he asked the widow if she could now +give him the proper size. + "I'll do more than that," she said. "I'll give you free meals and a +half interest in the store." +% + A strange looking white man came to the Indian reservation looking +for a job. He asked to talk to the Chief of the tribe, so he might give his +qualifications. The Chief strode forward from the group surrounding the +white man and said: "You leave! No job!" + The man explained that this was no ordinary job he was seeking, but +that of tribe Medicine-Man. He would convince him if the Chief would allow +him to demonstrate his magic. "No magic!" said the disbelieving Chief. + "Oh, yeah?", said the stranger. "I'll prove it to you by making +your dog, here, talk!" + "Dog, no talk!" responded the Chief, but before he could finish, he +heard a voice coming out of the mouth of the dog saying, "The Chief treats me +good. He feeds me, and keeps me in teepee when it snows!" + "If you still have doubts as to my magic," continued the stranger, +"the next voice you'll hear will be that of your horse!" + "Horse, no talk!" argued the still-sceptical Chief, but again he +heard a voice that said: "I am the Chief's favorite horse. He takes me up to +the green pasture to eat and brushes my coat when I get dirty." + The stranger, still seeing some disbelieving faces, claimed for his +final trick he would make the Chief's sheep talk. + "NO!" cried the Chief, "SHEEP LIE!" +% +A stranger had just arrived in the mining town and was spending the evening at +the local saloon. After a few drinks, he mentioned to the bartender that he +hadn't seen a single woman in the entire town. + The bartender replied, "Nope. Ain't no women in this town!" + "No women? What do the men do for... er..." + "Oh, for sex? Did you see all those pigs in the street? That's the +answer, right there." + Shaking his head incredulously, the stranger settled back to his +drinking. Within a short time, however, the liquor had convinced him that he +wanted to try out a pig himself. He had watched several miners walk upstairs +to the trysting rooms with squealing piglets under their arms. Now, he was +game to make his move. He wandered out to the back of the saloon and chose +a nice fat, pink sow. As he walked to the stairs, the entire saloon went +quiet. In the embarrassing hush, all eyes were upon him. + "What's the matter? I thought all you fellows did this!" + "Yeah, but that's Black Bart's girl," replied the barkeep. +% +A sweet young schoolteacher who had always been virtuous was invited to go +for a ride in the country with the gym instructor, whom she admired. Under +a tree on the bank of a quiet lake, she struggled with her conscience and +with the gym instructor and finally gave in to the latter. Sobbing +uncontrollably she asked her seducer, + "How can I ever face my students again, knowing I have sinned twice?" + "Twice?" asked the young man, confused. + "Why, yes," said the sweet teacher, wiping a tear from her eye. +"You're going to do it again, aren't you?" +% +A toast to the kisses you've snatched and vice-versa. +% +A vasectomy means never having to say you're sorry. +% +A virgin is chaste. +% +A virginal is a harpsichord that has never been plucked. +% +A virtuous abstinence from the joys of pederasty comes most easily to those +who have no taste for it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +A widow is more sought after than an old maid of the same age. + -- Addison +% +A witty writer, K. Kraus in the Vienna "Fackel", has as it were, expressed +this truth paradoxically in the cynical saying: "Coitus is merely an +unsatisfactory substitute for onanism!" + -- Sigmund Freud, attempting to explain why + masturbation is "by no means harmless" +% +A woman is driving down the street, her ten-year-old daughter belted into +the passenger seat. The daughter asks "Mommy, how old are you?" + The mother says "That's a personal question. It's not nice to ask +people personal questions." + The daughter thinks a while, then asks "Mommy, how much do you weigh?" + The mother replies "That's a personal question too. I'm not going +to tell you." + Chastised, the daughter asks no more questions. The mother parks the +car. "I'm going to see Mrs. Tristan for a couple of minutes. You stay here in +the car and watch my purse." + After the mother leaves, the daughter removes her mother's driver's +license from the purse, studies it for a few minutes and replaces it. When +her mother returns they drive off. The little girl comments: + "Mommy, I know how old you are. You're 32." + "That's right! How did you know?" + "And you weigh 119 pounds." + "Did you look in my purse?" + "And I know why you and Daddy divorced." + "You *do*?" + "Yes," said the daughter. "Because you flunked sex!" +% +"A woman is like a dresser ... some man always goin' through her drawers." + -- Blind Lemon Pledge +% +A young couple jumped out of their car and dashed into the park. +They hurriedly found a secluded spot and began to make frenzied, passionate +love. Shortly thereafter, as they were driving away, the young man turned +to her and said, "If I had known you were a virgin, I'd have taken more time." + +She replied, "If I had known you had more time, I'd have taken off my +pantyhose." +% +A young man asked his father to lend him $50 for a blowjob, whereupon his +father solemnly replied, "When I was young we used to settle for a kiss." + +The son retorted, "OK, how about $50 for a long low kiss?" +% +A young woman was afflicted with three brothers who had a friendly competition +as to who was the best practical joker. When she announced her marriage, +like all good brothers, they immediately found out where the honeymoon would +be and repaired there to do their worst, er, best. The brother who was a +carpenter went first, and came back out in five minutes. The brother who +worked as a plumber went second and was out in about half an hour. Finally, +the brother employed as a dentist went inside and came out almost immediately. +A few days after the start of their sister's honeymoon the brothers each +received a telegram from their sister. It read: + + I liked the couch falling apart when we sat on it. I was amused + when the shower went cold five minutes after it started. But I'm + going to kill whoever put the novocaine into the KY jelly... +% +A.I. hackers do it with robots. +% +AC/DC is a rock band. + -- Bisexuality, 101 +% +Admittedly, there are a lot of things that are better than sex, +and a lot more that are worse; but there's nothing quite like it... +% +After a few steamy dances and a few more drinks, the pickup couple +are back at his place tearing their clothes off. Things are really +starting to heat up when he leaps out of bed and starts frantically +rummaging through a dresser drawer. + "What are you doing?" she asks. + "Just a second, honey, I'm trying to find my lucky rubber." +% +After an evening at the theatre and several nightcaps at an intimate little +bistro, the young man whispered to his date, "How do you feel about making +love to men?" + "That's MY business," she snapped. + "Ah," he said. "A professional." +% +After cocktails in the Oak Room, the graying millionaire took the blond, +attractive, wholesome, winning young woman up to his suite. They chatted +for a while, and then kissed on the couch. A little fondling, some feeling +and petting ... to which the young lady lent herself shyly ... and then they +were in the wide, cool bed, naked together. They chatted more, established +a communion, a rapport the older man considered remarkably gratifying. The +girl seemed sympatico, innocent, good. + "Yes, that was it," he thought, "essentially good. Why, she could +be my own daughter." He smiled into the young girl's deep blue eyes. + "Tell me," he asked, his hand on her breast, "What's a nice girl +like you doing in a hotel like this?" + "Oh, about $2000 a week, with tips." +% +After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK? +% +After Joan and Max had been married for 25 years, Max became disinterested +in sex, and his libido began to wan dramatically. In desperation, Joan +hauled him to a marriage couselor, who listened patiently to Joan's complaints +and Max's protestations. Max claimed that he was being nagged unmercifully +to fulfill Joan's needs, and that after awhile every marriage tended to +become less physical. Joan said that that wasn't true and that she had +needs and desires that he, as her husband, was expected to fulfill. Finally, +the counselor issued the verdict. "Max," he said, "Everybody has to give a +little for a marriage to work. From now on, no matter how you feel at the +time, you must give Joan her conjugal rights at least semi-annually. And, +remember, do it in a loving, considerate manner; after all, you and your +wife are a partnership of love." Joan was delighted, and floated out of the +counselor's offices. On the way downstairs, she nudged Max. + +"So, honey, tell me... how many times a week is semi-annually?" +% +After repeatedly warding off her date's amorous advances during the evening, +the pretty young thing decided to put her foot down: "See here," she shouted +indignantly. "This is positively the last time I'm going to tell you `no'." + +"Splendid!" exclaimed her date. "Now we can start making some progress." +% +After rushing into a drugstore, the nervous young man was obviously +embarrassed when a prim thirty-ish woman asked if she could serve him. + "N-no," he stammered, "I'd like to see the druggist." + "I'm the druggist", she replied cheerfully. + "Oh.. well, uh, it's nothing important," he said, and turned to leave. + "Young man," said the woman, "my sister and I have been running this +drugstore for nearly ten years. There is nothing you can tell us that will +embarrass us. + "Well, all right," he said. "I have this awful sexual hunger that +nothing will appease. No matter how many times I make love, I still want to +make love again and again. Is there anything you can give me for it?" + "Just a moment," said the woman, "I'll have to discuss this with my +sister." + A few minutes later, she returned. "The best we can do," she said, +"is room and board and a half-interest in the business." +% + After spending a forbidden night on the town, two young nuns were +trying to sneak through the fence surrounding their Convent. + "You know," giggled one as she held the wire apart for the other to +crawl through, "I feel like a Marine." + "So do I," the other nun sighed, "but where are we going to find one +at three in the morning?" +% +After we made love he took a piece of chalk and made an outline of my body. + -- Joan Rivers +% +Ah spring, when a fancy young man lightly turns his lover over. +% +Alaska, where Moosehead isn't a beer, it's a misdemeanor. + +Q: You know how to figure out if your lover's been "invovlved"? +A: Antler marks on their hips. +% +Alcohol is like love: the first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, +the third is routine. After that you just take the girl's clothes off. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +Alex came home from a business trip to Chicago and found no one home but his +daughter Rose, who was crying bitterly. + "What's the matter, darling?" asked Alex. + "Mommy almost died last night," sobbed Rose. + "That's nonsense," said the father. "Why do you say that?" + "Well," said Rose,"you always told us that when we die we'll see God; +so when I heard Mommy moaning last night I rushed to her bedroom and she was +screaming, "Oh God, here I come," and she would have but Uncle Jerry held her +down." +% +"Algorithms" is an anagram for "Hilt orgasm". Maybe this explains +the popularity of this field of study in computer science. +% +All a hacker needs is a tight PUSHJ, a loose pair of UUOs, and a warm +place to shift. +% +"All I need is a little room to lay my hat and a few friends." + -- Dorothy Parker to a real estate agent, + on looking for an apartment +% +All I really want in life is a piece and some quiet. +% +Always talk to your wife while you're making love... if there's a phone handy. +% +America cannot be sold a can of beer without being offered a piece of +pussy along with it. + -- Julius Lester +% +America's two greatest inventions are finger-fucking and carpet-bombing. + -- Lyndon B. Johnson +% +An 11 is a 10 who doesn't have headaches. +% +An acid is like a woman: a good one will eat through your pants. + -- Mel Gibson, Saturday Night Live +% +An Aggie was appointed ambassador to Japan. Two weeks before +officially reporting to the embassy, he went from geisha house to geisha +house. While making love to a geisha girl, he heard her repeat, "Yaki-san, +yaki-san." + Right away the Aggie thought to himself, "I've learned my first +Japanese word. It must be an expression of joy." + When he reported to the embassy, he received his first assignment, +which was to escort the prime minister of Japan around the golf course. +After having played a couple of holes, the prime minister teed-off and made +a hole-in-one. The prime minister jumped up and down shouting, "Bonsai! +Bonsai!" + Quickly, thinking that this was the perfect chance to show off the +new Japanese word that he'd learned, the Aggie exclaimed, "Yaki-san, +yaki-san!" + The prime minister turned to the Aggie in surprise and exclaimed, +"What do you mean, wrong hole?" +% +An egg has the shortest sex-life of all: if gets laid once; it gets +eaten once. It also has to come in a box with 11 others, and the only +person who will sit on its face is its mother. +% +An eighty-year-old woman is rocking away the afternoon on her +porch when she sees an old, tarnished lamp sitting near the steps. She +picks it up, rubs it gently, and lo and behold a genie appears! The genie +tells the woman the he will grant her any three wishes her heart desires. + After a bit of thought, she says, "I wish I were young and +beautiful!" And POOF! In a cloud of smoke she becomes a young, beautiful, +voluptuous woman. + After a little more thought, she says, "I would like to be rich +for the rest of my life." And POOF! When the smoke clears, there are +stacks and stacks of money lying on the porch. + The genie then says, "Now, madam, what is your final wish?" + "Well," says the woman, "I would like for you to transform my +faithful old cat, whom I have loved dearly for fifteen years, into a young +handsome prince!" + And with another billow of smoke the cat is changed into a tall, +handsome, young man, with dark hair, dressed in a dashing uniform. + As they gaze at each other in adoration, the prince leans over to +the woman and whispers into her ear, "Now, aren't you sorry you had me +fixed?" +% +And having stretched me out upon his bed with my head a little to one side, +he sat down next to me and raised my head upon his lap. He peered avidly at +me, his eyes seemed ready to devour the secretion oozing from my nose. "Oh, +the pretty little snotface," said he, beginning to pant, "How I'm going to +suck her." Therewith bending down over me, and taking my nose in his mouth, +not only did he devour all the mucus between my nose and mouth, but he even +lewdly darted the tip of his tongue into each of my nostrils, one after the +other, and with such cleverness he provoked two or three sneezes which +redoubled the flow he desired and was consuming so hungrily. But ask me for +no details bearing upon this fellow, Messieurs, nothing appeared, and whether +because he did nothing, or becaues he did it all in his drawers, there was +nothing to be seen, and amidst the multitude of his kisses and lecherous +lickings there was nothing outstanding which might have denoted an ecstasy, +and consequently it is my opinion that he did not discharge. All my clothes +were in place, even his hands stayed still, and I give you my word that this +old libertine's fantasy might be performed upon the world's most repectable +and least initiated girl without her being able to suppose there was anything +lewd in it at all. + -- Marquis de Sade +% +Another nun joke!!! + You see, three nuns were walking down the street, when suddenly +this flasher jumped out in front of them and opened his trench coat, +exposing his all to the sisters. Well, two of the nuns had strokes right +there, but the third nun wouldn't touch it. +% +Any girl who believes that the way to a man's heart is through +his stomach is obviously setting her standards too high. +% +APL hackers take all they want. +% +Apple owners do it with mice! +% +As long as your ass is pointed at the ground, don't fuck with me. +% +As my dear auntie used to say, "Love makes the world go 'round, but sex +makes the ride fun." +% +As part of an equal opportunity project, a memo was sent to all the offices +within External Affairs asking for "A list of all employees broken down by +sex." + +One of the memos was returned with the notation: "I'm sorry: we +know of nobody in this office who fits your criteria. We do, however, +have two alcoholics." +% +As she lay there dozing next beside me, a voice inside my head kept saying +"Relax... you're not the first doctor who's ever slept with one of his +patients," but another voice kept reminding me, "Howard, you're a veterinarian." +% +As the truck driver came flying over the top of a steep hill, he spotted two +figures in his path rolling around in the middle of the road. The driver blew +his horn and braked frantically, but the couple continued their lovemaking, +oblivious to his warnings. The truck finally slid to a halt barely three +inches from the pair. "Are you crazy?" the driver screamed at them. "You +could have been killed!" + +The man stood up and faced the driver. "Well, I was coming, she was coming +and you were coming," he panted, "and you were the only one with brakes." +% +As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would interfere +with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the Wright +Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure out how to get +their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on Wilbur. "Orville," +he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual organs!" You should have +seen their original design.] As a result, birds are very, very difficult to +arouse sexually. You almost never see an aroused bird. So when they want +to reproduce, birds fly up and stand on telephone lines, where they monitor +telephone conversations with their feet. When they find a conversation in +which people are talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they +are both highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant. + -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every + Teen Should Know" +% +Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-old +woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, "The way I look at it, +she's the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds." + -- David Letterman +% +Ass, grass or gas... nobody rides for free! +% +Assassins do it from behind. +% +At her annual checkup, the attractive young woman is told by the doctor that +it's necessary to take her temperature rectally. She agrees and bends over +the examining table, but a few seconds later says indignantly, "Doctor, that's +NOT my rectum!" + "Madam," says the doctor, "that's not my thermometer!" + Just then, the woman's husband, hearing her voice, comes into the +room. "Just what the hell is going on here?" he demands. + "I'm taking your wife's temperature," the doctor cooly replies. + "Okay, doc, you know best," says the husband as he picks a scalpel +off the doctor's desk, "but when that thing comes out, it better have +numbers on it!" +% +Attracted by repeated newspaper advertisements, and realizing that +his waist had gone both East and West despite his daily racquetball, a young +executive appeared at a local health resort. Looking over the several weight +loss plans offered, he selected one guaranteed to reduce his weight by two +pounds per day. After a light breakfast, and a almost non-existent lunch, he +was escorted to a large room, where a young, attractive woman told him that +"if he caught her, he could have her". After an hour of hard running, he +finally gave up; and weighing himself, was comforted to realize that he had +lost just under three pounds. Returning the next week, he chose the plan that +was to reduce his weight by four pounds per session. After following the same +regimen, he was again escorted to a large room, but after two hours of running, +he caught the young woman. Weight loss, just over four pounds. Returning the +following week, he chose to lose eight pounds in a single day. He was shown +to the largest room he'd seen, by far, where he was confronted by a extremely +muscular, burly man, who looked him square in the eye, flung his towel into +a corner, and snarled, "You know the rules. Start running!" +% +Attractive bisexual young woman seeks same for high mellow times. +% +B4 I4Q, RU/18 QT 3.1415926535? +% +Bankers do it with interest (penalty for early withdrawal). +% +Barbra Walters was doing a documentary on the customs of American +Indians. After a tour of a reservation they were on, she was curious as to +the number of feathers in the headdresses. She asked a brave who had only +one feather in his headdress. His reply was, "Me have only one squaw, me +have only one feather." She asked another brave, feeling the first fellow +was only joking. This brave had four feathers in his headdress. He replied, +"Me have four feathers, because me sleep with four squaws." + Still not convinced the number of feathers indicated the number of +squaws involved, she decided to interview the Chief. Now the Chief had a +headdress full of feathers which, needless to say, amused Ms. Walters. +Ms. W: "Why do you have so many feathers in your headdress?" +Chief: "Me Chief, me fuck-em all, big, small, fat, tall, me fuck-em all." +Ms. W: "You ought to be hung!" +Chief: "You damned right, me hung. Big like buffalo, long like snake." +Ms. W: "You don't have to be so hostile!" +Chief: "Hoss-style, dog-style, wolf-style, any-style, me fuck-em all." +Ms. W: "Oh, dear!" +Chief: "No deer, me no fuck deer. Asshole too high and fuckers run + too fast." +% +BEAT ME, BITE ME, WHIP ME, FUCK ME!!! +% +Beat me, bite me, whip me, fuck me, make me write bad checks! +% +Before he went off to the wars, King Arthur locked his lovely wife, +Guinevere, into her chastity belt. Then he summoned his loyal friend and +subject Sir Lancelot. "Lancelot, noble knight," said Arthur, "within this +sturdy belt is imprisoned the virtue of my wife. The key to this chaste +treasure I will entrust to only one man in the world. To you." + Humbled before this great honor, Lancelot knelt, received his king's +blessing and took charge of the key. Arthur mounted his steed and rode off. +Not half a mile from his castle, he heard hoofbeats behind him and turned to +see Sir Lancelot riding hard to catch up with him. + "What is amiss, my friend?" asked the king. + "My lord," gasped Lancelot, "you have given me the wrong key!" +% +"Before we get married," said the young woman to her fiancee, "I want to +confess some affairs that I've had in the past." + "But you told me all about those a few weeks ago," her young man +replied. + "Yes, darling," she explained, "but that was a few weeks ago." +% +Bend over and take it like a man! +% +Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before. + -- Mae West +% +Bi now, gay later! +% +Bill and Jim were walking home from work. As they walked along, they +discussed their wives' spending habits. "I don't understand how women +can spend so much money," Bill exclaimed. "I mean, understand, she +don't drink, and she's got her own pussy!" +% +Bill had just returned from a week of honeymooning, and his best +friend asked him how it went. + "The first night we did it nine times," Bill said. "The second +night, eight times. The third night, seven times. The fourth night, six +times. The fifth night, five times. The sixth night, four times, and the +last night, nothing!" + "Nothing?" his pal asked. "How come?" + "Hey, you ever tried putting a marshmallow in a parking meter?" +% +Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night. + -- Woody Allen +% +Bookstores will soon be stocking a volume called "The Unsensuous +Census Taker". It's about a guy who comes once every ten years. +% +Brain on vacation, penis on autopilot. +% + "Breakfast sometime?" + "Sure." + "Shall I call you or just nudge you?" +% +"But if it's 80% glucose, then why does it taste salty?" + -- Anonymous med school student. +% +... But the reward of a successful collaboration is a thing that cannot +be produced by either of the parties working alone. It is akin to the +benefits of sex with a partner, as opposed to masturbation. The latter +is fun, but you show me anyone who has gotten a baby from playing with +him or herself, and I'll show you an ugly baby, with just a whole bunch +of knuckles. + -- Harlan Ellison +% +But we've only fondled the surface of that subject. + -- Virginia Masters, of Master & Johnson +% +Buy old masters. They fetch better prices than old mistresses. + -- Lord Beaverbrook +% +Call for Ms. Lingus, Ms. Connie Lingus... +% + "Can you hammer a 6-inch spike into a wooden plank with your penis?" + "Uh, not right now." + "Tsk. A girl has to have some standards." + -- "Real Genius" +% +Chaste makes waste. +% +Chastity is its own punishment. +% +Claude believed that only smart attractive people had the right to fuck, +and it sincerely hurt him when he discovered evidence to the contrary. + -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" +% +Close the door, let me give you what you've been waiting for!! +% +Coffee without caffeine. Beer without alcohol. Milk without fat. +What's next? Bridal suites with bunk beds? + -- Orben's Current Comedy +% +Coito ergo sum. +% +Coitus is punishment for the happiness of being together. Live as +ascetically as possible... that is the only possible way for me to +endure marriage. But she? + -- Franz Kafka +% +College is like a woman -- you work so hard to get in, and nine months later +you wish you'd never come. +% +Come up and see me sometime. Come Wednesday, that's amateur night. + -- Mae West +% +Commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% +Communists do it without class. +% +Computer scientists are programmed to do it by macro insertion. +% +Condoms are like listening to a symphony with cotton in your ears. + + [Taking a shower in raincoat? Ed.] +% +Condoms are the feminists' revenge on men for diaphrams. + -- Robin Williams +% +Confucious say: + a smart man knows on which side his broad is better. +% +Confucious say: + boy who play with himself pulls boner. +% +Confucious say: + child conceived in back seat of car with automatic transmission + turn out to be shiftless bastard. +% +Confucious say: + eplileptic woman who give blow-job may bite big one. +% +Confucious say: + fool man climb tree to get cherries; wise man spread limbs. +% +Confucious say: + Kotex not best thing on earth, but next to best. +% +Confucious say: + man and mouse the same, both end up in pussy. +% +Confucious say: + man who arrives late to party will find himself beaten to the punch! +% +Confucious say: + man who beat off in car have hot rod. +% +Confucious say: + man who fights with wife all day, gets not peace at night. +% +Confucious say: + man who fishes in other man's well often catch crabs. +% +Confucious say: + man who go to bed with sex problem wake up with solution in hand. +% +Confucious say: + man who kicked in testicles get left holding bag. +% +Confucious say: + man who kiss girl's behind, get crack in face. +% +Confucious say: + man who lay girl on hill, not on level. +% +Confucious say: + man who lie under car, get tired -- man who stand behind car, + get exhausted. +% +Confucious say: + man who live in glass house should bathe in the basement. +% +Confucious say: + man who lose key to girlfriend's apartment get no new key. +% +Confucious say: + man who make love on ground have piece on Earth. +% +Confucious say: + man who make oral love to epileptic woman may get tongue-tied. +% +Confucious say: + man who marry girl with no bust has right to feel low down. +% +Confucious say: + man who pull out too fast leave rubber. +% +Confucious say: + man who screws near graveyard is fucking near dead. +% +Confucious say: + man who sleep in road wake up with run-down feeling. +% +Confucious say: + man who sleeps with old hen finds it's better than pullet. +% +Confucious say: + man who streak unsuited for work. +% +Confucious say: + man who suck nipples make clean breast of things. +% +Confucious say: + man with athletic finger make broad jump +% +Confucious say: + man with head up ass have shitty outlook on life. +% +Confucious say: + man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day. +% +Confucious say: + modern house without toilet uncanny. +% +Confucious say: + passionate kiss like spider web, lead to undoing of fly. +% +Confucious say: + seven days on honeymoon make one hole weak. +% +Confucious say: + squirrel who run up woman's leg not find nuts. +% +Confucious say: + woman should not marry basketball players -- they dribble before + they shoot. +% +Confucious say: + woman who bathe in vinegar have sour puss. +% +Confucious say: + woman who cooks carrots and pees in same pot very unsanitary. +% +Confucious say: + woman who fly upside down in airplane have big crack up. +% +Confucious say: + woman who goes to man's apartment for snack, may get tit bit. +% +Confucious say: + woman who put man in dog house find him in cat house. +% +Confucious say: + woman who ride bicycle peddle ass around town. +% +Confucious say: + woman who slide down bannister make monkey shine. +% +Confucious say: + woman who spring on inner-spring this spring, have off-spring + next spring. +% +Confucious say: + woman's virginity like balloon, one prick and all gone. +% +Conserve energy -- make love more slowly. +% +Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never +entrusts its life to one hole only. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +Couples in motion have moments. +% +Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've +seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves. + -- Brendan Behan +% +Cunnilingus is next to cleanliness. +% +Cunnilingus is next to godliness. +% +Dance is the vertical expression of a horizontal intention. +% +"Darling", said the young bride, "tell me what's bothering you. +We promised to share all our joys and sorrows, remember?" + "But this is different," protested her husband. + "Together, darling," she insisted, "we will bear the burden. +Now tell me what our problem is." + "Well," said the husband, "we've just become the father of a +bastard child." +% +"Darling," he breathed, "after making love I doubt if I'll +be able to get over you -- so would you mind answering the phone?" +% +"Darling," she whispered, "will you still love me after we are married?" + +He considered this for a moment and then replied, "I think so. I've +always been especially fond of married women." +% +Dear Abby: + I just met the most terrific girl and we get along fabulously. I +think she's the one for me. There's just one problem: I can't remember +from our first date if she told me she had TB or VD. What should I do? + --Confused + +Dear Confused: + If she coughs, fuck her. +% +Demonstrating once again the importance of the lowly comma, this +telegram was sent from a wife to her husband: + "NOT GETTING ANY, BETTER COME HOME AT ONCE." +% +Desperate because her husband hadn't made love to her in months, a lonely +housewife finally mustered her courage and went to their doctor for advice. +The doctor was very sympathetic and wrote out a prescription for pills that +were guaranteed to rekindle the husband's ardor in a big way. "They'll make +him horny as hell," the doctor confided, "but they're very potent, so just +put one in whatever he's drinking." + Upon arriving home, the woman left the pills on the kitchen counter +and dashed off to the supermarket. It didn't take long before the cat jumped +up, knocked them over onto the floor, and ate a couple, as did the family +dog. And when the husband got home with a headache, he took a few thinking +they were aspirin. + When the housewife returned, she was horrified to see the dog humping +the cat and the cat jumping all over the dog, but even stranger was the sight +of her husband with his penis inside the pencil sharpener on the counter. +"What in heaven's name are you doing, John?" she cried. + "See that mosquito?" he replied. +% +Dial 911. Make a cop come. +% +Did Detroit invent the back seat to destroy the morals of America? + -- Ed Sanders +% +Did you ever notice that everyone in favour of birth control has already +been born? + -- Benny Hill +% +Distributed Systems people do it loosely coupled. +% +DIVE!!! DIVE!!! DIVE!!! +UP PERISCOPE!!! + +(Ooops, sorry, wrong fantasy.) +% +Do I like getting drunk? Depends on who's doing the drinking. + -- Amy Gorin +% +Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? +% +Do not stoop to tie your laces in your neighbor's melon patch. +% +Do something big -- fuck a giant. +% +"Do you cheat on your wife?" asked the psychiatrist. + +"Who else?" answered the patient. +% + "Do you smoke after sex?" + "Why, do you know, I've never looked!" +% +Doctors take two aspirin and do it in the morning. +% +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 +% + Does anyone know how to get chocolate syrup and honey out of a +white electric blanket? I'm afraid to wash it in the machine. + +Thanks, Kathy. (front desk, x17) + +p.s. Also, anyone ever used Noxema on friction burns? Or is Vaseline better? +% +Doin' it in the dark, down in Rock Creek Park. +% +Don't knock masturbation, it's sex with someone I love. + -- Woody Allen +% +Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash. + -- Bo Diddley +% +Don't look now -- your office mate is a pederast!!! +% +Don't look now, but your mother is having sex with a horse. +% +Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at all seasons, madam: +that is all there is to distinguish us from the other animals. + -- Pierre de Beaumarchais, "Le Marriage de Figaro" +% +Dry fucking: that's man on top of woman, the action is the same as fucking, +but you're dressed. It's great for the girl... you're hitting and rubbing +exactly the area that you ought to be... I still like that. + -- Grace Slick +% +During a session with a marriage counselor, the wife snapped at her +husband: "That's not true, I do enjoy sex!" Then, turning to the counselor, +she added: "But this fiend expects it three or four times a year!" +% +Ed, a traveling salesman, had his car break down in the middle of a +blizzard. He trudged to a nearby farmhouse where the farmer told him that, +while they were short of beds, he could sleep with his daughter. She proved +to be eighteen and beautiful. So they went to bed, and shortly, Ed made a +pass at the daughter. "Stop that!" she said. "I'll call my father." + He desisted. But half an hour later he made another attempt. "Uh, +stop ... that," she said. "I'll call my father." + But she moved closer to him, so he made a third try. This time, no +protest, no threat. Just as Ed, satisfied, was about to drowse off, she +tugged at his pajama sleeve. "Could we do that again?" she asked. + Ed obliged, and this time fell asleep only to be awakened by the +tug at his sleeve. "Again?" + And again Ed obliged. But when his sleep was once more interrupted +by the tugging at his pajama sleeve, Ed indignantly pulled it away from her +and mumbled, "Stop that! Or I'll call your father." +% +EE's do it without shorts. +% +Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. +% +Evangelists do it with Him watching. +% +Ever notice that the women who are against abortion are the ones you +wouldn't want to fuck in the first place? + -- George Carlin +% +Every dog has its day, but the nights belong to the pussycats. +% +Every harlot was a virgin once. + -- William Blake +% +Everyone in the smart nightclub was amazed by the old gentleman, +obviously pushing 70, tossing off manhattans and cavorting around the dance +floor like a 20-year old. Finally curiousity got the best of the cigarette +girl. "I beg your pardon, sir," she said, "but I'm amazed to see a gentleman +of your age living it up like a youngster. Tell me, are all of your faculties +unimpaired?" + The old fellow looked up at the girl sadly and shook his head. "Not +all, I'm afraid." he said. "Just last evening I went nightclubbing with a +girlfriend -- we drank and danced all night and finally rolled into her place +about two A.M. We went to bed immediately, and I was asleep almost as soon +as my head hit the pillow. I woke around three-thirty and nudged my girl." + "Why, George," she said in surprise, "we did that fifteen minutes ago." + "So you see," the old boy said sadly, "my memory is beginning to +fail me." +% +Except for 75% of the women, everyone in the whole world wants to have sex. + -- Ellyn Mustard +% + Farmer Johnson was drunk again. + "You know, Anna," he said to his long-suffering wife, "if you could +only lay eggs we could get rid of all those damn chickens." + Anna said nothing. Farmer Johnson tried again. "You know, Anna, if +only you could give milk we could get rid of that expensive herd of cows." + Anna looked at him coolly. "You know, Jack," she said, "if only you +could get it up once in a while we could get rid of your brother Bob." +% +Father: Son, it's time we talked about sex. +Son: Sure, Dad, what do you want to know? +% +Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity. +% + "First, I'm going to buy you a few drinks and get you a little tight," +said the guy aggressively. + "Oh, no, you're not," said the girl. + "Then I'll take you to dinner at the most exclusive restaurant in +town." + "Oh, no, you won't." + "Then I'll take you to my apartment and mix up a pitcher of daiquiris." + "Oh, no, you won't." + "Then I'm going to make violent, mad, passionate love to you." + "Oh, no, you're not." + "And I'm not going to take any precautions either!" said the guy. + "Oh, yes, you are!!" said the girl. +% +Floppy now, hard later. +% +For a gay time, call 555-9483. Ask for Brucie. +% +For a good time, call 555-9484. Ask for Cathy. +% +For a good time, call 555-9485. Ask for Michael. +% +For children, a woman. +For pleasure, a boy. +For sheer ecstasy, a melon. +% +For flavor, instant sex will never supercede the stuff you have to peel +and cook. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +For her first week's salary the gorgeous new secretary was given an +exquisite nightgown of imported lace. The next week her salary was raised! +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #15 + +Sex: + Women prefer 30-40 minutes of foreplay. Men prefer 30-40 seconds of +foreplay. Men consider driving back to her place as part of the foreplay. + +Maturity: + Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year-old females can +function as adults. Most 17-year-old males are still trading baseball cards +and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school +romances rarely work out. + +Handwriting: + To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just +chicken-scratch. Women use scented, colored stationary and they dot their +"i's" with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their +"p's" and "g's". It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even +when she's dumping you, she'll put a smiley face at the end of the note. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #18 + +Sexual frequency: + The average man would prefer having sex every evening, or every +morning, or maybe both if he's under 25. The average woman would like to +have sex non-stop all weekend, once a month. + +Shopping: + It's no coincidence that L.L. Bean, Sears, and Roebuck were all men. +Men don't like to shop. If a man can't foist the job off on some woman, he +will grit his teeth and plan the outing as he would a jungle expedition. +He wants a map of the store showing where he has to go to get item X in +color Y in the correct size, which he doesn't know. Even then it takes him +half an hour to get there from the entrance. When he's finally accomplished +his mission, he'll discover that he forgot his checkbook. Women shop to +relax. +% +Fortune personals: + SDW/M, 35, offers French lessons for ladies. + If you desire fluency in the French tongue, + this cunning linguist can lick your problem. + Fortune -- P.O. Box 478 +% +Fortune Personals: + SWBiM, 29. Gr/Fr/Mild English. Have + own moose, hoop. Sincere inquiries + only. Discreet. Fortune P.O. Box 1910. +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #3. + +Kie estas la plej proksima masa^gejo? Where's the nearest massage parlor? +Vi dolorigas min. You're hurting me. +Mi deziras viziti usonan kuraciston. I want to see an American doctor. +Mi deziras a^ceti kontraugraveda^jojn. I would like to buy some + contraceptives. +^Cu tiu estis ankau bona por ci? Was it good for you too? +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #4. +Mia ^svebo^sipo estas plena je angiloj. My hovercraft is full of eels. +Neniu anticipas la hispanan No one expects the Spanish + Inkvizicion. Inquisition. +La solvo estas kvardekdu. The answer is forty-two. +Adiau, kaj dankoj por ^ciom da fi^so. So long, and thanks for all the fish. +^Cu estas krajono en via po^so, au ^cu Is that a pencil in your pocket, + vi feli^cas pri vidi min? or are you happy to see me? +% +Fortune understands that the vote on a bill to legalize bisexuality +could go either way. +% +Fortune's Guide to Movies: +G: No girl. +PG: The hero gets the girl. +R: The bad guy gets the girl, then the good guy gets the girl. +X: The hero still gets the girl in the end, but he's never sure + which end it will be. +XXX: Everybody gets the girl. +% + FROM THE DESK OF + Snow White + +Dear Snow White: + + Thanks for last night. + + Sleepy, Doc, Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy, Dopey, Bashful +% +Gardeners do it in raised beds. +% + "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at More Science High has an extracurricular +activity except you." + "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?" + "Only to ten, Mudhead." + + -- Firesign Theater +% +Gentlemen prefer blondes, but who says blondes prefer gentlemen? + -- Mae West +% +Geometry teaches us to bisex angels. +% +George, after tying on a whopper the night before, woke up in the morning to +find a pathetically unattractive woman sleeping blissfully beside him. He +leaped out of bed, dressed quickly, and furtively placed $100 on top of the +bureau. He then started to tiptoe out of the room. But, as he passed the +foot of the bed, he felt a tug at his trouser leg. Glancing down, he saw +another female even homelier than the one he'd left in bed. She gazed up +at him soulfully, and asked, "Nothing for the bridesmaid?" +% +Girls are like pianos. When they're not upright, they're grand! +% +Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don't are ladies. This is, +however, a rather archaic use of the word. Should one of you boys happen +upon a girl who doesn't put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you +have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +Girls would never stay out late if guys didn't make them. +% +Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you. + -- Mae West +% +Go out with girls Dutch treat -- pay for dinner, drinks, and the movie, +and the rest of the evening is on her. +% +God built a compelling sex drive into every creature, no matter +what style of fucking it practiced. He made sex irresistibly pleasurable, +wildly joyous, free from fears. He made it innocent merriment. + Needless to say, fucking was an immediate smash hit. Everyone +agreed, from aardvarks to zebras. All the jolly animals -- lions and +lambs, rhinoceroses and gazelles, skylarks and lobsters, even insects, +though most of them fuck only once in a lifetime -- fucked along +innocently and merrily for hundreds of millions of years. Maybe they +were dumb animals, but they knew a good thing when they had one. + -- Alan Sherman, "The Rape of the A*P*E*" +% +Hackers do it bottom-up. +% +Hackers do it with all sorts of characters. +% +Hackers do it with bugs. +% +Hackers do it with fewer instructions. +% +Hackers have kernel knowledge. +% +Hackers know all the right MOVs. +% +Hang gliders go down very slowly. +% + Harry constantly irritated his friends with his eternal optimism. +No matter how bad the situation, he would always say, "Well, it could have +been worse." + To cure him of his annoying habit, his friends decided to invent a +situation so completely black, so dreadful, that even Harry could find no +hope in it. Approaching him at the club bar one day, one of them said, +"Harry! Did you hear what happened to George? He came home last night, +found his wife in bed with another man, shot them both, and then turned +the gun on himself!" + "Terrible," said Harry. "But it could have been worse." + "How in hell," demanded his dumfounded friend, "could it possibly +have been worse?" + "Well," said Harry, "if it had happened the night before, I'd be +dead right now." +% + Harry was delighted when he found a young woman who accepted his +proposal of marriage as he was pretty sensitive about his artificial leg +and afraid that no one would have him. In fact, he couldn't bring himself +to tell his fiancee about his leg when he slipped the ring on her finger, +nor when she bought the dress, nor when they picked the time and place. +All he kept saying was, "Darling, I've got a big surprise for you," at which +she blushed and smiled bewitchingly. + The wedding came and went, and the young couple were at last alone +in their honeymoon suite. "Now don't forget, Harry, you promised me a big +surprise," smiled the bride. + Unable to say a word, Harry turned out the lights, unstrapped his +leg, slipped into bed, and placed his wife's hand on the stump. + "Hmmmmm," she said softly, "that IS a surprise. But pass me the +Vaseline and I'll see what I can do!" +% +Have you ever tried to tickle yourself? Everybody has some wacko aunt or +uncle that can just point at you and have you rolling with laughter. But +if you shove your fist in your underarm for a week and a half you won't +laugh. Somehow your underarm just knows that it's *your* fist. Thank God +other parts of our bodies are dumber. +% +Having discovered the possibility that other creatures could be used +for sexual intercourse, early man was likely to have made many such +attempts... though it is doubtful that he was so sexually carnivorous +as the Christian and Jewish Adam, who, rabbinical interpreters of the +Old Testament tell us, had intercourse with every creature before God +finally hit upon the idea of woman and created Eve. + -- R. E. Masters +% +Having lost his potency years before, the octogenarian was desperate to +satisfy his new 18-year-old wife. He visited a gypsy woman with magical +powers. + After the man downed a foul-tasting potion, the gypsy said, "There. +Now the words beep-beep will give you an enormous erection. Repeating +the phrase will make it disappear. But remember," she cautioned, "it will +work only three times. Make use of them wisely." + As the old man left, he decided to test her prediction. "Beep-beep," +he said, and sure enough, he got the biggest erection of his life. +"Beep-beep", he repeated. It went away. + He sped through traffic on his way home. "Beep-beep," honked a taxi. +The old man gasped as he instantly got hard. + "Beep-beep," honked a truck. His erection wilted. + Pulling into his driveway at last, the frantic man rushed inside +and found his nubile wife lying on the bed reading a novel. + "Have I got a surprise for you," he said, tearing off his clothes. +"Beep-beep!" + "Hold on a second," his wife said, eyeing his magnificent erection. +"What's all this beep-beep shit?" +% +He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural. + -- William Shakespeare, "Twelfth-Night" +% +He had heard that a certain whorehouse had a reputation for the bizarre. +So he drove to the place and, once inside, asked the Madam if she had anything +unusual for him to try. "Things are pretty slow today," she said, "but I +do have one number you might enjoy." She went on to describe a New Jersey +hen that had been trained to do blow jobs. + "We've got her here, but only for the day." + The visitor could hardly believe it, but he paid the fee and went +into a room with a hen. After a frustrating hour of trying to force his +cock into the hen's mouth, he figured out that he was dealing with nothing +but a plain old chicken. He left. Thinking about it later, he decided +that he had had so much fun trying that he returned the few days later and +asked the Madam, "Do you have anything new today?" + "Come this way," she said, and led him to a dark room where a group +of men were looking through a one-way mirror. He saw that they were watching +a girl making it with a large doberman pinscher. + "Wow!" he said to the man standing next to him. "This is really +great!" + The man replied, "Man, it ain't nothin'! You shoulda been here +a week ago and seen the guy with the chicken!" +% +He used to kiss her on her lips, but it's all over now. +% +He was not only a great swordsman, but also a cunning linguist. +% +He was so ugly hookers used to tell him, "Not on the first date." +% +He who findeth sensuous pleasures in the bodies of lush, hot, +pink damsels is not righteous, but he can have a lot more fun. +% +He's gallantry personified, in fact, his brochures ought to +read satisfaction guaranteed, or your virginity returned intact. +% +He's learned about 50% of the rules of sex and conversation; +he knows how to stick it in, but not how to stick it out. +% +He: "If I made love to you, would you yell?" +She: "What do you want me to yell?" + -- Benny Hill +% +He: Do you like Kipling? +She: Oh, you naughty boy, I don't know! I've never kippled! +% +Heisenberg may have done it. +% +Hello, children!! + This is Uncle Dennis welcoming you to your very own fortune. + Today we are going to hear a story, so sit right here on my lap + and we can all start. Comfortable? Ah, yes, ah... Ah? Ah!! + + One day, Rikki, the magic Pixie, went to visit Daisy Bumble in her + tumbledown cottage. He found her in the bedroom. Roughly he + grabbed her heaving ******* pulling her down on the bed and + hurriedly ripping off her thin *******. + + Old Nick, the Sea Captain was a rough tough jolly sort of fellow. + He loved the life of the sea and he loved to hang out down by the + pier where the men dressed as ladies ****** **** ******* ******* + of ***** ****** **** the ****** with a melon. + + Rumpletweezer ran the Dinky Tinky shop in the foot of the Magic + oak tree by the wobbly dum-dum tree in the shade of the enchanted + glen down in Dingly Dell. Here he sold contraceptives, ******** + and various appliances *** ******** *** ***** naked fun and ***** + the ******** ******* *** into six or seven pairs. +% +Help! I'm a lesbian trapped in a gay man's body! + -- Bisexuality, 101 +% +Her kisses left something to be desired: the rest of her. +% +Hey baby! + +How 'bout a brutal face fuck? +% +HEY KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: + Remember, oral sex CAN cause pregnancy, unless you use an +oral contraceptive. See your family planning clinic today! +% +HEY, KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: + Masturbation isn't as simple as it looks. Do it right! +Send 50 cents for my illustrated booklet "Masturbation techniques +for the teenager". Be sure to specify the male or female edition. +% +HOT TUB TIPS FOR WOMEN + Vol. I -- Etiquette + +1. It's not lady-like to straddle a water jet, moan in ecstasy, and then + scream at the top of your lungs, "Oh, yes, YES, BABY!" +2. Washing your partner's back is sexy. Washing your panty hose is not. +3. Nude bathing with strangers can be a pleasant experience; don't spoil + it for everyone with a thoughtless remark, such as "My God, I've + seen bigger wangs on hamsters!" +4. It's O.K. to pass a joint while tubbing. Don't pass anything else. +5. Don't think you're fooling anybody by passing off your vibrator as a + toy submarine. +% +How come if you're horny it's lust, but if she's horny it's affection? +% +How soon can you have sexual relations after your wife delivers? +Well, depends on if she's in a ward or a private room. +% +Hunters make the best lovers; they go deeper into the bush, shoot more often +and *always* eat what they shoot. +% +I believe in sex and death -- two experiences that come once in a lifetime. + -- Woody Allen +% + "I believe you have the wrong number," said the old gentleman into +the phone. "You'll have to call the weather bureau for that information." + "Who was that?" his young wife asked. + "Some guy wanting to know if the coast was clear." +% +I bet you have fun chasing the soap around the bathtub. + -- Princess Diana, to a one-armed war veteran during + a visit to a London veterans hospital +% +I bet you think you're pretty cool driving around without auto insurance. +You're probably saying to yourself, "I'm beating the system." But what's +going to happen when you get pulled over and lose your license because +you're not insured. What girl's going to ride shotgun on a ten-speed on +a Saturday Night? Yeah, you're going to be beating more than the system... + -- auto insurance ad, heard on KNAC, Long Beach. +% +I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the +afternoon. I cannot understand the love affair. + -- Gore Vidal +% +I don't discriminate on the basis of sex. + -- Bisexuality, 101 + + [An equal opportunity lover? Ed.] +% +"I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!?" +% +"I don't really mind her being unfaithful," sighed the man to his +marriage counselor, "but I just can't sleep three in a bed." +% +I don't remember ever having had the itch, and yet scratching is one of +nature's sweet pleasures, and so handy. +% +"I finally found out what my ranch foreman husband really meant," sobbed +the recent bride, "when he told me he'd love me 'til the cows came home." +% +I had a virgin once. I had to go to Guatemala for her. She was blind +in one eye, and she had a stuffed alligator that said, "Welcome to Miami +Beach." + -- The Stunt Man +% +"I have credit with this madam who runs a string of super callgirls," +the executive reminisced at his club bar, "but when I got the bill for +the great head session one of them pleasured me with, I must say that +it was enough to make a blown man cry." +% +I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us +take our fill of love until the morning. + -- Proverbs 7:17-18 +% +I heard there was a lot of sex on television these days, +but when I tried it I kept falling off. +% +I only date queers. + -- Bisexuality, 101 + + [I'm not queer, but my boyfriend is! Ed.] +% +"I own my own body, but I share" +% +I really had to act; 'cause I didn't have any lines. + -- Marilyn Chambers +% +I think I'll snatch a kiss and flee. + -- Shakespeare +% + "I think my wife may be getting somewhat overweight. + "Oh, how can you tell?" + "Well, last night when she sat on my face, I couldn't hear the stereo." +% +I think pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything else +that has ever happened, and vice versa. + -- Frank Zappa +% +"I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it." +% +I thought Jackie O. was something you did in the bathroom. + -- Strange de Jim +% +I want a girl that can swallow my pride. + -- Frank Zappa, "Jewish Princess" +% +I want the same things all men do, Rice Krispies and some sucking. + -- Dudley Moore +% +I was on vacation in Greece last summer, and was being driven round an island +by a Greek cab-driver. He was a friendly man, and as we drove, he told me +about various historic and scenic places he had been involved with. + "See the entrance to that church over there? I built that with my +two sons. But do they call me `Dimitri the church builder'? Do they hell!" + As we passed a dam, he said, "See that dam? Four of us built that +dam by ourselves! But do they call me `Dimitri the dam builder?' Hell, no!" + As we passed a beautiful cottage, Dimitri started up again -- "See +that house? I built that for my wife with my own two hands! But do they +call me `Dimitri the home builder'? No! But just one little sheep!" +% +I went to a wild party last night. I tell ya, it was so wild, we played +a new version of Russian roulette. We passed around six girls and one +of them had V.D. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I wonder what the leash and collar set does for excitement? + -- Tramp, "Lady and the Tramp" +% +I wouldn't fuck her with your prick. +% +I'd like to meet the man who invented sex and see what he's working on now. +% +I'd walk a mile for a Camel, two for a hump. +% +"I'll tell ya, Jeb," Wilbur said to his friend, "the tractor business ain't +doin' too well. I ain't sold one all month. + "You think you've got problems?" Jeb replied. "The other day, I went +out to milk Daisy, when she swatted me in the face with her tail, like she +always does. So I took some twine and tied it to the rafters. When I sat +down again, she kicked me like she always does. So I tied her leg to the +side of the stall. When I started to sit down again, I could see her taking +aim with her other leg, so I tied it to the other side of the stall. And I'll +tell you what," he continued with a sigh, "if you can convince my wife I was +gonna *milk* that cow, I'll buy a tractor from you!" +% +I'm a bisexual; I get it maybe twice a year. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I'm a gay man trapped in a lesbian's body! + -- The Queer Gospels of Madonna the Sloppily Conceived +% +I'm against group sex because I wouldn't know where to put my elbows. + -- Martin Cruz Smith +% +I'm for bringing back the birch, but only for consenting adults. + -- Gore Vidal +% +I'm for peace -- I've yet to see a man wake up in the morning and say +"I've just had a good war." + -- Mae West +% +I'm going to Iowa for an award. Then I'm appearing at Carnegie Hall, +it's sold out. Then I'm sailing to France to be honored by the French +government -- I'd give it all up for one erection. + -- Groucho Marx +% + "I'm looking for adventure, excitement, beautiful women," cried the +young man to his father as he prepared to leave home. "Don't try to +stop me. I'm on my way." + "Who's trying to stop you?" shouted the father. "Take me along!" +% +"I'm not against women. Not often enough, anyway." + -- NPR +% +I'm unbuttoning your shirt, unzipping your jeans.... + +Oh, I can feel your fingers on the keys, baby, + I'm getting WARM.... + +I am getting there, oh yes,. Oh, my. OH YES... OHHHH! + ...!!!rrrrrgh!!!!! + +Honey, that was *really* terrific, but, next time, +couldn't you please input a little SLOWER? +% +I've been told that it's far more sensous to have a woman leave something +on rather than being totally nude. Myself, I've always felt that the lights +were more than enough. +% +I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes +me claustrophobic, and the others either give me a stiff neck or lockjaw. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% +If all these sweet young things were laid end-to-end, I wouldn't be a +bit surprised. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +"If anyone wants to trade a couple of centrally located, well-cushioned +showgirls for an eroded slope 90 minutes from Broadway, I'll be on this +corner tomorrow at 11 with my tongue hanging out." + -- S. J. Perelman +% +If being bi increases your chance of getting a date, does being poly +increase your chance of getting dumped? +% +If ever you want to touch the hand and the heart of God Almighty, you can +do it through the body of someone you love. Anytime. Anywhere. Without +no middleman. + -- Theodore Sturgeon, "Godbody" +% +If God had meant for us to have group sex, he'd have given us more organs. + -- Malcolm Bradbury +% +If God had wanted people to give blow jobs, he wouldn't have given them teeth. +% +If it flies, floats or fucks, rent it, don't buy it. + -- Tommy Earl Bruner +% +If it weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +If only is was as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly as it is to +masturbate. + -- Diogenes the Cynic +% +If sex is a pain in the ass, you may be doing it wrong. +% +If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to? + -- Bette Midler +% +If they can't take a joke, then fuck 'em. + +If they can, then fuck 'em. +% +If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out. + +If thy dick offends thee, whack it off. +% +If you could get an erection, you would have no need for Emacs. +% +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 think sex is a pain in the ass, try a different position. +% +If you're Catholic you've only got two choices: periodic abstinence and +complete continence. + +You know ... + +rhythm and blues. +% +If you're gonna sleep with someone whose moral code may be written +in Fortran for all you know, at least make sure there's an existing +friendship of some sort to fall back on if things don't work out +like one or the other of you planned. +% +If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no +longer be fantasies. + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +In the stands here I see a young couple who must be in love -- they're +kissing on every pitch. He's kissing her on the strikes, and she's +kissing him on the balls. + -- Harry Caray, a Chicago sportscaster +% +Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right. + -- Woody Allen, "All You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex" +% +Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? + -- Mae West +% +It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and +it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight +into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. + -- Voltaire +% +It is better to be on penicillin, than never to have loved at all. +% +It is better to have a positive Wasserman than never to have loved at all. +% +It is considered normal to consecrate virginity in the general and lust +for its destruction in the particular. +% +It is far better to sleep with an old hen than pullet. +% +It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. +Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other +half are doing it. + -- Winston Churchill + [Right. Tell it to Oscar.] +% +It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it is one +damn thing over and over. + -- Edna St. Vincent Millay +% +It is not wise to make love more than once in the morning. +You never know who you'll meet later in the day. +% +It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that +virginity could be a virtue. + -- Voltaire +% +It is very difficult to look at the possibility of lesbian sheep because +if you are a female sheep, what you do to solicit sex is to stand still. +Maybe there is a female sheep out there really wanting another female, +but there's just no way for us to know it. + -- Anne Perkins, in her study of sexuality in sheep. +% +It must be admitted that we English have sex on the brain, which is a +very unfortunate place to have it. + -- Malcolm Muggeridge +% +It was her wedding night, and the sweet young thing was in a romantic haze. +"Oh, darling," she sighed, "We're married at last. It's all like a wonderful +dream!" + Her husband didn't answer. A few moments passed. She sighed again +and said, "I'm afraid I'll awake in a moment and find it isn't true." + Still no response from her spouse. Another pause and another +sensuous sigh, then, softly, "I just can't believe that I'm really your +wife." + "Damn it," growled her mate, "as soon as I get this shoelace untied, +you will!" +% +It was his third marriage and her fourth. He was quite surprised when on +their honeymoon she pleaded, "Please be gentle, I'm still a virgin." + "Darling, what do you mean you're still a virgin? You've been +married three times." + "Yes, but they all worked for DEC. The first was a salesman, +and all he ever did was promise how good it would be. The second was one +of their software hacks, he told me to take care of it myself. And the +third was a field service representative, and he kept promising that it +would be up in 15 minutes. +% +It was this guy's first day in the penitentiary; he was in a cell with a +huge burley inmate, and he was pretty nervous. At lights-out, the inmate +jumped out of his bunk, and, turning to our hero, said, "We're going to +have sex! You want to be the Mommy or the Daddy?" + A very terrified hero managed to squeak out, "Uh, well, uh, I guess +I'll be the Daddy." + "OK," smiled his roommate, "get down here and suck your Momma's dick!" +% +It's a question of Napleon brandy versus Ripple. +I am mellow and amber and I go down real smooth. + -- Rita Moreno, commenting in Newsweek on the sex appeal + of older women versus younger women +% +"It's always the same," the girl sighed to her roommate after returning +in the wee, small hours. "Afterward, I feel so compromised, so cheap, so +soiled... so absolutely wonderful from head to toe!" +% +It's been so long since I made love I can't even remember who gets tied up. + -- Joan Rivers +% +It's easy to make a friend. What's hard is to make a stranger. +% +It's hard to keep a good girl down -- but lots of fun trying. +% +It's not pretty being easy. +% +It's not the ups and downs of love, it's the ins and outs. +% +It's the sighs that count. +% +Kamikazes do it once. +% +Kissing, petting, and even intercourse are all right as long as they are +sincere. I have never given a kiss in my life that wasn't sincere. As +for intercourse, I'd say three times a day was about right. + -- Margaret Sangor +% +Large cats can be dangerous, but a little pussy never hurt anyone. +% +Lawyers do it to everyone. +% +Let a Field Service Engineer put it in. +% +Lick-a-dee-clit! +% +Like I said, love wouldn't be so blind if the braille weren't so damned great! + -- Armistead Maupin +% +Lisp hackers + ... do it in CARS. + ... do it with tail recursion. + ... first do it in the front, then do it in the back. + ... have DEFUN while doing it. + ... have to be bound to do it. + ... have Moby dicks. +% +Lisp hackers have to be bound (to-do 'it) ... +% +Lisp programmers do it deeper and deeper and deeper. +% +Little known facts: the dirtiest words used on television during the +1950's were uttered by June Cleaver. + "Gee, Ward, weren't you a little hard on the Beaver last night?" +% + Little Red Riding Hood was walking through the woods on her way to +visit her grandmother when a wolf jumped out from behind a tree. + "Aha!" the wolf said, "Now I've got you, and I'm going to eat you." + "Eat, eat, eat," said Little Red Riding Hood angrily, "Damn it, +doesn't anybody fuck anymore?" +% +Love ain't nothin' but sex misspelled. +% +Love comes in spurts. + -- Devo, "Please Please" +% +Love does not make the world go around, just up and down a bit. +% +Love is blind but desire doesn't give a good goddam. + -- James Thurber +% +Love is eating her even when she's not having her period. +% +Love is just for now ... herpes lasts forever. +% +Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin -- it's the triumphant +twang of a bedspring. + -- S. J. Perelman +% +Love is the answer; but while you are waiting for the answer, sex +raises some pretty good questions. + -- Woody Allen +% +Love is the desire to prostitute oneself. There is, indeed, no exalted +pleasure that cannot be related to prostitution. + -- Charles Baudelaire +% +Love is two minutes and fifty-two seconds of squishy sounds. + -- Johnny Rotten +% +Ma Bell runs a baudy house. +% +Make war not sex. (It's safer.) +% +Many nice things suck. +% +Marriage has driven more than one man to sex. + -- Peter De Vries +% +Marriage is like a bank account. You put it in, you take it out, you +lose interest. + -- Professor Irwin Corey +% +Masturbation is the thinking man's television. + -- Christopher Hampton +% +Masturbation! The amazing availability of it! + -- James Joyce +% +Math is to physics like masturbation is to sex. +% +Mathematicians + ... do it in groups. + ... do it in theory. + ... take it to the limit. +% +Mathematicians do it in theory. +% +Mathematicians do it with a small, imaginary part. +% +Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is +described as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number can play. + -- James Blish, "Beep/The Quincunx of Time" +% +Mathematicians take it to the limit. +% +Mathematicians take it to the limit. +% +Meanwhile back at the oasis, the Ay-rabs wuz busy a-eatin' their dates! +% +Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Granny was a-beating off the Indians, but +they jus' kept on a-comin'. Back at the outhouse, things were a-pilin' up. +And, as the U.S. Fourth Calvary mounted the hill, Tonto, cleverly disguised +as a doorknob, came off in the Lone Ranger's hand. +% +Meetings are an addictive, highly self indulgent activity that corporations +and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot +actually masturbate. + -- Dave Barry +% +Mickey Mouse has a long talk one day with a psychiatrist, after which +the psychiatrist interviews Minnie Mouse. A few days later Mickey meets +with the psychiatrist, and the following conversation ensues: + +Sigmund : I talked with Minnie after talking with you. +Mickey : Oh? +Sigmund : I couldn't find anything wrong with her -- she isn't insane. +Mickey : Idiot! I didn't say she was insane -- I said she was + fuckin' Goofy. +% +Morris left for a two-day business trip to Chicago. He was only a few +blocks from his house, when he realized that he had left the airplane +tickets on his bureau top. He returned and quietly entered the house. +His wife, in her skimpiest negligee, was standing at the sink washing +the breakfast dishes. She looked so inviting that he tiptoed up behind +her, reached out, and squeezed her breast. + "Leave only one quart of milk," she said. "Morris won't be here +for breakfast tomorrow." +% +Most fish live underwater, which is a terrible place to have sex because +virtually anywhere you lie down there will be stinging crabs and large +quantities of little fish staring at you with buggy little eyes. So +generally when two fish want to have sex, they swim around and around for +hours, looking for someplace to go, until finally the female gets really +tired and has a terrible headache, and she just dumps her eggs right on the +sand and swims away. Then the male, driven by some timeless, noble instinct +for survival, eats the eggs. So the truth is that fish don't reproduce at +all, but there are so many of them that it doesn't make any difference. + -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every + Teen Should Know" +% +Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity +to be otherwise. + -- Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" +% +Most women look for a man who is tall, dark and hung some. +% +Moustache rides, 50 cents. +% +Mrs. Johnson had a very beautiful and intelligent parrot. He had just one +problem: He liked to fuck Mr. Hawkins' chickens. Mrs. Johnson scolded him +time and time again, but he would just laugh at her. Finally, she told him +that if he did it again, she would cut off all of the feathers on the top of +his head. Well, he resisted the urge for a week, but one day, he just +couldn't resist going next door. Besides, he figured she was bluffing. + Well, Mr. Hawkins came over, ranting and raving about how the parrot +had been fucking his chickens again. Mrs. Johnson didn't say a word, just +took out her scissors and cut off all of the parrot's head feathers. + That night, Mrs. Johnson had a big party at her house. Before it +started, she took the parrot and put him on top of the piano by the front +door. "Since you disobeyed me today, you have to stay here on the piano +tonight. Now, don't you dare move." + Well, the parrot was pretty pissed off about having his head bare, +and he wasn't too happy about having to spend the whole evening on the piano. +Still, as he usually did, when the butler would announce the guests as they +arrived, he would say hello to them. Just then, two bald-headed men came to +the door. + Before the butler could say anything, the parrot yelled, "Okay, you +chicken-fuckers, up here on the piano with me!" +% +Musing on her present and past professions as "dominant/sadomasichism +fantasy fulfiller" and dental hygienist, Sybil said, "I couldn't really +understand why I wanted to be a dental hygienist, but years later, after +being in the SM world a long time, I figured it out: I'm in uniform, +they're not. I'm standing up, they're lying down. I'm doing painful +things to them for their own good. This is so ME." + -- The Daily Cal, September 29, 1992 In an article titled: + "Kinky sex remains alive and whipping despite threat + of AIDS, book reveals" +% +My girlfriend's favorite erotic position is bending over my credit cards. +% + "My husband commits an inconceivable act of perversion with a +barnyard animal, and it's not central to my case?!" + "Not in California." +% +My idea of a wild party is where you throw the girls' panties at the wall +and they stick. + -- Johnny Bob +% + "My mother," said the sweet young steno, "says there are some things +a girl should not do before twenty." + "Your mother is right," said the executive, "I don't like a large +audience, either." +% +My mother-in-law broke up my marriage. One day my wife came home early from +work and found us in bed together. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +My mothers are wholly ignorant of the almost universal prevalence of secret +vice, or self-abuse, among the young. Why hesitate to say firmly and without +quibble that personal abuse lies at the root of much of the feebleness, +paleness, nervousness, and good-for-nothingness of the entire community? + -- Dr. J.H. Kellogg, "The Ladies Guide", Modern Medicine + Publishing Company, 1895. Dr. Kellogg helped invent + corn flakes and peanut butter. In addition to denouncing + masturbation, he believed that smoking caused cancer and + that certain ailments could be cured by rolling a + cannonball on the stomach. +% +My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I +want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want +to screw again as long as I live. + -- Erica Jong +% +My schoolmates would make love to anything that moved, but I never saw any +reason to limit myself. + -- Emo Philips +% +My sex life hasn't been so good; either fist or famine. +% +My wife and I only smoke after sex. I've had the same pack since 1967. +She's up to three packs a day. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +National Sex Week -- don't let your meat loaf. +% +Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows. Watch who you sleep with. +% +Never ask your lover if he'd dive in front of an oncoming train for +you. He doesn't know. Never ask your lover if she'd dive in front of an +oncoming band of Hell's Angels for you. She doesn't know. Never ask how many +cigarettes your lover has smoked today. Cancer is a personal commitment. + Never ask to see pictures of your lover's former lovers -- especially +the ones who dived in front of trains. If you look like one of them, you are +repeating history's mistakes. If you don't, you'll wonder what he or she saw +in the others. + While we are on the subject of pictures: You may admire the picture +of your lover cavorting naked in a tidal pool on Maui. Don't ask who took +it. The answer is obvious. A Japanese tourist took the picture. + Never ask if your lover has had therapy. Only people who have had +therapy ask if people have had therapy. + Don't ask about plaster casts of male sex organs marked JIMI, JIM, etc. +Assume that she bought them at a flea market. + -- James Peterson and Kate Nolan +% +Never try to keep up with the Joneses; they might be newlyweds. +% +NEW ADDITION TO THE LIBRARY: + +"Sally", the department's new inflatable doll, is available on +a short-term removal basis only -- please sign her out and return her +promptly to avoid extended waits. (We are still awaiting shipment of +our "Big John" doll.) +% +Newlywed groom: + Honey, I have something to confess to you. I'm a golfer. + You'll never see me on Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, + and weekends. I'm sorry. +Newlywed bride: + I have something even worse to confess, dear. I'm a hooker. +Groom: + Oh, honey, that's no problem! Just keep your head low and follow + through... +% +Nice computers don't go down. +% +Nine out of ten men who preferred Camels have switched back to women. +% +No matter how celebrated the beauty of a woman, I would never spend a night +with her. The only celebrity with whom I would share a night is Max Planck. +But he is dead. So I live like a monk, aside from a little self gratification +in the afternoons. + -- Salvador Dali +% +Not everyone has a one-track mind. + -- From a Bisexuality 101 talk +% +Nothing is better than Sex. +Masturbation is better than nothing. +Therefore, Masturbation is better than Sex. +% +Nurse Jones is a regular on the newsgroup [alt.sex.bondage], and +occasionally has problems with folks harassing her. She came up +with this in response to one... + + Fortunately, my ego isn't as fragile as that woodpecker's wing. + When fratboy called me a dyke I told him that actually I was + bisexual, but that he shouldn't feel threatened because he didn't + meet either of my standards. But if it makes you feel more + comfortable, I said, my husband tied me to the bedposts this + morning and screwed the daylights out of me. + + "Just think," said + + Nurse Jones, + "... that was four + hours ago and + my sperm count + is probably *still* + higher than yours." +% +Nybble me... Byte me... Unsigned long int me... +% +Of course, I speak of nothing else but that classic of understated yet wildly +exciting eroticism, "The Windflower," by Laura London. Ms. London is the +author of such other philosophical block-busters as "Bad Baron's Daughter," +"A Heart Too Proud," "Moonlight Mist," and most thigh-warming of all, "Gypsy +Heiress". Well, glasses-steaming scenes are to be found on every page, to +an extent which overwhelms Your Humble Narrator, and so, in order to save +himself extreme embarrassment, he brings you... the blurb: + + "Every lady of breeding knows: no one has a good time on a pirate +ship. No one, that is, but the pirates. Yet there she was, Merry Wilding +-- kidnapped in error, taken from a ship bound from New York to England, +spirited away in a barrel and swept aboard the infamous "Black Joke"... +There she was, trembling with pleasure in the arms of her achingly handsome, +sensationally sensual, golden-haired captor -- Devon." +% +Of course, most people eventually give up bowling for sex. +The balls are lighter and you don't have to change your shoes. +% +Oh John, let's not park here. +Oh John, let's not park. +Oh John, let's not. +Oh John, let's. +Oh John. +Oh. +% +Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to conceive. + -- Don Herold +% +Oh, baby, put two fingers here and one finger there and call me bitch. +% +Once upon a girl there was a time... +% +Once upon a time there was a farmer who had borrowed a bull to service his +two cows. He put all three animals on a meadow and sent little Johnny to +observe and report any success. A short time later, little Johnny came +running towards the house shouting: "Daddy, Daddy, the bull just fucked the +white cow!" + The father took little Johnny aside and said: "Look, kid, it's +alright if you use that kind of language around me, but the reverend is +going to be visiting soon. So next time, please use another word; just +say that the bull "surprised" the cow." + Johnny agreed and went back to observe any progress. A little +while later, while the preacher was talking to the farmer, little Johnny +came a-running again, shouting: "Daddy, Daddy!" + The father, trying to avoid embarrassing the preacher, said: "I +know, the bull surprised the brown cow." + Little Johnny replied: "He sure did, he fucked the white one again!" +% +Once upon a time there was a farmer who owned a large number of chickens and +made money by selling chickens to a local distributing company. The farmer +wanted to increase his business, and so went to market to buy another rooster. +"This rooster," assured the vendor, "is my best. He's virile and energetic +and will take care of all your chickens!" The farmer, delighted at this, +bought the rooster and returned to his farm. He set the rooster loose among +his hen houses and, sure enough, the rooster enthusiastically went to work. +It wasn't too long, however, before the rooster finished off all the hens and +began on the few geese and ducks that were on the farm. "If you keep up this +rate," warned the farmer, "you'll screw yourself to death!" The rooster, +however, scoffed at the farmer and continued at an increased speed. The next +morning, the farmer was doing his chores when he noticed several buzzards in +the sky circling over something. He headed out behind the barn, and sure +enough there was the rooster, flat on his back, with eyes closed. The farmer +shook his fist at the motionless body and cursed, shouting "I knew it! I told +you so! I knew you'd screw yourself to death!" The rooster turned his head +toward the farmer, opened one eye, and winked. "Shhh!" he said, pointing to +the birds above. "I think they're coming down." +% +Once upon a time there was a little girl named Little Red Riding Hood. One +fine morning she decided to visit her Grandmother, so she put a freshly baked +cake and a .357 magnum into her basket and set off through the forest. When +she got there, what should she find but a big black wolf in the bed, who +jumped up, grabbed her and snarled, "I'm going to fuck you until the sun goes +down." + So Little Red Riding Hood whipped out the .357 and said, "Oh, no, +you're not! You're going to eat me just like the story says!" +% +Once upon a time there was a sperm named Stanley. He'd do pushups and +somersaults and limber up all the time, while the other sperm just lay around +on their fat asses not doing a thing. One day, one of them became curious +enough to ask Stanley why he exercised all day. Stanley said, + "Look, only one sperm gets a woman pregnant and when the right +time comes, I am going to be that one." +A few days later, they all felt themselves getting hotter and hotter, and they +knew that it was getting to be their time to go. They were released abruptly +and, sure enough, there was Stanley swimming far ahead of all the others. +All of a sudden, Stanley stopped, turned around, and began to swim back with +all his might. + "Go back! Go back!" he screamed. "It's a blow job!" +% +Once upon a time there were three coeds -- a big coed, a medium-sized coed, +and a little, tiny coed. One night they came home from a dance, and the big +coed said, "Someone's been sleeping in my bed!" + The medium-sized coed looked in her room and said, "Someone's been +sleeping in my bed!" + And the little, tiny coed said, "Well, nighty-night, girls!" +% +Once you come out as a Pagan bisexual married leatherdyke, the rest of life +is that much easier. +% +One by one the vice-presidents of a large corporation were called into the +boss's office. Then the junior executives were individually summoned. +Finally the office boy was brought in. + "I want the truth, Charles," the boss bellowed. "Have you been +playing around with my secretary?" + "N-no, sir," the office boy stammered. "I-I'd never do anything +like that, sir." + "All right, all right," sighed the boss, "then you fire her." +% +One day a city dweller decided to take a ride in the country. He hopped +into his sportscar, wandered along the highway for a while and then exited +to some very rural dirt roads in the middle of farm country. After awhile, +he came across a farmer who clearly working his fields. The funny thing was, +the farmer didn't seem to be wearing any pants. The man got out of his car +and approached the farmer. + "Hey, buddy," he asked, "how come you're not wearing any clothes?" + Replied the farmer, "Well, boy, th' other day I was out a-workin' +in the fields, an' I plum fergot t' wear mah shirt. Got back to th' house +that night, and mah neck was stiffer than a oak-wood board. This here's +mah wife's idea." +% + One day a mother and daughter are walking around a farming community +and they see a stallion mounting a mare. The daughter takes in the scene and +turns to her mother. "Mommy, what are those two horses doing?" + Her mother hastily answered, "The horse on top hurt its hoof, and the +one on the bottom is carrying him back to the stable." + The daughter shook her head and sadly replied, "Isn't that just the +way it goes? Try to help someone and you get fucked." +% +One day Adam, while wandering around the Garden of Eden, noticed that all +the animals seemed to come in pairs, male and female. He also noted that +they seemed to enjoy being together a lot. So, he went to his special +place and reported to God what he'd noticed. + God, understanding his need, said, "Adam, the time has come for me +to provide you with a mate. Go lie down and when you have fallen asleep, I +will create your mate." + So Adam wandered off, found a nice patch of soft grass and fell +asleep. Some time later he awoke, possibly due to a bit of pain in his +ribs, possibly because of the gorgeous woman leaning over him. Remembering +the animals he'd seen having such fun, he immediately reached for her. +Pretty soon Adam's back at his special place. + "God?" + "Yes, Adam, what now?" + "God, what's a headache?" +% +One day Father O'Malley was walking through the park when he came upon an +enchanting scene. A beautiful little girl with long blond hair, deep blue +eyes, and a dainty white dress was reading under a tree with her adorable +little dog. + What a lovely picture, thought the Father to himself. Walking over, +he asked, "Child, what is your name?" + "Blossom," she replied. + "What a fitting name," exclaimed Father O'Malley. "And how did your +parents come to choose such a pretty name?" + "Well, one day when I was still in my mommy's tummy she was lying +under this very tree when a blossom fell and landed on her stomach. She +thought it was a message from God and decided that I would be a girl and my +name would be Blossom," explained the little girl sweetly. + How charming, thought the priest. He started to say good-bye and +walk away, then turned back. "And the name of your little dog?" he +inquired. + "Porky," was the child's reply. + Again he asked her how the unusual name had been chosen. + "Because he likes to fuck pigs." +% +"One day I got on the usual bus, and when I stepped in, I saw the most +gorgeous blond chinese girl... I sat beside her... I said 'Hi,' and she +said 'Hi,' and then I said 'Nice day, isn't it,' and she said 'Yeah, I +guess'... I said 'What do you mean "you guess"?'... she said 'I saw my +analyst today and he says I have a problem.'... so I asked 'What's the +problem?'... she replied 'I can't tell you, I don't even know you.'... +I said 'Well sometimes it's good to tell your problems to a perfect +stranger on a bus.' So she said, 'Well, my analyst said I'm a nymphomaniac +and I only like Jewish cowboys... by the way, my name is Diane.' I said, +'Hello, Diane, my name is Bucky Goldstein.'" + -- Steven Wright +% +One hundred and one uses for canned peaches. +One hundred and two if you plan to eat them. +% +One man's nightmare is another man's wet dream. +% +One morning after an evening of particularly heavy drinking, a man awoke +and upon rolling over in bed saw one of the ugliest women he had ever +seen. As he was about to get out of bed, he looked on the floor and saw +another woman even less appealing than the first. Seeing his look of +wide-eyed amazement, the woman on the floor snapped, "Don't look at me +like that, I was only the bridesmaid." +% +One night when his charge was pretty high, Micro-Farad decided to +seek out a cute little coil to let him discharge. He picked up Milli-Amp +and took her for a ride on his Megacycle. They rode across the Wheatstone +bridge, around the sine waves, and stopped in the magnetic field by the +flowing current. Micro-Farad, attracted by Milli-Amp's charactaristic curves, +soon had her fully charged and excited, her resistance to a minimum. He laid +her on the ground potential, raised her frequency, and lowered her reluctance. +He pulled out his high voltage probe and inserted it into her socket, +connecting them in parallel and began short circuiting her resistance shunt. +Fully excited, Milli-Amp mumbled: "OHM-OHM-OHM." + With his tube operating at a maximum and her field vibrating with +his current flow, it caused her shunt to overheat, and Micro-Farad was rapidly +discharged and drained of every electron. They Fluxed all night trying +various connections and sockets until his magnet had a soft core and lost +all of its field strength. + Afterwards, Milli-Amp tried self-induction and damaged her +solenoids. With his battery fully discharged, Micro-Farad was unable to +excite his field, so they spent the night reversing polarity and blowing +each others fuses. + -- Eddie Currents, "The Sex Life of an Electron" +% +One of my favorite Zoo jokes has to do with a woman who, while +visiting the zoo, desided to have a little fun with the Gorilla. She walks +up to his cage, reaches in, and begins to fondle the beast. Needless to +say, the animal becomes quite excited, and as he tries to reciprocate in +kind, the woman steps back and gives him a raspberry...! + The gorilla becomes enraged. He rips the bars from his cage, grabs +the woman, drags her back into the cage, and ravishes her. While doing so, +he inflicts a great deal of harm upon her person. + Later, at the hospital, a neighbor of the woman visits and exclaims, +"Oh, you poor dear...! Are you hurt?" + "Hurt!", "Hurt!?" the injured lady sobs, "He doesn't phone. He +never writes..." +% +One of the airlines recently introduced a special half-fare rate for wives +accompanying their husbands on business trips. Anticipating some valuable +testimonials, the publicity department of the airline sent out letters to +all the wives of businessmen who used the special rates, asking how they +enjoyed their trip. Responses are still pouring in asking, + "What trip?" +% +One of the most expensive things in life is a girl who is free for the evening. +% +One of the regular foursome was sick, so a new member named George filled in. +He was good and pleasant company so they asked him to join them again the +following Sunday. + "9:30 okay?" + "Fine," George said, "but I may be a few minutes late." +The following Sunday George showed up right on time. Not only that, he played +left-handed and beat them. They agreed to meet the following Sunday morning. +George was eager to come, but again, mentioned that he might be a few minutes +late. The next Sunday there was George, punctual to the dot. This time he +played right-handed and beat them again. + "You on for next Sunday, George?" one of the foursome asked. + "Sure," George replied, "but I might be a few..." + Another golfer jumped in. "Wait a minute... You always say you might +be late, but you're always right on time, and you always win, left-handed +*or* right-handed." + "Well," George replied, rather sheepishly, "that's true, but see, I'm +superstitious. If my wife is sleeping on her right, when I wake up, I play +right handed. If she's sleeping on her left side, I play left handed." + "What if she's lying on her back?" + George said, "That's when I'm late." +% + One PAYDAY, MR. GOODBAR wanted a BIT O' HONEY. So he took his Miss +HERSHEY behind the POWERHOUSE on the corner of 5th AVENUE and CLARK where he +there began to feel her MOUNDS. And that was an ALMOND JOY which definitely +made his TOOSIE ROLL. + He let out a SNICKER as he slipped his BUTTERFINGER up her KIT KAT +which of course caused the MILKY WAY. She screamed "OH, HENRY!" as she +squeezed his PETER, PAUL and ZAGNUTS and said "you're better then the 3 +MUSKETEERS." + -- John Volby (Dr. Dirty), "The Candy Bar Poem" +% +One should be cherry of virgins. +% +One spring evening, after a hard rain, grandpa and grandson were +sitting out on the porch, talking. Grandpa spied a worm crawling up out +of its hole and said to his grandson, "Sonny, if you can get that there +worm back down its hole, I'll give you five dollars." + "Sure!", says sonny, and runs in the house. Out he runs an +instant later with a can of hairspray, grabs the worm, and sprays it with +the hairspray as it dangles earthward. He then slips the stiff worm back +into its hole and turns to his grandpa with a huge smile on his face. + "Well, I'll be. That was pretty smart there, boy.", he says. +"Here's your fiver.", he adds as he fishes out a bill. By then it's almost +dark, and they say their goodnights and part. + The next day sonny's playing out on the porch, and grandpa comes +out of the house and gives him a five. "But you gave me my five yesterday, +grandpa.", he remarks. + "Yep, I know. This is from your Grandma." +% +Ooooooh, nooooooo, not tonight!! +% +Ooops. Gotta run. My dog wants sex. Later. +% +Operators mount anything! +% +Oral sex is like being attacked by a giant snail. + -- Germaine Greer +% +Other people don't give you orgasms; you have them, and they help you +cash them in. +% +Ouch! That felt good! + -- Karen Gordon +% + "Our school, madame, postulates, first of all, that since the +science of mathematics is an abstract science, it is best inculcated by +some concrete example." + Said the Queen, "But that sounds rather complicated." + "It occasionally leads to complications," Jurgen admitted, "through +a choice of the wrong example. But the axiom is no less true." + "Come, then, and sit next to me on this couch if you can find it in +the dark; and do you explain to me what you mean." + "Why, madame, by a concrete example I mean one that is perceptible +to any of the senses -- as to sight or hearing, or touch --" + "Oh, oh!" said the Queen, "now I perceive what you mean by a concrete +example. And grasping this, I can understand that complications must of +course arise from a choice of the wrong example." + -- James Branch Cabell, "Jurgen" +% +Painters do it with even strokes. +% +Passion is that funny feeling that drives a man to bite a woman's neck +because she has beautiful legs. +% +Pee-wee Recommends: + +When Pee-wee Herman was arrested that evening in Sarasota, Florida, +the bill at the XXX South Trail Cinema featured: + + + Nurse Nancy, starring Sandra Scream + + Turn Up the Heat, starring Savannah + + Tiger Shark, starring Raven +% +People who live in glass houses should ball in the basement. +% +Perhaps at fourteen every boy should be in love with some ideal woman to put +on a pedestal and worship. As he grows up, of course, he will put her on +a pedestal the better to view her legs. + -- Barry Norman, in "The Listener" +% +Persistence, like perspiration, is 99 percent of the fine art of love. +% +Philosophy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex. + -- Karl Marx +% +Physicists do it with charm. +% +Picking up a man in a bar is like a snowstorm, you never know when +he's coming, how many inches you'll get or how long'll he'll stay. +% +Politicians do it to everyone. +% +Postulate #1: Nothing is better than sex. +Postulate #2: Masturbation is better than nothing. +Conclusion: Masturbation is better than sex. +% +Pouring out his troubles to his best friend over a couple of triple martinis, +Brad had to confess that things weren't going too well at home. "My wife and +I just don't hit it off at night," he was saying to Bart. "I hate to admit +it, but I'm afraid I just don't know how to make her happy." + "Hell, boy," said Bart, "there's really nothing to it. Let me +give you some advice. At bedtime, switch on a new Sinatra platter, turn +all the lights low and spray some perfume around the room. Next, tell +your wife to get into her sheerest nightie; then make sure you raise the +bottom window." + "Then what do I do?" asked Brad. + "Just whistle." + "Whistle?" + "That's right. I'll be waiting outside the window. When I hear +you whistle, I'll come right up and finish the job." +% +Pregnancy -- the worst sexually transmitted disease of them all. +% +Pregnancy begins with a single sell. +% +Printers do it without wrinkling the sheets. +% +Probably the question asked most often is: Do one-celled animals have +orgasms? The answer is yes, they have orgasms almost constantly, which is +why they don't mind living in pools of warm slime. + -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every + Teen Should Know" +% +Procrastinators do it tomorrow. +% +Programmers do it bit by bit. +% +Programmers do it until it goes down. +% +Programmers get overlaid. +% +Prostitution is the only business where you can go into the hole and +still come out ahead. +% +Psychiatry is quite similar to prostitution, only less honest. They both +promise to make people feel better, but the prostitute doesn't make +pretensions that the feelings will last once the client walks out the door. +% +Ralph: Lisa, you have no tits and a awful tight pussy. +Lisa: Ralph... get off my back!! +% +Rating women on the Budweiser scale; the number of Clydesdales it would take +to pull you off her. +% +Reach out and fuck someone. +% +Remember when you were a kid and the boys didn't like the girls? Only +sissies liked girls? What I'm trying to tell you is that nothing's +changed. You think boys grow out of not liking girls, but we don't grow +out of it. We just grow horny. That's the problem. We mix up liking +pussy for liking girls. Believe me, one couldn't have less to do with +the other. + -- Jules Feiffer +% +Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over. + -- Frank Zappa +% +Remember, when preparing a dish for bedtime, champagne is the best tenderizer. +% +Returning from the men's room, a bar customer was sadly, shaking his head. + "What's the matter, buddy?", inquired the bartender. + "Well," replied the customer, "while I was in the men's room, I saw +someone had scribbled `Wendy gives really fabulous head; absolutely the best +blow job in the world!' on the wall." + "Ahh, hell," said the bartender. "Don't give it a second thought, +we get jerks in here like anywhere else." + "I know," snarled the headshaker. "One of them scratched out the +phone number!" +% +Revenge is sleeping with your enemy's wife. Sweet revenge is the realization +that she's a lousy lay. +% +Rogue players do it with all sorts of different animals. +% +Roses on your piano isn't nearly as good as tulips on your organ. +% +Runners do it alone. +% +Santa Claus comes down the chimney and the nubile sixteen-year-old +has been waiting for him. Santa sees her, and in typically unflappable +Santa-style says, "And what do you want for Christmas, little girl?" + The girl, and she's not so little, tells him. Well, Santa is +definitely flapped by this, but he manages to come out with, "Ho ho ho, +gotta go, gotta get the children their toys, you know." + The girl, not to be daunted, takes off her robe. "Aw, please stay +Santa," she begs. + He replies, "Ho ho ho, gotta go, gotta get the children their toys, +you know." + She then takes off her pajama top, her firm pouting breasts pointing +at Santa like an accusation. "Aw, please stay Santa," she pleads. + "Ho ho ho, gotta go, gotta get the children their toys, you know." + Finally, she takes off her pajama bottoms, revealing to Santa her +warm mound of delight. "Aw, please stay, Santa," she begs. + Being only mortal, Santa finally gives in, sighing, "Hey hey hey, +gotta stay, can't get up the chimney with my dick this way." +% +Satyrs have more faun. +% +Save a forest - eat a beaver! +% +Save a mouse, eat a pussy! +% +"Scott, baby," the sexually aggressive girl murmured as she guided her +date's finger to her clitoris, "This bud's for you." +% +Seems like there were these two dogs in a vet's waiting room, each eyeing +the other suspiciously. One of them turns to the other. + "What are you here for?" he asks. + "Well," replies the other, "I was feeling really bad the other day, +and Master's six year old son started bothering me. I tried to ignore it, +but I was feeling so rotten that I bit his hand." + "Yeah, I now what you mean. So, what are you here for?" + "Erm ... well ... Master reckons that I'm too vicious, so I'm going +to be ... you know ... I'm going to have the *operation*." + "Oh. Well, I'm sorry," sympathised the first dog. + Time passed. The about-to-be-neutered dog coughed politely. + "So," he asked, "What are you in here for?" + "Oh, nothing really," the other replied, embarrassed. + "Go on, I told you, it *can't* be as bad!" + "OK. Well, it's like this. The bitch next door was in heat, and so +I was feeling, you know, a bit randy. Then Mistress came into the kitchen +wearing a short skirt and no underwear, and she bent over. I just couldn't +resist it!" admitted the dog. + "Oh! So you're here for the operation too!" + "No," came the reply, "I'm here to have my nails clipped!" +% +Seems like this guy is hitting up on a woman in a bar. After assiduously +pursuing her for several minutes, she leans forward and tells him that he's +a nice guy and all that, but, well, that she's a lesbian. Confused, he asks +her what that means. + "Well," she replies, "you see that woman at the corner table?" + "Yeah..." + "I'd like to walk over to her, and unbottom her blouse." + "Yeah..." + "And then I'd like to kiss her and suck on her nipples... and +then I'd like to take off her skirt... and run my hand over her thighs..." + "Right! Right!" interrupts the guy. "I think I'm a lesbian too!" +% +Seems there was this traveling salesman who wandered into a brothel and +asked the madam for a woman who would give him the absolutely worst blow-job +imaginable. Not horny, just homesick. +% +Seems this guy notices a young nun sitting on the bus; through her heavy veil +he just spots a glimmer of her face. Gorgeous! She moves, and her vestments +cannot hide the fact she has a truly phenomenal body. The guy gets more and +more excited until he finally approaches the nun and tells "Sister, please +believe me, I don't normally do this sort of thing, but I think I love you. +Could we maybe talk?" + The nun almost runs off the bus. As the young man's stop comes up, +the bus driver asks the guy if he was the person bothering the nun. The man +starts apologizing, but the bus driver interrupts him. "No, don't apologize, +I was checking her out myself. Listen, you see where she got on? She goes +there every day, to a little park. Why don't you meet here there?" + Sure enough, the man goes to the park the next day and there's the nun +in a secluded grove of trees. He approaches her, and she seems, although shy, +much more willing to talk. After an hour of cautious talk, he asks her if +she'd be willing to make love with him. She blushes, smiles, blushes again +and says "yes". But that she doesn't dare risk getting pregnant, so it would +have to be the "back door". + As they start to make love, the young man is overcome with guilt; +panting, he says, "Sister, I have to tell you, I'm the guy who was annoying +you on the bus yesterday. + Replies the nun, "Well, that's okay. I'm not really a nun. I'm +actually the bus driver." +% +Seems this guy showed up at a party, and all of his friends jumped for +Joy. But she sidestepped, and they missed. +% +Self-abuse is the most certain road to the grave. + -- Dr. George M. Calhoun, 1855 +% +Sex and drugs and UNIX. +% +Sex and mathematics have one thing in common. You can do each while thinking +about the other. +% +Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got. + -- Sophia Loren +% +Sex discriminates against the shy and ugly. +% +Sex hasn't been the same since women started enjoying it. + -- Lewis Grizzard +% +Sex is a biological function; kissing is a commitment. +% +Sex is a natural bodily process, like a stroke. +% +Sex is about as important as a cheese sandwich. But a cheese sandwich, +if you ain't got one to put in your belly, is extremely important. + -- Ian Dury +% +Sex is an emotion in motion. + -- Mae West +% +"Sex is as honest a product benefit for fragrance [perfume] as taste is +for diet Coke." + -- Malcolm DacDougall +% +Sex is better than grass, if you have the right pusher. +% +Sex is dirty, but only if you do it right. +% +Sex is good, but not as good as fresh sweet corn. + -- Garrison Keillor +% +Sex is just one damp thing after another. +% +Sex is like a bridge game -- If you have a good hand no partner is needed. +% +Sex is like pizza -- when it's good, it's great; and when it's bad, +it's still darn tasty! +% +Sex is low in calories, and *oooh* that aftertaste! +% +Sex is nobody's business but the three people involved. +% +Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. + -- Swami X +% +Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation ... the other eight +are unimportant. + -- Henry Miller +% +Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated. + -- M. C. Reed +% +Sex is the poor man's opera. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +Sex is what women have and men want. +% +Sex without class consciousness cannot give satisfaction, even if it is +repeated until infinity. + -- Aldo Brandirali (Secretary of the Italian Marxist-Leninist + Party), in a manual of the party's official sex guidelines, + 1973. +% +Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, +it's one of the best. + -- Woody Allen +% +Sex; it's always best when one partner is at least a little bit desperate. +% +Sexual enlightenment is justified insofar as girls cannot learn too soon +how children do not come into the world. + -- Karl Kraus +% +She asked me if I loved her still. "Yes," I replied. "I've never had +you any other way." +% +She called her parakeet Onan, because he spilled his seed. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +She was a farmer's daughter but she couldn't keep her calves together. +% +She was only a mortician's daughter but anyone cadaver. +% +She was only: + a coal digger's daughter, but she'll always be mine. + a statistician's daughter, but she knew all the standard deviations. + a wrestler's daughter, but you should have seen her box. + a moonshiner's daughter, but I love her still. + a chimney sweep's daughter, but she sure knew how to haul ash. + a fireman's daughter, but her face was a cause for alarm. + a banker's daughter, but she opened her drawers for cash. +% +She was wearing a very tight skirt, and when she tried to board the Fifth +Avenue bus she found she couldn't lift her leg. She reached back and +unzipped her zipper. It didn't seem to do any good, so she reached back +and unzipped it again. Suddenly the man behind her lifted her up and put +her on the top step. + "How dare you?" she demanded. + "Well, lady," he said, "by the time you unzipped my fly for the +second time I thought we'd become good friends." +% +She's fine, upstanding, and wonderful laying down. +% +She's looking for: He's looking for: Foreplay: +1957 Someone who'll go Her: Finding a place to put +Mr. Nice Guy all the way her gum + Him: Wondering which word would + best describe her breasts + to the guys + +1967 Someone who's got The first ten minutes +Mr. Natural rolling papers and of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" + will go all the way + +1977 Someone who'll go Testing the batteries +Mr. Goodbar all the way in leg + warmers and a leather + face mask + +1987 Someone who's never Examination of the genitalia +Mr. Clean gone all the way in under the magnifying glass + San Francisco that Grandma used for needle- + point before she passed away + -- Michael Corcoran, "National Lampoon", October 1987 +% +She's the kind of woman you could fall madly in bed with. +% +"Sir", said the beggar, "can you spare fifty dollars for a cup of coffee?" + +"Fifty dollars for a cup of coffee, one should be sufficient!", +answered the gentleman, rather shortly. + +"I know", replied the beggar, "but coffee always makes me horny." +% +Sixteen'll get you twenty. +% +So this elderly couple were sitting in their tiny cold water flat on the +lower East Side when the husband said, "Doris, we're in bad shape. Inflation +has eaten up our Social Security check. The next one isn't due for a week +and we've got no money left for food." + "Could I do anything to help?" she asked. + "Yes," he said. "I hate to see you do this but it's the only way. +You're going to have to go out and hustle." + "Me?" she asked. "At the age of sixty-five?" + "It's the only way," he said. +Resigned to the situation, she went out into the warm night. She came +staggering in early the next morning. + "How did you do?" asked the husband. + "Here," she said, "I've got four dollars and ten cents." + "Four dollars and ten cents," he said . "Who gave you the ten cents?" + "Everybody," she said. +% +So, how's your love life? Still holding your own? +% +So, your daughter was voted "Most Likely to Conceive", and you're still +drinking ordinary scotch? +% +Sodomy is a pain in the ass. +% +Some of the greatest love affairs I've known have involved one actor, +unassisted. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +Some women achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust into them. +% +Some women are like musical glasses. To keep them in tune they must be wet. + -- Samuel Coleridge +% +Statisticians do it with 95% confidence. +% +Statisticians probably do it. +% +Sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains excite me!!! +% +Sure eating yogurt will improve your sex life. People know that if +you'll eat that stuff, you'll eat anything. +% +Systems people do it with a small, but clean, interface. +% +Teaching undergraduates is like herding sheep. And, like the old Basque +sheepherder explained, whenever the livestock starts looking good to you, +it's time to spend a night in town. +% +Teen-age prostitution: the problem is mounting! +% +Test makers do it: + A: sometimes + B: always + C: never + D: none of the above. +% +That girl could suck the chrome off a bumper. +% +That reminds me of a friend of mine who went north to work on the Alaskan +pipeline. Before he went up there, he was just a skinny little runt. When +he got back, he was a husky fucker. +% + "That wife of mine is a liar," said the angry husband to a +sympathetic pal seated next to him in a bar. + "How do you know?" the friend asked. + "She didn't come home last night, and when I asked her where +she'd been she said she'd spent the night with her sister Shirley." + "So?" + "So, she's a liar. I spent the night with her sister Shirley." +% +That's the most fun I've had without laughing. + -- Woody Allen, on sex +% +The abbess of a nunnery was instructing a group of novices on the house rules +of her particular order. The indoctrination period, which went on for hours, +began with "No washing of undies in the founts," and ended with "Lights out at +nine. Candles out at ten." +% +The best way to cut off a cat's tail is to repossess his Jaguar. +% +The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments +to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. +It's just that they need more supervision. +% +The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that +sex for money usually costs a lot less. + -- Brendan Francis +% +The blind daters had really hit it off and at the end of the evening, as +they were beginning to undress each other in his apartment, the fellow said, + "Before we go any further, Charmaine, tell me -- do you have +any special fetishes that I should take into account in bed?" + "As a matter of fact," smiled the girl, "I do happen to have a foot +fetish -- but I suppose I'd settle for maybe seven or eight inches." +% +The bottom-up approach always gets me buggered. + -- Sidney J. Hurtubise +% +The butcher, the baker, the candlestick make her, why can't I? +% +The country girl who became a city madam has obviously gone from rags to rigids. +% +The difference between a sorority girl and a bowling ball is that you can +only get three fingers in a bowling ball. +% +The difference between her and the Titanic is that only 1100 men went down +on the Titanic. +% +The difference between like and love is the same as the difference between +a spit and a swallow. +% +The difference between women and girls is as much as twenty years, +in some states. +% +The doctor had just finished giving the young man a thorough physical +examination. "The best thing for you to do," the M.D. said, "is give up +drinking, give up smoking, get to bed early and stay away from women." + +"Doc, I don't deserve the best," pleaded his patient. "What's second best?" +% +The first time we slept together she drove a recreational vehicle into +the bedroom. + -- Richard Lewis +% +The five-alarm fire had been raging out of control for hours, pouring thick, +black smoke over the street. At last the blaze was under control and the +fire chief began accounting for his men. Two were missing, so he ordered +a search. Captain Kelly finally rounded a fire truck parked in an alley +and found, to his shock, one fireman with his trousers down leaning over a +garbage can and another fireman screwing him in the ass. + "What's the meaning of this!", the captain roared. + "Jones here had passed out from smoke inhalation," the fireman on +top panted. + "You're supposed to give mouth to mouth resuscitation for that!" +the captain yelled. + "I know. That's what started this," the fireman replied. +% +The fucking ain't worth the fighting. +% +The girls that go to see a man's etchings may not know art ... + +but they know what they like! +% +The good doctor had been an inspiration to the jungle natives. He had cured +their sick and taught them the religious and moral values of his own England. +He was loved and respected by every native in the village, but on this +particular afternoon the chief was obviously troubled as he entered the +doctor's hut. "You live among my people long time now," said the chief. +"You tell us not right for a man and girl to be close together before +marriage and we believe what you say. This morning white child born to +woman in village. You only white man in jungle. What I tell my people?" + The doctor smiled and led the chief to a window. "My son," he said, +"I'll won't attempt to give you a full scientific explanation for the +phenomenon known as an albino. But look at the flock of sheep upon that +hill. Every one is snow white except one. The white baby born to the +woman in your village means nothing more or less than that one black sheep +in the white flock. It is simply one of nature's mysterious accidents." + The black chief became embarrassed and looked at his feet. "OK, doc," +he said. "You no tell -- I no tell." +% +The good news is that the horse is dead, but your mother's pregnant. +% +The good thing about masturbation is that you don't have to dress up for it. + -- Truman Capote +% +The hacker as a mate/lover and the signs of trouble: + +-- The morning after note reads: + Whiting, Barbara: + I enjoyed last night. We really interfaced. You looked so cute + I wanted to byte your ear. +-- He believes Steve Wozniak offered the Apple to Adam. +-- The people he tries to emulate are five years his junior. +-- The last straw: + Once again, your date has lost all track of time debugging a new + program and shows up an hour late. + + You Don't...: + Make nasty asides regarding his 5-1/4 inch floppy. + You Do...: + Remind him that "going down" doesn't necessarily + indicate a malfunction. +% +The harder they come, the more important it is to have an extra-firm mattress. +% +The honest female orgasm is three to fifteen rhythmic contractions of the +outer third of the vagina at .8 second intervals, which is approximately +the beat of Surfing Safari" by the Beach Boys. Unless these contractions +occur, you can regard her groaning, moaning, clawing, kicking, begging for +mercy, and shouting filthy religious epithets as bargain-basement histrionics. + -- John Hughes, National Lampoon +% +The honeymoon is over when a quickie before dinner refers to a short drink. +% + The hungover couple dawdled over a midafternoon breakfast, after a +particularly wild all-night party held in their fashionable apartment. + "Dearest, this is rather embarrassing," said the husband, "but +was it you I made love to in the library last night?" + His wife looked at him reflectively and then asked, "About what time?" +% +The husband was disturbed by his wife's indifferent attitude towards him +and the marriage counselor suggested he try being more aggressive in his +lovemaking. + "Act more like a romantic lover and less like a bored spouse," he +was advised. "When you go home, make love to her as soon as you meet -- +even if it's right inside the front door." + At the next consultation, the adviser was pleased to hear that the +husband had followed his instructions. "And how did she react this time?" +the consultant asked. + "Well, to tell you the truth," the husband replied, "she was still +sort of indifferent. But one thing I've got to admit: her bridge club went +absolutely wild!" +% +The husband wired home that he had been able to wind up his business trip a +day early and would be home on Thursday. When he walked into his apartment, +however, he found his wife in bed with another man. Furious, he picked up his +bag and stormed out. He met his mother-in-law on the street, told her what +had happened and announced that he was filing for divorce in the morning. + "Give my daughter a chance to explain before you take any action," +the older woman pleaded. Reluctantly, he agreed. + An hour later his mother-in-law phoned the husband at his club. +"I knew my daughter would have an explanation," she said, a note of triumph +in her voice. "She didn't receive your telegram!" +% +The Italian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, "I Can't Get No +Contraception", has been withdrawn after the Pope advised them to pull it out +at the last minute. + -- Not the Nine O'Clock News +% +The king arranged a regal marriage for his daughter -- a bond that would unite +two great kingdoms. Yet, because the young couple seemed so formal to each +other, he posted a spy outside the royal wedding chamber and demanded a full +account of the wedding night's progress. + "It's hard to tell," said the spy the next morning. "When the prince +entered the chamber, I heard the princess say, quite formally, 'I offer you my +honor.' Then the prince said, with equal courtliness, 'I honor your offer.' +And that's the way it went all night long -- honor, offer, honor, offer. +% +The largest gay community in the U.S. (as a percentage of total population) +is not in San Francisco, but in Iowa Falls, Minnesota (pop. 763), a small +town in which virtually everyone is gay. In 1976, a group of about 100 +gays fleeing persecution in the South settled in the town, and soon won a +majority on the town council. Ordinances prohibiting heterosexual acts +soon followed. "After all," said mayor Harry Whalen, "If the Supreme Court +has refused to strike down laws prohibiting homosexual acts, then our +anti-straight laws are equally valid." Rigorous enforcement of those laws +has resulted in a community that is now almost 100% gay. Said one long-time +resident: "I've lived here 35 years and didn't want to leave, but I didn't +want to give up sex either. Then my neighbor Ed came over one night, and +said how about I do it with him, and my wife Millie could do it with his +wife. Well, I found it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was gonna be. +Fact is, I rather like it." +% +The little boy pointed to two dogs in the park and asked his father what +they were doing. "They're making puppies, son," replied the father. + That night, the boy wandered into his parents' room while they were +making love. Asked what they were doing, the father replied, "Making you +a baby brother." + "Gee, Dad," the boy pleaded, "turn her over -- I'd rather have a +puppy." +% + The little old lady rushed into the taxidermist and unwrapped a package +containing two recently deceased monkeys. Her instructions to the proprietor +were delivered in a welter of tears. + "Favorite pets... (blubber,sob)... caught cold... (moan)... Don't +see how I'll live without them... (weep,sob)... want to have them stuffed... +(blubber,blubber)!" + "Of course, madam," said the proprietor in an understanding voice, +"and would you care to have them mounted?" + "Oh, no," she sobbed, "shaking hands. They were just close friends." +% +The man and woman make love, attain climax, fall separate. Then she +whispers, "I'll tell you who I was thinking of if you tell me who you +were thinking of." Like most sex jokes the origins of the pleasant +exchange are obscure. But whatever the source, it seldom fails to evoke +a certain awful recognition. + -- Gore Vidal, "New York Review of Books" +% +The man who said "A bird in the hand's worth two in the bush" has been +putting his bird in the *WRONG* bushes. +% +The most pressing issue facing women today is finding a contraceptive +jelly that smells like a fresh fruit salad. +% +The most romantic thing any woman ever said to me in bed was "Are you sure +you're not a cop?" + -- Larry Brown +% +The most unfair thing about STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) is +that the guys who bought vasectomies have to wear condoms anyway. +% +The most unsatisfactory men are those who pride themselves on their +virility and regard sex as if it were some form of athletics at which you +win cups. It is a woman's spirit and mood which a man has to stimulate in +order to make sex interesting. The real lover is the man who can thrill +you by just touching your head or smiling into your eyes -- or just by +staring into space. + -- Marilyn Monroe +% +The nervous young bride became irritated by her husband's lusty advances on +their wedding night and reprimanded him severly. + "I demand proper manners in bed," she declared, "just as I do at +the dinner table." + Amused by his wife's formality, the groom smoothed his rumpled hair +and climbed quietly between the sheets. "Is that better?" he asked, with a +hint of a smile. + "Yes," replied the girl, "much better." + "Very good, darling," the husband whispered. "Now would you +be so kind as to please pass the pussy?" +% + The old mailman is making his last rounds; he retires at the end of +the week. As he approaches the Jones' house, Mrs. Jones greets him warmly at +the door. "Please come in! We're very grateful for your years of service to +us and our neighborhood. I've prepared something special for you." + In walks the mailman, to a graciously appointed dining room, where +Mrs. Jones has prepared a sumptuous lunch. After dumping his letter satchel +on the couch, he and Mrs. Jones have a charming meal. As the mailman finished +his last glass of wine, thanking his hostess profusely, she stops him from +leaving and disappears upstairs. She returns in a moment, in a daring +negligee, and takes the astonished postman to the bedroom, where the elaborate +farewell is consummated between the sheets. + As he's putting his pants on, Mrs. Jones reaches into her nightstand, +pulls out a dollar bill, and hands it to him. Reacting to his astonished +look, she says, "Well, I told my husband that you were retiring and that +we should do something for you. He said 'Fuck him. Give him a dollar!'" +She pauses and smiles proudly. "The lunch was MY idea." +% +The only difference between your current lover and a doorknob is that a +doorknob warms up when you hold it. +% +The only people who make love all the time are liars. + -- Louis Jordan +% +The only psychologically damaging thing about masturbation is that there's +nobody else to blame later for persuading you to do it. +% +The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty +and to someone else if she is plain. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The operator's left hand quivered as she gingerly unlatched the catch to +the diskette reader. Uncontrollably, she reached down, guiding the +sharply pointed diskette into the deep, dark slot. The floppy diskette +nearly folded under the repeated thrusts of her hand, until finally she +could control it no longer, her right hand instinctively taking an option +zero. And then it all came at once, thousands upon thousands of data +bits flowing from diskette to disk in a torrent of torrid transfer, as +the helpless legs of the 32 strained to remain on the floor. +% + The other day my girlfriend and I were going to a party and on the +way there, we got a flat tire. We got out of the car and I pumped, she +jacked I pumped, she jacked, I pumped, she jacked and then we changed the +tire. Eventually we arrived at the party and when we walked in, everyone was +jumping for joy. What a sight seeing her hanging nude from the chandelier! +Well the party was OK, I guess, we just sat around drinking sherry and eating +candy. Everybody else started feeling merry. Those have got to be the three +wildest girls I know. +% +The other night I was having sex, but the girl hung up on me. +% + The outraged husband discovered his wife in bed with another man. + "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded. "Who is this fellow?" + "That seems like a fair question," said the wife, rolling over. +"What IS your name?" +% +The owner of a large furniture store in the mid-west arrived in France +on a buying trip. As he was checking into a hotel he struck up an +acquaintance with a beautiful young lady. However, she only spoke +French and he only spoke English, so each couldn't understand a word +the other spoke. He took out a pencil and a notebook and drew a +picture of a taxi. She smiled, nodded her head and they went for a +ride in the park. Later, he drew a picture of a table in a restaurant +with a question mark and she nodded, so they went to dinner. After +dinner he sketched two dancers and she was delighted. They went to +several nightclubs, drank champagne, danced and had a glorious +evening. It had gotten quite late when she motioned for the pencil and +drew a picture of a four-poster bed. He was dumbfounded, and has never +be able to understand how she knew he was in the furniture business. +% +The passionate young thing was having a difficult time getting across what +she wanted from her rather dense boyfriend. Finally she asked, + "Would you like to see where I was operated on for appendicitis?" + "Gosh, no!" he replied. "I hate hospitals." +% +The penis mightier than the sword. +% +The pleasure is momentary, +The position ridiculous, +The expense damnable. + -- Chesterfield, on sex +% +The pleasure is transitory, the cost prohibitive, and the position ridiculous. + -- Disraeli, on sex +% +The plural of spouse is spice. + -- R. A. Heinlein +% +The police were investigating the mysterious death of a prominent +businessman who had jumped from a window of his 11th story office. His +voluptuous private secretary could offer no explanation for the action +but said that her boss had been acting peculiarly ever since she started +working for him a month ago. + "After my very first week on the job," she said, "I received a +twenty-dollar raise. At the end of the second week he called me into his +private office, gave me a lovely black nightie, five pairs of nylon +stockings and said, 'These are for a beautiful, efficient secretary.' At +the end of the third week he gave me a gorgeous mink stole. Then, this +afternoon, he called me into his private office again, presented me with +this fabulous diamond bracelet and asked me if I would consider making +love to him and what it would cost. I told him I would, and because he +had been so nice to me, he could have it for five dollars, although I was +charging all the other boys in the office ten dollars. That's when he +jumped out the window." +% +The problem with being best man at a wedding is that you never get a chance +to prove it. +% +The quality of a blow-job is determined by the length of sheet you have to +pull out of your ass. +% +The real problem with fucking a sheep is that you have to walk around +in front every time you want to kiss her. +% +The reason big companies have lots and lots of meetings is because +they can't masturbate. +% +The reason people sweat is so they won't catch fire when making love. + -- Don Rose +% +The reason that sex is so popular is that it's centrally located. +% +The requirements of romantic love are difficult to satisfy in the trunk +of a Dodge Dart. + -- Lisa Alther +% +The REVERSE function works on the opposite SEXPR. +% +The romantic young man sat on the park bench with a first date. He was +certain his charming words and manner would win her as they had many others. + "Some moon out tonight,"he cooed. + "There certainly is," she agreed. + "Some really bright stars in the sky." + She nodded. + "Some dew on the grass." + "Some do," she said indignantly, "but I'm not that sort." +% +The sergeant walked into the shower and caught me giving myself a dishonorable +discharge. Without missing a beat, I said... + "It's my dick and I can wash it as fast as I want!" +% +The sex act is the funniest thing on the face of this earth. + -- Diana Rigg +% +The sex was nice, but confusing. The whole situation kept going di-polar +on Sta-Hi. One instant Misty would seem like a lovely warm girl who'd +survived a terrible injury, like a lost puppy to be stroked, a lonely +woman to be husbanded. But then he'd start thinking of the wires behind +her eyes, and he'd be screwing a machine, an inanimate object, a public +toilet. Just like with any other woman for him, really. + -- Rudy Rucker, "Software" +% +The shy young man had been married for three months when he reported to his +doctor that his marriage was still in name only. The doctor, after hearing +the sad tale, told him that waiting until bedtime to make advances was causing +psychological pressure and advised him to take advantage of the next time he +felt in the mood. A week later, the doctor happened to meet the man again, +and noticed a new spring in his step. "My advice worked, I take it?" he +inquired. + The young man grinned. "Perfectly. The other night, we were having +supper, and as I reached for the salt -- so did she! Our hands touched... It +was as if an electric current ran through us. I leaped to my feet, swept the +dishes from the table and then and there consummated our marriage! There's +just one problem, however. We can't go back to The Four Seasons again..." +% +The struggling for knowledge has a pleasure in it like that of wrestling +with a fine woman. + -- Lord Halifax +% +The Supreme Court does it with all deliberate speed. +% +The thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the most +amount of trouble is sex. + [Obviously written by a man--if it's causing so much trouble, + *take* *more* *time*!] +% +The three faithful things in life are money, a dog and an old woman. +% +The three most important parts of a stove: lifter, leg, and poker. +% +The three sexual positions during preganancy. + +During the first four months: Missionary style +During the second four months: Doggie style +And during the last month: Coyote style + +Coyote style? + You sit by the hole and howl. +% +The trouble with incest is that it gets you involved with relatives. + -- George S. Kaufman +% +The two couples were enjoying their vacation together at a resort hotel. They +were in the middle of a game of Scrabble in the lobby when a thunderstorm cut +off the hotel's electricity, leaving little to do but retire to their rooms. +Bill was a rather devout man, so before getting into bed with his companion, +he said his prayers. As he got under the covers, the lightning suddenly +flashed through the window and he discovered that he was in the wrong room. +He instantly jumped up and started to dash for the hallway. "It's too late, +called the girl from the bed, "my guy doesn't pray." +% +The two men feigned friendship but secretly hated each other's guts and took +great pleasure in giving one another the needle on any and all occasions. +This particular evening they met, quite by accident, at a popular bar. +The conversation started innocently enough; then one, with sudden inspiration, +ran his hand over the other's bald head and exclaimed, + "By God, Fred, that feels just like my wife's ass!" +The other ran his own hand over his head and nonchalantly retorted, + "Well, I'll be damned, Jim, so it does, so it does!" +% +The two things that you should never lend out are your car or your woman. +Someone's bound to throw a rod in either one. +% +The very proper spinster didn't go out very often, but she had some important +shopping to do that morning and so decided to have her lunch in what appeared +to be a nice quiet respectable restaurant. With the noontime crowd, many +customers shared their tables with strangers; the spinster selected a seat +next to an attractive, young office girl. The girl finished her sandwich and +coffee, then settled back and lit up a cigarette. The older woman controlled +herself for a few moments and then snapped, + "I'd rather commit adultery than smoke in public." + "So would I," said the girl, "but I only have half an hour for lunch." +% + The way my jeweler explained it, it's like insurance. + Six months' pay isn't much to keep my wife from sleeping around. + +A diamond -- pure, sparkling, natural, flawless, forever. The way marriage +should be but never quite is. People grow and change and sometimes want to +take their clothes off with strangers. So when you invest in a fine piece +of diamond jewelry, you're not only making an investment, you're making a +statement. You're telling the woman you love that you've just spent a lot +of your hard-earned money on her. Now she owes you the kind of loyalty that +only precious jewelry can buy. Isn't she worth it? + + The Honeymoon's Over: from $ 5000 + The Seven Year Itch: from $10000 + No More Lunchtime Quickies: from $15000 + Divorce Would Be More Expensive: from $42000 + + A diamond is for leverage. BeDears +% +The way to a man's heart is through his wife's belly, and don't you forget it. + -- Edward Albee, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" +% +The woman hurried home from her doctor's appointment, devastated by the +medical report she had just received. When her husband came in from work, +she told him, "Darling, the doctor said I have only twelve more hours to +live. So I've decided I want to go to bed and make passionate love to you +throughout the night. How does that sound, dearest?" + "Hey, that's fine for ___you," replied the husband. "You don't have +to get up in the morning!" +% +The young girl was having a heart-to-heart talk with her mother on her +first visit home since starting college. + "Mom, I have to tell you," the girl confessed. "I lost my virginity +last weekend." + "I'm not surprised," said her mother. "It was bound to happen sooner +or later. I just hope it was a romantic and pleasurable experience." + "Well, yes and no," the pretty student remarked. "The first eight +guys felt great, but after them my pussy got real sore." +% + The young man took a blind date to the amusement park. They went +for a ride on the Ferris wheel. The ride completed, she seemed rather bored. +"What would you like to do next?" he asked. + "I wanna get weighed," she said. So he took her over to the weight +guesser. Next they rode the roller coaster. After that he bought her some +popcorn and cotton candy, then he asked what else she would like to do. + "I wanna get weighed," she said, bluntly. + I really latched onto a square one tonight, thought the boy, and +using the excuse that he had developed a headache, he took the girl home. +The girl's mother was surprised to see her home so early, and asked, "What's +wrong, dear, didn't you have a nice time tonight?" + "Wousy," said the girl. +% +The young stud walked into a bordello. After he took his clothes off, the +woman was puzzled to see him put a clothespin on his nose, stuff cotton in +his ears, and put a prophylactic on his penis. + "Hey," she asked, "what the hell are you doing?" + "Well, ma'am", replied the stud, "there are two things I just can't +stand. A screaming woman and the smell of burning rubber." +% +Then there was the girl who was engaged to a gymnast -- 'til he broke it off. +% +Then there was the guy that got badly messed up fighting for his girl's honor. +It seems she wanted to keep it. +% +Then there was the middle-aged businessman who took his spouse to Paris. +After traipsing with her from one mansion du couture to another, be begged +for a day off to rest and got it. With the wife gone shopping again, he +went to the Ritz Bar and picked up a luscious parisienne. They got on +well until the question of money came up. She wanted a hundred American +dollars; he offered fifty. They couldn't get together on the price; so +they didn't get together. That evening he escorted his wife to one of the +nicer restaurants on the Rue de Rivoli, and there he spotted his gorgeous +babe of the afternoon seated at a table near the door. + "See, monsieur?" she said as they passed her. "Look what you got +for your lousy fifty bucks." +% +There are a couple of things about her I greatly admire. +% +There are many ways to say "I love you", but fucking is the fastest. +% +There are so many people wanting a piece of my ass that some of them +are having to take turns. + -- T.K. +% +There are two couples that want to convert to Catholicism. They go +and see a priest and he tells them that the first requirement is to abstain +from sex for thirty days. + Thirty days later, the couples come back to see the priest. He asks +the first couple if they passed the test. + "Father, we didn't so much as TOUCH one another during the last month. + "Congratulations," the priest replies, "you are now qualified to enter +the Church." Then, the priests asked the second couple how they did. + "Well, Father," the husband says, "everything was going just fine +until the 27th day. My wife bent over the freezer to get something out, and +I just happened to notice that she didn't have any panties on. I couldn't +stand it any more, so I walked over to her, dropped my pants, and slipped it +to her right there." + "That's DISGUSTING!", the priest bellows. "I can never let you into +the Church after something like that." + "I understand Father," the man replies sadly, "they won't let us +into Safeway anymore either." +% +There are two trees in the forest. They are very proud trees. One day +they notice a sapling half-way between them. + One tree proclaims, "That is a son of beech!" + "No, that is a son of a birch!" insists the other. + "A son of a BEECH!" + "A son of a BIRCH!" + "Son of a beech!" + "Son of a birch!" + +The fighting attracts a woodpecker who informs them that he can tell what +kind of tree the sapling is by its taste. First he tastes the beech and +the birch. Then he tastes the sapling. "Well now, is that a son of a +beech or a son of a birch?" asks the beech. + "You're both wrong!" says the bird. "That's the best piece of ash +I've had my pecker in for a long time!" +% +There is a definite parallel between shots of tequila and a woman's breasts. +One is not enough and three are too many. +% +There is nothing as overrated as a bad lay, or as underrated as a great shit. +% +There is nothing wrong with screwing everyone in sight. Boring your friends +about it is the sin. + -- Mama Liz +% +There isn't room enough in this dress for both of us! +% +There was once a newly-married couple. Now these two lovers were, well, +rather uptight about using expressions such as "having sex", "getting it on", +or "boffing the brains out". So, they decided to use the euphemism, "doing +the laundry" whenever the topic of sex came up. + One evening, hubby said, "Well, honey, feel like doing some laundry +tonite?", and she consented. The next evening, hubby again asked, "Sweetie, +feel like doing some laundry tonite?" Well, wifey wasn't really in the mood, +but complied. On the third night, when hubby approached her, asking her to +participate in doing still MORE laundry, she replied, "Oh, Hon, I'm really not +in the mood for doing any laundry tonite." + Well, hubby, being a bit disappointed, locked himself in the bathroom +and engaged in a spot of self-abuse instead. Upon returning to the living +room, wifey said, "Well, Poopsie, I've changed my mind -- how about doing +some laundry?" To which he replied, "Oh, no, that's okay, I just did a small +load!" +% +There was something about her I liked, but I couldn't put my finger on it. +% +There will be sex after death, we just won't be able to feel it. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +There's a handsome boy who tells me how I've changed his past. He buys me +a brandy... Could it be he's really just after my ass? + -- Pete Townshend, "How Many Friends" +% +There's many a slurp t'wixt the tip and the zip. +% +There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex? A peanut butter +and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex. + -- Billy Joel +% +There's nothing wrong with America that a good erection wouldn't cure. + -- David Mairowitz +% +These two project managers were walking through a residential area +one day, when they saw a dog (also male) sitting on a lawn, licking its +cock. (Why do dogs do that? Because they can). Anyway, the first manager +nudged the second and said, "Hey, look at that! That really looks like fun +-- I wish I could do that!" + Whereupon the second manager replied, "Well, I don't know... I tried +it once, and the damn dog bit me!" +% +They watched the sun slowly sink behind the hills, and the fiery glow on +the lake fade into darkness. He eyed her shadowy figure, accentuated by +the moonlight, as the tension from within began to fuel his animalistic +desires. She followed him, ever so quietly, as they sought a secluded +corner in the barn. Alone! At last. His hands roamed about her soft +back, around to her thighs, and finally caressed her budding nipples. +Oh, how smooth and succulent she was! "Was it so wrong?", he asked +himself. No, he thought, for his father had done it, as did his own +father, ad infinitum. The boiling, uncontrollable rage within him became +unbearable. She signalled her eagerness, spreading her legs, as he +grasped her nipples again. Stroking, again and again, longer each time. +It began coming; again, again, again, again. His mind raced with fear +"Will it stop?". Exhausted, he lay down beside her. "Dear God, what have +I done?". Suddenly, his father burst in. His eyes burned as he stared +for what seemed an eternity. Finally, his father spoke. + "Son, you ain't supposed to milk the damn cow till mornin'!" +% +This guy was screwing his neighbors wife when a car pulls into the drive. +"My husband!" she screams. He panics and jumps out the window. He finds +himself on the street, naked, under cloudy skies. There is no place to hide +except in a crowd of joggers. As he runs along, a woman looks over and says, + "Do you always jog in the nude?" + "Yes ma'am!" he replies. + "Does it always result in that kind of sexual excitement?" she asks. + "Yes ma'am!" he replies. + "Do you always wear a condom?" + "Only when it rains, lady. Only when it rains." +% +This is a test of the emergency cunnilingus system. If this had been an +actual emergency, you would have known it! +% +This system goes down more often than a two-dollar whore. +% +This time it's for love; next time it's $100.00. +% +Thou shalt not omit adultery. +% +Three gay guys were discussing what they thought their favorite sport would +be. The first decides on football, 'cause of all those gorgeous guys bending +over in their tight pants. + "Definitely wrestling," sighs the second guy. "Those skimpy little +costumes, and think of the holds." + "Definitely baseball," says the third guy. "Why? Well, I'd be +pitching with the bases loaded, the batter would hit a savage one-hopper +right to me, I'd catch it, and I'd just stand there while the other guys +rounded the bases. Meanwhile, the crowd would be going crazy, screaming, +`Throw the ball, you cocksucker!' and that's what I like -- recognition!" +% +Three minutes of serious sex and I need eight hours of sleep and +a bowl of Wheaties. + -- Richard Pryor +% +Three women always hang their laundry out in the backyard. When it rains, +however, the laundry always gets wet. All the laundry, that is, except +for Laurie's. Laurie never seems to have her laundry out when it rains. + So, one day, they are all out in the backyard putting their clothes +on the line when one of the women says to Laurie, "Laurie, how come when it +never rains when you have your laundry out?" + "Well," replies Laurie, "when I wake up in the morning, I check out +my husband Paul. If his penis is hanging over his right leg, I know it's +going to be a great day. If his penis is hanging over his left leg, I know +it might rain. I don't know why it works, but he's never been wrong!" + "Laurie, what if he has an erection?" asks the other woman. + "Honey, on a day like *that*, you don't do the *laundry." +% +Three young women were attending the same logic class given at one of the +better universities. During a lecture the professor stated that he was +going to test their ability at situation reasoning. + "Let us assume," said the prof, "that you are aboard a small craft +alone in the Pacific, and you spot a vessel approaching you with several +sex-starved sailors on board. What would you do in this situation to avoid +the problem?" + "I would attempt to turn my craft in the opposite direction and +flee," said the first girl. + "I would pass them, and hope that I could fend them off," responded +the second woman. + "Frankly," murmured the third woman, "I understand the situation, +but I fail to see the problem." +% +Through a major bureaucratic error, you are made county coroner. +You seriously consider the job because it gives you: + + 1: Lots of unclaimed wedding rings and watches. + 2: Lots of gold fillings and bridges. + 3: Free blood. + 4: A constantly changing array of new friends who aren't at + all stuffy about what happens to their genitalia. +% +To a Real Woman, every ejaculation is premature. +% +To be the kind of girl designed to be kissed between the thighs. +% +To win a woman in the first place one must please her, then undress her, and +then somehow get her clothes back on her. Finally, so she will allow you +to leave her, you've got to annoy her. + -- Jean Giraudoux, "Amphitryon 38" +% +Tri Delts; everyone else has. +% +Two buddies had been out drinking for hours when their money finally +ran out. "I have an idea," croaked Al. "Lesh go over to my housh and borrow +shum money from my wife." + The two of them reeled into Al's living room, snapped on the light, +and lo and behold, there was Al's wife making love on the sofa to another man. +This state of affairs considerably unnerved Al's friend but didn't seem to +affect the husband. + "Shay, dear, you have any money for your ever-lovin' hushban'?" he +asked. + "Yes, yes," she snapped. "Take my purse from the mantle, and for +Pete's sake, turn off those lights." + Outside they examined the purse, and Al proudly announced, "There's +enough here for a pint for you and a pint for me. Pretty good, eh, old buddy?" + "But, Al," protested his friend, somewhat sobered by the spectacle +he'd just witnessed, "what about that fellow back there with your wife?" + "The hell with him," replied Al. "Let him buy his own pint." +% +Two longtime friends sipped Scotch in a local bar and talked about +their troubles. "And on top of everything else," said the first, "my wife +has cut me down to just once a week." + "That's too bad," agreed his friend, "but it could be worse. I know +two guys she's cut off altogether. +% +Two men were standing around talking while nearby a large German Shepherd +lay licking his balls. One man says to the other, "Damn, I wish I could +do that." + The other man replies, "Well, it's okay by me, but I think you +ought to get to know him a little first." +% +Two men, both close to retirement, are working on the assembly line. One +boasts to the other, "Last night I made love to my wife *three* times!" + "Three times!", replies his friend. "How did you do it?" + "Well," says the first man, "I made love to my wife and set the +alarm clock for two hours later. When it went off we made love again. +Then, I reset it for the morning and we made love once more before I came +to work. I feel like a bull!" + His friend says, "Well, that *is* fantastic! I'm going to have +to give it a try." So, he goes home that night and makes love to his +wife. Figuring he doesn't need to set the alarm clock, he settles off +to sleep. Waking up a few hours later, he nudges his wife and they make love +again. Waking up in the morning he makes love to his wife for the third +time. Looking over at the clock he realizes that he's twenty minutes late +for work. He throws on his clothes and runs down to the subway. When +he gets to the factory his boss is standing there waiting. + "Frank", he says, "I've been working for you for 18 years, and I've +never been late before. You've got to forgive me twenty minutes this once!" + "Well," replies his boss, "okay, but it's not the twenty minutes +that had me worried. Where were you Tuesday, where were you Wednesday..." +% +Two midgets arrived at the convent door and asked to speak with the Mother +Superior. Led into her office, the first one asked respectfully "Excuse +me, your holiness, but are there any midget nuns in this convent?" + Receiving a reply to the negative, he asked whether any midget +nuns were to be found in any of the neighboring parish. Again the reply +was no. + The tiny man scratched his head and posed a final question. "Beggin' +your pardon, Mother Superior, but would you know of *any* midget nuns at +all, anywhere?" The nun shook her head. + At which the first midget turned to the second midget, put his hand +on his shoulder, and said, "You see, I told you you fucked a penguin!" +% +Two nuns, a mother superior and a new nun, are walking home one night from +church when they are attacked by two vicious rapists. The two men drag the +nuns off into the bushes and proceed to have their way with them. The mother +superior is very afraid, but she knows that God will protect her. To show her +strength and trust in God she yells out "Forgive him Father, for he knows not +what he does!" + +To which the young nun replies "Oooooh, mine does!!" +% +Two old men are walking down the boardwalk when one of them tells the other +that he has to leave, his wife is expecting him to come home and make love +with her. + The other man is astonished. "Make love to your wife? You're as old +as I am! Nearly eighty years old! What do you mean you have to go home and +make love to your wife?" + The first man smiles and says, "We have a *great* sex life. We make +love every day." + "You're kidding!" says his friend. "How do you do it?" + "Pumpernickel bread. That's the secret." And he dashes off home. + The other man starts to walk home. "Hmmm," he thinks to himself +pumpernickel bread. Well, it's worth a try." So he goes into a nearby +bakery. + Going up to the woman at the counter, he asks for their entire stock +of pumpernickel bread. The woman stares at him in astonishment. "You want +all the pumpernickel bread we have? Are you sure? Don't you know that it +will get hard?" + "How come," demands the man, "everybody knows about this but me?" +% +Two women are talking; one says to the other, "Say, weren't you dating that +cute French horn player? What ever happened to him?" + "Well," replies her friend, we're still seeing each other, but, +I must admit, we've had some problems." + "Problems? What's wrong?" + "You see," says the second woman, "every time he kisses me, he +wants to shove his fist up my ass." +% +Two women were walking down the street, when one nudges the other and says, +"There's my husband coming out of the florist's with a dozen roses, damn it. +That means I'll have to keep my legs up in the air for three days." + +Replies her friend, "Well, why don't you buy a vase?" +% + Two young men seated in a restaurant were watching a customer busily +disposing of a plate of oysters on the half shell. One of the young +men remarked to his friend, + "Did you ever hear that business about raw oysters being +good for a man's virility?" + "Yes, why?" the friend replied. + "Well, take it from me, that's a lot of foolishness. I ate a +dozen of them the other night, and only nine worked." +% +Unix programmers do it with pipes. +% +User friendly software searching for friendly Hardware to interface with. +Hardware may present itself in floppy format as software has capability to +upgrading same to full size firm. Size is not all that important; but byte +sized bandwidth required -- header width is of more concern. Joystick should +be able to toggle in different speeds and for some duration. Software is +looking for system willing to perform intensive manipulation of keyboard as +well as preparing the mainframe and disk drives. Fingering of all files +permitted, and encouraged, before thrusting joystick into drive. Software +is programmed not to copy; there is no need for removing joystick before +completed execution of program. Program may be run several times per day... +especially if special features and options are utilized. +% +Vandalism On The Upswing! + Last night, windows were broken and graffiti was sprayed over the + front of the local sex shop, Le Sex Boutique, causing several hundred + dollars in damage. In a later anonymous phone call, the provisional + wing of the Salvation Army claimed responsibility. +% +Vegetarians for oral sex -- "The only meat that's fit to eat" +% +Vidi, vici, veni. +(I saw, I conquered, I came.) +% +We drove to the hotel and said goodbye. How hypocritical to go upstairs +with a man you don't want to fuck, leave the one you do sitting there alone, +and then, in a state of great excitement, fuck the one you don't want to +fuck while pretending he's the one you do. That's called fidelity. That's +called civilization and its discontents. + -- Erica Jong, "Fear of Flying" +% +We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands +for masturbation. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +We may eventually come to realize that chastity is no more a virtue +than malnutrition. + -- Alex Comfort +% +We've all heard about the woman who married a Field Service engineer but +divorced him after one day because he'd done nothing on their wedding night +but promise to have it up in 15 minutes. What few people realize is that the +poor man was in the bathroom all night, masturbating furiously, muttering +"I just don't understand, it passes all the diagnostics!" +% +"We've got things well in hand." + -- Master Byte Software, Los Gatos California. +% +We've just received the results of a survey conducted to ascertain the +various reasons men get out of bed in the middle of the night. According +to the report, 2% are motivated by a desire to visit the bathroom, and +3% have an urge to raid the refrigerator. The other 95% get up to go home. +% +Welcome to Fortune Blackmail!! + Ms. Kat****** Bl****an is the mistress of a well-known + banker in Houston, Texas. That's $5000, please, to stop + us from revealing both of your names, Mr. L*****, so that + your wife Doreen, and your lovely children Diane, Janice + and Tom need never know the name of your mistress. You + have two days to reach us at: + + Fortune Blackmail + Behind the hot water pipes, + Third stall from the end, + Greyhound Bus Terminal, Fayette MO. +% +Welcome to Fortune Blackmail!! + This is the first of a series of revelations which could + add up to a divorce, premature retirement and possible + criminal proceedings for a company vice-president in Langley Virginia. + So, Mr. S*****, $10,000 please to stop us from revealing: + 1: Whose shoulders you were sitting on. + 2: What you were doing. + 3: The names of the three people involved. + 4: The youth organization to which they belonged. + 5: The shop where you bought the equipment. +% +Well, didja wake up grouchy or did you let her sleep? +% +Well, see, I was out with this chick last night, and we were in bed, and +she groaned to me, "Give me nine inches, and make it hurt!" So, I fucked +her twice and slapped her. +% +Well, see, Joyce, there we were, trapped in the elevator. Now, I had +my tennis racquet and the goldfish; she was holding the Crisco. Surely +you can imagine how one thing naturally led to another! +% +Well, you almost got it right. The only problem is, you're doing it exactly +backwards! Just reverse the motions you described and your partner will +experience an incredibly intense orgasm. One trouble with this technique, +though, is that it works so well. Believe me, word will get around about +your newfound prowess and you'll be inundated by prospective sexual partners. +So try to be discreet. I prefer maple syrup to pineapple/apricot lotion, but +that's a matter of personal preference. Also, I'd advise against the syrup, +or using honey, if you're outside, because the insects it attracts tend to +distract the quail. You can substitute crazy glue (but obviously not thumb +tacks!) for the masking tape, but only if you don't want to use the piano for +awhile. +% +Were it not for imagination, sir, a man would be as happy in the arms +of a chambermaid as a duchess. + -- Dr. Johnson +% +What creatures of habit we are. This morning, without thinking, half asleep, +I put $100 on my pillow. That's not so bad, no one would worry about it, but +my wife, half asleep, without thinking, gave me $20 change. +% +What is a promiscuous person -- it's usually someone who is getting more +sex than you are. + -- Victor Lownes, quoted in "In and Out: Debrett 1980-81", + by N. Mackwood +% +What this department needs is a really good inflatable doll. +% +Whatever else can be said about sex, it cannot be called a dignified +performance. + -- Helen Lawrenson +% +Whatever happened to the good old days when sex was dirty and the air was clean? +% +Whatever you say about pornography, sex is here to stay. +% +When a girl admits she's had a checkered career, it's your move. +% +When better women are made, computer programmers will make them. +% +When Boy Scouts do it, it's intense. +% +When his company fell on hard times, the boss realized that he'd have to +lay off one of his two middle managers. As both Jack and Liz were equally +honest and dedicated to their jobs, he was unable to decide which one to +fire. To resolve his dilemma, the boss arbitrarily decided that the first +to leave his or her desk the next morning would be the one to get the ax. + The next morning found Liz at her desk, rubbing her temples. Asking +Jack for some aspirin, she headed for the water fountain and that's where +the boss caught up with her. "I've got some bad news for you, Liz," he said. +"I've got to lay you or Jack off." + "Jack off," she snapped. "I have a headache." +% +When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young +ladies, and, of course, the goat. +% +When Snow White turns on with the dwarfs she probably winds up feeling Dopey. +% +When the naive young lady asked the clerk in Le Sex Shoppe to show her his +selection of vibrators, he brought out the two most popular ones. + "The basic white plastic one here is twenty dollars," the clerk said. +"The flesh-toned rubber models are thirty." + "I'm just not sure," the woman said, Then she noticed an eye-catching +item on the back shelf. "How much is that plaid one over there? + "Uh, well, that's a pretty special one," said the clerk. "I couldn't +sell you that one for less than a hundred." + "I'll take it." + Later that day, the store owner checked in to see how business was +going. "Great," the clerk told him. "This morning, I sold four white +vibrators and three flesh-toned ones. And, this afternoon, I got a hundred +bucks for my Thermos." +% +When the prick stands up, the brains get buried in the ground. + -- Old Jewish saying + +[How come there aren't ever any "New Jewish sayings?" Ed.] +% +When the surgeon came to see her on the morning after her operation, the +young woman asked her somewhat hesitantly how long it would be before she +could resume her sex life. "I really haven't thought about it," gulped +the stunned surgeon. "You're the first patient who's asked me that after +a tonsillectomy!" +% +When you see someone across the room and suddenly know for a fact +that he's the most wonderful man on earth, you've got instant lust on your +hands. Something about the way his tie is knotted is infinitely intriguing +to you, and the swell of his bicep causes inner turmoil. This is a happy +but fleeting state of affairs. Usually your feelings die about thirty +seconds after you get up the courage to ask him for the time, since almost +invariably he can't speak English, and if he can, he always says, "Why, +sure, little lady, it's eleven-thirty. Wanna get high? + +Don't bother thinking that instant lust will turn into the real thing. It may, +but then you may also wake up one morning to find you're the Queen of Rumania. + -- Cynthia Hemiel, "Sex Tips for Girls" +% +Whenever someone tells you to "take it like a man" it usually means up your ass. +% + "Where'd she get those crow's feet?" + "You really want to know?" + "Yeah." + "From squinting and screaming, 'Suck what!?'" +% +Which of the following doesn't belong? + a. meat + b. eggs + c. drum + d. blowjob. + +Answer: + d: A blowjob, because you can beat your meat, your eggs, + or your drum, but you just can't beat a blowjob. +% +While farmers generally allow one rooster for ten hens, ten men are +scarcely sufficient to service one woman. + -- Boccaccio +% + While hunting, a man saw a beautiful nude woman come running out of +the woods and disappear across the clearing. Just as she got out of sight, +three men dressed in white uniforms came running out of the same woods. +"Hey, you," yelled one of them, "did you see a woman come by here?" + "Yes," replied the hunter. "What's the trouble?" + "She's an inmate of the county asylum, and gets loose every now and +then. We're trying to catch her." + "I can understand that," said the hunter, "But why is one of you +carrying a bucket of sand?" + "That's his handicap," said the spokesman, "he caught her last time." +% +While not actually a sailor, I certainly enjoy getting blown ashore. +% +While vacationing last summer in the North Woods, a young fellow thought it +might be a good idea to write his girl. He had brought no stationery with +him, however; so he had to walk into town for some. Entering the one and +only general store, he discovered that the clerk was a young, full-blown farm +girl with languorous eyes. + "Do you keep stationery?" he asked. + "Well," she giggled, "I do until the last few seconds, and then I +just go wild." +% +While visiting our country, a lovely French maiden found herself +out of money just as her visa expired. Unable to pay her passage back to +France, she was in despair until an enterprising sailor made her a sporting +proposition. "My ship is sailing tonight," he said. "I'll smuggle you +aboard, hide you down in the hold and provide you with a mattress, blankets +and food. All it will cost you is a little love." + The girl consented, and late that night the sailor sneaked her on +board his vessel. Twice each day thereafter, the sailor smuggled a large +tray of food below decks, took his pleasure with the little French stowaway +and departed. The days turned into weeks, and the weeks might have turned +into months if the captain hadn't noticed the sailor carrying food below one +evening and followed him. After witnessing this unique bit of barter, he +waited until the sailor had departed and then confronted the girl, demanding +an explanation. She told him the whole story. + "Hmmm," mused the captian. "A clever arrangement, and I must say I +admire that young seaman's ingenuity. However, miss, I feel it is only fair +to tell you that this is the Staten Island Ferry." +% +Whoever named it "necking" was a poor judge of anatomy. + -- Groucho Marx +% + "Why did you spend so much time parked in that fellow's car last +night?" demanded the irate mother. "I could hear the giggling and squealing +for a good half hour." + "But, Mom," answered her daughter, "if a fellow takes you to the +movies you ought to at least kiss him good night." + "I thought you went to the Stork Club?" countered the mother. + "We did." +% +Why marry a virgin? If she wasn't good enough for the rest of them +then she isn't good enough for you. +% +Why, Good Morning! I'm the bluebird of fellatio! +% +With a bushel of apples, you can have a hell of a time with the doctor's wife. +% + With deep concern, if not alarm, Dick noted that his friend +Conrad was drunker than he'd ever seen him before. "What's the trouble, +buddy?", he asked, sliding onto the stool next to his friend. + "It's a woman, Dick," Conrad replied. + "I guessed that much. Tell me about it." + "I can't," Conrad said. But after a few more drinks his tongue +and resolution both seemed to weaken and, turning to his buddy, he said, +"Okay. It's your wife." + "My wife!!" + "Yeah." + "What about her?" + Conrad pondered the question heavily, and draped his arm around +his pal. "Well, buddy-boy," he said, "I'm afraid she's cheating on us." +% +Women think of being a man as a gift. It is a duty. Even making love can +be a duty. A man has always got to get it up, and love isn't always enough. + -- Norman Mailer +% +Women Unite! Make *___him* sleep in the wet spot tonight! +% +Working here is like a pregnancy. After nine months you wish you hadn't come. +% +Writers do it between periods. +% +"Yeah, I used to be into necrophelia, bestiality and sadism, but then I +realized I was just flogging a dead horse." +% +"Yes, sir, the bowling ball nipple rings in black. Will there +be anything else?" +% +You are a tower of strength in the office, but only so-so in bed. +% +You are loved by the multitudes. Have you been to the clinic lately? +% +You better believe that marijuana can cause castration. Just suppose +your girlfriend gets the munchies! +% +"You can beat my meat, but you can't lick my sauce!" + -- Boss' Ribs, Portland, Oregon +% +You can get used to living at a nudist camp. The first three days are the +hardest. + -- R. Dreiser +% +You come out of a woman and you spend the rest of your life trying to +get back inside. + -- Heathcote Williams +% +You might get caught holding the bag. Say she's your sister. +% +You pedophiliac sodomizer of ducklings!! +% + You see, this girl wakes up one morning, rolls over and sees an +elephant in the bed with her. Almost in shock, she says, "Did I pick you +up in the bar last night?" + "Uh-huh," the elephant replies. + "Did I bring you home?" + "Uh-huh." + "Did we, uh, fool around?" + "Uh-huh." + "Lord, I must have been tight!" + "Not any more." +% +Your first husband was the one you married while firmly believing that +there are more important things in life than great sex. +% +Yuck Foo. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. How did you happen to go to Dr. Cherney? +A. Well, a gal down the road had had several of her children by Dr. Cherney, + and said he was really good. +% +Q: Why are Unix emulators like your right hand? +A: They're just pussy substitutes! +% +As seen on http://features.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=34216&cid=3701804 +discussing anti-virus software: + +> Also, Your list of things not to do to catch a virus reminds me like +> avoiding pregnancy via the 'pull out' method. Sure it might improve +> your chances, but it won't 'protect' you in any real sense. + +I think this is a bad analogy. His list reminds me of avoiding pregnancy +via the "if it looks like a vagina, don't put your penis in it" method, +which is significantly more effective. +% +Cryo-necro-bestial-sodomy? You can do that at the grocery store. + -- Anonymous UCSD Physics Ph.D. candidate. +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/songs-poems b/fortunes/off/songs-poems new file mode 100644 index 0000000..751a948 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/songs-poems @@ -0,0 +1,2279 @@ +A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, +B is for Basil, assaulted by bears. +C is for Clara who wasted away, +D is for Desmond, thrown out of the sleigh. +E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, +F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech. +G is for George, smothered under a rug, +H is for Hector, done in by a thug. +I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, +J is for James who took lye, by mistake. +K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, +L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks. +M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, +N is for Neville who died of ennui. +O is for Olive, run through with an awl, +P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl. +Q is for Quentin who sank in a mire, +R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire. +S is for Susan who perished of fits, +T is for Titus who flew into bits. +U is for Una who slipped down a drain, +V is for Victor, squashed under a train. +W is for Winnie, embedded in ice, +X is for Xerxes, devoured by mice. +Y is for Yorick whose head was knocked in, +Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin. + -- Edward Gorey, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" +% +A Scotsman clad in kilts left a bar one evening fair. +One could tell by how he walked, he'd drunk more than his share. +He staggered on until he could no longer keep his feet. +So he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street. + +Later on two young and lovely girls just happened by. +One says to the other, with a twinkle in her eye. +"See yon sleeping Scotsman so young and handsome built?" +"I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath their kilts?" + +They stepped up to the Scotsman, so young and fancy free. +They lifted up his kilt above the waist so they could see. +And there behold for them the view beneath his Scottish skirt, +Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth. + +They marveled for a moment, then one said, "Best be gone." +"Let's leave a present for our friend before we move along." +As a gift they left a blue ribbon tied into a bow, +Around the bonny star of the Scot's kilt lifting show. + +The Scot awoke to nature's call and stumbled to the trees. +Behind a bush he lifts his kilt and gawks at what he see's. +Then in a startled voice he says to what's before his eyes, +"Och, lad I dinna know whar' ya been, but I see ya won first prize." + -- Mike Cross, "The Scotsman" +% +All I want is a girl made of wood, +With fine-grained hair and carven knee. +She wouldn't drink and wouldn't smoke, +Oh, wooden tit be loverly? + -- Pinocchio +% +All the girls in France, do a hookie-kookie dance, +And you know the way they shake, is enough to fry a snake, +And the snake they fry, is enough to tell a lie, +And the lie they tell, is enough to go to +Hello, operator, give me number nine, +If you disconnect me, I'll kick you in the +Behind the 'frigerator, there was a piece of glass, +If you do not pick it up, I'll kick you in the +Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies, +This is what Lulu told me, just before she died. +She had a little brother, she named him Tiny Tim, +She put him in the potty, to see if he could swim. +He swam down to the bottom, he swam up to the top, +Lulu got disgusted, and flushed him down the pot. + -- Princess +% +All things dull and ugly, Each little snake that poisons, +All creatures short and squat, Each little wasp that stings, +All things rude and nasty, He made their brutish venom, +The Lord God made the lot; He made their horrid wings. + +All things sick and cancerous, Each nasty little hornet, +All evil great and small, Each beastly little squid. +All things foul and dangerous, Who made the spikey urchin? +The Lord God made them all. Who made the sharks? He did. + +All things scabbed and ulcerous, +All pox both great and small. +Putrid, foul and gangrenous, +The Lord God made them all. + -- Monty Python's Flying Circus +% +An attachment a la Plato +for a bashful young potato +or a, not too French, french bean +must excite your languid spleen. +For, if you walk down Picadilly +with a poppy or lily +in your medieval hand, +every one will say, +as you walk your flowery way; +"If this young man is content, +with a vegetable love +which would certainly not content me. +Why, what a very pure young man +this pure young man must be!" + -- W.S. Gilbert, "Patience" + [The subject of the humour is, of course, Oscar Wilde] +% +And it's one, two, three, +What are we fighting for? +Don't ask me I don't give a damn! +Next stop is Vietnam! +And it's five, six, seven, +Open up the pearly gates. +Ain't no time to wonder why +Whoopie! We're all going to die. + -- Country Joe and the Fish +% +... And malt does more than Milton can +To justify God's ways to man. + -- A. E. Housman +% +And prively he caughte hire by the queynte, +And heeld hire harde by the haunche-bones. + -- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Miller's Tale +% +And the northern lights commenced to glow. +And she said, with a tear in her eye, +"Watch out where the huskies go, +and don't you eat that yellow snow." + -- Frank Zappa, "The Story of Nanook and the Fur Trapper" +% +Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, +If God won't have you, the devil must. +% +Australia's a lovely land +It's full of bonza blokes, +Sheilas, beer and no-one's queer +Except in Pommie jokes. + +Australians are lovely chaps +They're God's own chosen race. +If they ever see a fairy Pom +They'll smash him in the face. + +Australians like dressing up +In skirts and having fun +And that's all we were doing +When the Vice Squad came along. + -- Monty Python's Flying Circus +% +Be prepared... that's the Boy Scout's solemn creed. +Be prepared... to be clean in word and deed. +Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice, +Unless you get a good percentage of her price. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Behold the unborn fetus and + Weep salt tears crocodilian; +All life is sacred (save, of course, + An enemy civilian). +% +Beneath this stone a virgin lies, +For her life held no terrors. +A virgin born, a virgin died: +No hits, no runs, no errors. +% +Better the prince of some inferior court, +Than second, or less, in beatific light. + -- Lucifer, Joost van den Vondel's "Lucifer" +% +Birth, copulation and death. +That's all the facts when you come to brass tacks; +Birth, copulation and death. + -- T.S. Elliot, "Sweeney Agonistes" +% +Bridget O'Flaherty McHugh +Held venal traffic with a gnu. +Mistaking fore for aft one morn +Impaled herself upon its horn. + +Moral: Those who seek high ends should shun + our furred and feathered friends. +% +But they'll never mechanize me -- not me! +Said Charlotte, the Louisville harlot. + -- S.I. Hayakawa +% +Champagne don't make me lazy. +Cocaine don't drive me crazy. +Ain't nobody's business but my own. + -- Taj Mahal +% +Chipmunks roasting on an open fire +Jack Frost ripping up your nose +Yuletide carolers being thrown in the fire +And folks dressed up like buffaloes +Everybody knows a turkey slaughtered in the snow +Helps to make the season right +Tiny tots with their eyes all gouged out +Will find it hard to see tonight +They know that Santa's on his way +He's loaded lots of guns and bullets on his sleigh +And every mother's child is sure to spy +To see if reindeer really scream when they die +And so I'm offering this simple phrase +To kids from one to ninety two +Although it's been said many times, many ways +Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Fuck you!! +% +Chorus: + Grandma got run over by a reindeer, + Walking home from our house Christmas eve. + You can say there's no such thing as Santa, + But as for me and Grandpa, we believe! +She'd been drinking too much eggnog, +And we begged her not to go. +But she'd forgot her medication, When we found her Christmas morning, +And she staggered through the door At the scene of the attack. + out in the snow. She had hoofprints on her forehead, + And incriminating claus-marks on her +Now we're all so proud of Grandpa, back. +He's been taking this so well. +See him in there watching football. I've warned all my friends and +Drinking beer and playing cards neighbors, + with cousin Mel. Better watch out for yourselves! + They should never give a license, + To a man who drives a sleigh and + plays with elves! + -- Elmo and Patsy, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" +% +Chorus: + I don't want to join the army, I don't want to go to war, + I'd rather sit around, pickin' dillies off the ground, + And livin' off the favors of a 'igh-born lady. + I don't want a bullet up me arse 'ole, + I don't want me pecker blown away, + I'd rather live in England, in jolly, sunny, England, + And fornicate me bloody life away!! + +Monday I touched her on the ankle, +Tuesday I touched her on the knee, +And Wednesday after Mass, I lifted up her dress, +And Thursday I saw you know what, +Friday I put me 'and upon it, +Saturday she gave me balls a tweak [tweak, tweak] +And Sunday after supper, I ran me fucker up 'er, +And now she pays me forty quid a week! +Oh, blimey... + +[chorus] +% +Christmas comes but once a year, +A time for love and laughter; +You can come much more than that, +But you have to clean up after. +% +Christopher Robin and I run along, +Under shell-bursts with our M-16s, +Blowing up Heffalumps, Wol, and Eeyore +For the pleasure of hearing their screams. + But we wandered much further today than we should, + And Christopher's hit in the back pretty good! + +So, help me if you can I've got to get +Back in the knack of cold-blooded killing! +You'd be surprised at the mayhem I bring: + Burning a village for kicks; + Flaying a native with sticks... +Back in the trenches with Christopher Robin and Pooh! + +Winnie the Pooh doesn't know what to do, +He's got napalm all over his clothes. +He came to me asking help and advice, +So I shot him before he got close. + But Christopher would try to help his poor bear, + And so both have burned up with a bright orange flare! + +Singin': Help me if you can I've got to get +Back in the hang of this whole murder thing. +You'd be surprised at the mayhem I bring: + Burning a village for kicks; + Flaying a native with sticks... +Back in the trenches with Christopher Robin ... +Warming my hands over Christopher Robin ... +Making s'mores over Pooh! + -- "Roughhouse at Pooh Corner," to the tune of "House at Pooh + Corner," by three warped students, College of Wooster, 1979 +% + CLONE OF MY OWN (to Home on the Range) + +Oh, give me a clone +Of my own flesh and bone + With the Y chromosome changed to X. +And when she is grown, +My very own clone, + We'll be of the opposite sex. +Chorus: + Clone, clone of my own, + With the Y chromosome changed to X. + And when we're alone, + Since her mind is my own, + She'll be thinking of nothing but sex. + -- Randall Garrett +% +Come along and sing a song and join our family. +B & D +S & M +Post to A.S.B.! +Rope and leather, cuffs and cats, and toys from JTT. +B & D +S & M +Post to A.S.B.! +A.S.B.! + (A.S.B.!) +A.S.B.! + (A.S.B.!) +Come on now, let's try another tie! + (Tie! Tie! Tie!) +All the kinky folks are here, and some on IRC. +B & D +S & M +Post on A.S.B.! + -- To the Mickey Mouse March +% +Copa-ulation: +(to the tune of Copacabana) + +Her name was Lola, she was a bimbo, with yellow streamers in her hair, +She wore see-through underwear, she'd go to discos, and do the go-go, +And while she tried to be star, Tony jacked off on the bar, +And when the dance was done, his hand was full of come, +His favorite drink is cream in coffee, +Won't you order one? + +At the Copa, Copa-ulation ... + +Her name was Lola, she was a show-girl, +But that was thirty years ago, when she still could slurp and blow, +Now she's a sado, but not for Tony, still in her chains and leather gown, +She ties Rico to the ground, and fucks that boy half-blind, +But Rico, he don't mind, there are whips and a lot of beatings, +But a real good time ... +% +Cover your stump before you hump. +Before you attack her, wrap your wacker. +Don't be silly... protect your Willie. +Wrap it in foil before checking her oil. +If you're not going to sack it, go home and wack it. + -- National Condom Week +% +Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true, +Daisy, Daisy, wouldn't you like to screw? +I really must beg your pardon, +But I've got a hell of a hard-on, +From beating my meat, against the seat, +Of a bicycle built for two. + -- "Daisy, Daisy", "The Dirty Song Book" +% +Dark and lonely on a summer night + Kill my landlord, + Kill my landlord. +The watchdog barkin' +Do he bite? + Kill my landlord, + Kill my landlord. +Slip in his window. +Break his neck. +Then his house I start to wreck +Got no reason, +What the heck? + Kill my landlord, + Kill my landlord. + C-I-L-L my landlord! + -- "Images" by Tyrone Green, SNL +% +Dave has an areoplane, +In which he likes to frisk. +Oh what a foolish boy, +His silly *. +% +Dear Lord, observe this bended knee +This visage meek and humble, +And hear this confidential plea +Voiced in reverent mumble: + Give me Shylock, give me Fagin + But O God spare me Ronald Reagan! + -- Ansel Adams +% +Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men, +For though the world stood up +And stopped the bastard, +The bitch that bore him is in heat again. + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life, +End over end, not to the left or the right, +Straight through the middle of those righteous uprights! +Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life. + +Send down our brothers who've gone on before; +With their assistance, we'll rack up the score! +The help of the angels, I think, would be fine, +As long as you put them in the Steelers' front line! +% +Eisenhower was very nice, +Nixon was his only vice. + -- C. Degen +% +Fed some caviar to my girlfriend +She was a virgin tried and true +Now my girlfriend needs no urgin' +There ain't nothin' she won't do! + Caviar comes from a Virgin Sturgeon - + Virgin Sturgeon's a very fine fish. + Virgin Sturgeon needs no urgin' + That's why caviar is my dish! + +Fed some caviar to my Grandpa +He was a man of ninety-three +Shrieks and screams were heard from Grandma +He had chased her up a tree! + (chorus) +% +Filth and old age, I'm sure you will agree, +Are powerful wardens upon chastity. + -- Geoffrey Chaucer +% +First you get down on your knees, Get in line in that processional, +Fiddle with your rosaries, Step into that small confessional, +Bow your head with great respect, There the guy who's got religion'll +And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect! Tell you if your sins' original. +Do whatever steps you want if If it is, try playin' it safer, +You have cleared them with the Pontiff, Drink the wine and chew the wafer, +Ev'rybody say his own Two, four, six eight, +Kyrie eleison, Time to transubstantiate! +Doin' the Vatican Rag. + +So get down upon your knees, Make a cross on your abdomen, +Fiddle with your rosaries, When in Rome do like a Roman, +Bow your head with great respect, Ave Maria, +And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect! Gee, it's good to see ya, + Gettin' ecstatic an' sorta dramatic an' Doin' the Vatican Rag! + -- Tom Lehrer, "The Vatican Rag" +% +Five-foot nine, eyes that shine +He was born in Palestine +Has anybody seen my Lord? + +He's so cool, he's so fine +Eat his bread and drink his wine +Has anybody seen my Lord? + +He's so neat, he's so cool, +Walks across my swimming pool. +Has anybody... +% +For they starve the frightened little child +Till it weeps both night and day: +And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, +And gibe the old and grey, +And some grow mad, and all grow bad, +And none a word may say. + +Each narrow cell in which we dwell +Is a foul and dark latrine, +And the fetid breath of living Death +Chokes up each grated screen, +And all, but Lust, is turned to dust +In Humanity's machine. + +And all men kill the thing they love, +By all let this be heard, +Some do it with a bitter look, +Some with a flattering word, +The coward does it with a kiss, +The brave man with a sword. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee +And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me. + -- Robert Frost +% +From the crystal swirling waters, +Of the Rio Amazon, +To the sacred halls of Bayonne, +Where we stand pajamas on. (It's the only thing that rhymes.) +From ev'ry hallowed venue, +Ev'ry forest, mount and vale, +Your butt is on the menu +And the check is in the mail. + -- The Piranha Club Anthem, to the tune of "De Camptown Races" +% +"Get a load of that chick!" "Dude -- you gotta ask her out." +"Weellll, I dunno..." "Look. The worst she can say, is 'No'!" +"Hey! You're right!" "I'm always right!" +"The worst she can say... is 'No'!" + +"Idunnoifyou'vebeennoticingmebutI'vebeennoticingyouandIwaswonderingif +you'd like to go out with me!" + +Oh my god you little Geek! +Get away before I freak! You ugly, stupid, zitfaced scum, +I'm a babe and you are not. You asked me out; you MUST be dumb. +You can't handle what I've got! Well you can beg until you're blue, +I'm too hot, too hot for you.. But you're not even fit to lick my shoe. + I'm too hot, too hot for you. +Ha ha ha! Don't make me laugh! +I want a whole man, not a half. I've got a bitchin' bod and a killer +You wet your pants, I'm so sure. face, +Too bad wimp-itis has no cure. I'm god's gift to the male race. +I'm too hot, too hot for you. I'm the queen of babes supreme, + But you'll only see me in you dreams. +"Well? What'd she say??" I'm too hot, too hot for you. +"Well, she didn't say no..." + -- Barry and the Bookbinders, "The Worst She Can Say is No" +% +Gibble gabble gabble gibble gurgle lubble gibble babble beeble triggle + Lean closer. +Libble gabble gabble ibble gurgle gubble tibble babble feeble riggle + Smile at her *knowingly*. +Gibble gabble sabble gibble surgle gubble gibble babble beeble giggle + Nod sympathetically. Show you're on *her* side. +Bibble gabble gabble babble gurgle gubble gibble tribble beeble figgle + Touch her hand lightly. Nobody understands but we two. +Fibble gabble fobble gibble gurgle bubble gibble tabble beeble giggle + Look sincere. + +"Why don't we have the next drink up at MY place?" + + God's gift to women strikes again. + -- J. Feiffer +% +Gimme that old bisexuality, +Gimme that old bisexuality, +Gimme that old bisexuality, +'Cause it's good enough for me! + +It was good for David Bowie, +It was good for David Bowie, +It was good for David Bowie, +And it's good enough for me! +% +Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen! +Here's a little number I tossed up in the Carribean recently... + +Isn't it awfully nice to have a Penis, +isn't it frightfully good to have a Dong. + +It's swell to have a Stiffy, +it's divine to have a Dick, +from the tinyest little Tadger, +to the world's greatest Prick. + +So, breeches for your Willy or John-Thomas, +Hooray! for your One Eyed Trouser's Snake. + +Your Piece of Pork, your Wife's best friend, +your Porky or your Cock, +you can wrap it up in ribbons, +you can stick it in your sock! + +But, don't take it out in public, +or they will stick you in the dock, +and you won't come back. + -- Monty Python, from "The Meaning of Life" +% +Hail to the sun god +He sure is a fun god +Ra! Ra! Ra! +% +Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark +The Duke is fond of kittens +He likes to take their insides out +And use them for his mittens + -- The Thirteen Clocks +% +He drank with curvy Mabel, +The pace was fast and furious, +He slid beneath the table, +Not drunk but merely curious. +% +He grabbed me by my slender neck, +I could not call or scream. +He dragged me to his tiny room, +Where we could not be seen. +He tore away my filmy wrap, +And gazed upon my form. +I so cold and frightened, +While he so strong and warm. +He pressed me to his thirsty lips, +I gave him every drop. +He drained me of my very self, +I could not make him stop! +And that is why you see me here, +An empty, broken bottle of beer... +% +(He opens a tolm and begins.) + + It says: "In the beginning was the Word." + Already I am stopped. It seems absurd. + The Word does not deserve the highest prize, + I must translate it otherwise. + If I am well inspired and not blind. + It says: "In the beginning was the Mind." + Ponder that first line, wait and see, + Lest you should write too hastily. + Is the Mind the all-creating source? + It ought to say: "In the beginning there was Force." + Yet something warns me as I grasp the pen, + That my translation must be changed again. + The spirit helps me. Now it is exact. + I write: "In the beginning was the Act." + -- Goethe's Faust +% +He tells you when you've got on too much lipstick, +And helps you with your girdle when your hips stick. + -- O. Nash, on the perfect husband +% +Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed in one self place, +for where we are is Hell, and where Hell is there must we ever be. + -- Christopher Marlowe, "Doctor Faustus" +% +Here I sit, my cheeks a flexin', +Just gave birth to another Texan. +% +Here lies my wife: her let her lie! +Now she's at rest, and so am I. + -- John Dryden, epitaph intended for his wife +% +Here's a toast to Screwy Dick, +The man who was born with a corkscrew prick. +He spent his life in a futile hunt, +To find a woman with a spiral cunt. +And when he did, he dropped stone dead, +'Cause the blasted thing had a left-hand thread! +% +Here's to the girl in little red shoes, +She drinks my liquor, she drinks my booze, +She has no cherry, but that's no sin, +She has the box the cherry came in. +% +Here's to the girl that's dressed in black, +She's dressed so neat there's nothing to lack +She feels so fine and kisses so sweet +She makes things stand that have no feet. +% +Here's to the girl that's sweet, +Here's to the girl that's true, +Here's to the girl in all our hearts... + +In other words, guys, what do you say we all go downtown for +the rest of the night? +% +Here's to the woman beautiful and divine +she flowers every month bears fruit every nine +she's the only creature 'tween heaven and hell +can get the juice from a nut without cracking the shell. +% +Hickory Dickory Dock, +Three mice ran up a clock! +The clock struck one, +Right in the balls! + +There was an old woman, +Who lived in a shoe, +Who had so many children, +Her uterus fell right out. +% +Higgledy Piggledy Coeducational +Yale University Extracurricular +Gave up misogyny Heterosexual +Opened its door. Fun is in store. +% +How 'bout them toad suckers, ain't they clods? +Sittin' there suckin' them green toady frogs! + +Suckin' them hop toads, suckin' them chunkers, +Suckin' them a leapy type, suckin' them flunkers. + +Look at them toad suckers, ain't they snappy? +Suckin' them bog frogs sure make's 'em happy! + +Them hugger mugger toad suckers, way down south, +Stickin' them sucky toads in they mouth! + +How to be a toad sucker, no way to duck it, +Get yourself a toad, rear back, and suck it! + -- Mason Williams, "Them Toad Suckers" +% +How could they think women a recreation? +Or the repetition of bodies of steady interest? +Only the ignorant or the busy could. That elm +of flesh must prove a luxury of primes; +be perilous and dear with rain of an alternate earth. +Which is not to damn the forested China of touching. +I am neither priestly nor tired, and the great knowledge +of breasts with their loud nipples congregates in me. +The sudden nakedness, the small ribs, the mouth. +Splendid. Splendid. Splendid. Like Rome. Like loins. +A glamour sufficient to our long marvelous dying. +I say sufficient and speak with earned privilege, +for my life has been eaten in that foliate city. +To ambergris. But not for recreation. +I would not have lost so much for recreation. + +Nor for love as the sweet pretend: the children's game +of deliberate ignorance of each to allow the dreaming. +Not for the impersonal belly nor the heart's drunkenness +have I come this far, stubborn, disastrous way. +But for relish of those archipelagos of person. +To hold her in hand, closed as any sparrow, +and call and call forever till she turn from bird +to blowing woods. From woods to jungle. Persimmon. +To light. From light to princess. From princess to woman +in all her fresh particularity of difference. +Then oh, through the underwater time of night +indecent and still, to speak to her without habit. +This I have done with my life, and am content. +I wish I could tell you how it is in that dark, +standing in the huge singing and the alien world. + -- Jack Gilbert, "Don Giovanni on his way to Hell" +% + "I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frito Bugger in a +quavering voice. + "No," said GoodGulf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, of +course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which +I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in +Elven-lore: + + "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves, + Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves. + Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop, + This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop. + The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring. + The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing. + If broken or busted, it cannot be remade. + If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)." + -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" +% +I had a dream last night... +I dreamt about 1976. +I dreamt about a country with incurable brain damage... +I even dreamt they gave it a heart transplant. +Then I woke up and I knew it was only a nightmare... +so I went back to sleep again. + -- Ralph Steadman, "Fear and Loathing '72" +% +I have a funny daddy +Who goes in and out with me +And everything that baby does +Daddy's sure to see, +And everything that baby says, +My daddy's sure to tell. +You _m_u_s_t have read my daddy's verse. +I hope he fries in Hell. + -- Ogden Nash +% +I hold your hand in mine, dear, I press it to my lips, +I take a healthy bite from your dainty fingertips, +My joy would be complete, dear, if you were only here, +But still I keep your hand as a precious souvenir. + +The night you died I cut it off, I really don't know why, +For now each time I kiss it I get bloodstains on my tie, +I'm sorry now I killed you, our love was something fine, +So until they come to get me I will hold your hand in mine. + -- Tom Lehrer, "I Hold Your Hand In Mine" +% +I know a Polack his name is Cliff, +Hey-la-de-la-de-la. +He sticks it in the freezer to get it stiff, +Hey-la-de-la-de-lo. + +I know a girl, her name is Serafina, +Hey-la-de-la-de-la. +She'll get down on all fours for a bowl of Purina, +Hey-la-de-la-de-lo. + +I know a girl, her name is Cuffy, +Hey-la-de-la-de-la. +She douches with Tide and makes her pubes fluffy, +Hey la-de-la-de-lo. + -- Doctor Dirty +% +I love to eat them Smurfies +Smurfies what I love to eat +Bite they ugly heads off, +Nibble on they bluish feet. +% +I think the Mormon prophet +Was a very funny man. +I wonder how his wives enjoyed +His Prophet Sharing Plan. +% +I wish I was a fascinating lady +With a past that was cheap and a future that was shady +I'd sleep all day and I'd work all night +I'd live in a house with a little red light +And once a month I'd take a small vacation +And leave all the men to their imagination +And once in a while I'd go all wild +And have myself an illegitimate child +I wish I were a fascinating lady +Instead I'm the minister's child +% +I'd like to give the world a hug +And tell it jokes and stuff +And pull its pants down to its knees +And chase it through the rough + +Then tie it up with bonds and straps +And search its purse for change +Then leave it out at Moose Grin Hall +With our cousin who's deranged ... + -- National Lampoon, to an old Coke commercial +% +I'm a lover not a dancer! +I'm a lover not a dancer! +Don't want to be on my feet, +When I can be on my back, +Don't want to be on the floor, +When I can be in the sack! +I'm a lover not a dancer! +I'm a lover not a dancer! +I'm just a little bit tired +If you know what I mean, +Don't want to be in a crowd +When I can be in a dream! +I'm a lover not a dancer! +Baby! +And, baby, let me prove it to you, +Baby, let me prove it to you! + -- Jim Steinman, "Dance in my Pants" +% +I'm glad that I'm an American, +I'm glad that I am free, +But I wish I were a little doggy, +And McGovern were a tree. +% +I'm not a pheasant plucker, +I'm a pheasant plucker's son. +I'm just a'plucking pheasants +'Til the pheasant plucker comes. + -- The Irish Rovers +% +I've been feeling kind of jealous, +Of all them well-hung fellas, +Like Michael, Rod, and Mick. It would have to be a big one, +Tell me, Doctor can you mend me? A giant, horny love gun, +I've a case of penis envy -- To let me be a jock. +If I only had a dick. Girls would never beg my pardon, + They would turn on to my hardon -- + If I only had a cock. +Oh, I can tell you now, +The number of times I'd score, +I could fuck girls like I would not be just a housewife, + I never have before, Living a little mouse-life +And then I'd cum (wee!) In days that drag out long. +And fuck some more! I would dance and I'd be merry + Life would be a ding-a-derry + If I only had a dong! + -- to "If I Only Had A Brain", The Wizard of Oz +% +I've finally found the perfect girl, +I couldn't ask for more, +She's deaf and dumb and over-sexed, +And owns a liquor store. +% +If I had a penis I'd wear it outside, +In cafes and car lots, with pomp and with pride. +If I had a penis I'd pamper it proper +I'd stay in the tub and use me as the stopper. +If I had a penis I'd take it to parties +Stretch it and stroke it and shove it at smarties. +I'd take it to pet shows and teach it to stay. +I'd stuff it in turkeys on Thanksgiving Day. + +I'd rival my buddies in sportscars and stick shifts. +I'd shower my spire with girlies and gifts. +I'd peek around corners; I'd aim at my toilet; +I'd poke it at foreigners and soap it and oil it. +If I had a penis I'd run to my mother; +Comb out the hair and compare it to brother. +I'd lance her, I'd knight her, my hands would indulge... +Pants would seem tighter and buckle and bulge. +[Chorus] + A penis to plunder, a penis to push + 'Cause one in the hand is worth one in the bush. + A penis to love me, a penis to share, + To pick up and play with when nobody's there. + -- Uncle Bonsai, "Penis Envy" +% +If you need anything just whistle. +You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? +Just put your lips together and blow. + -- Lauren Bacall, "To Have and Have Not" +% +If you'd like to cultivate insomnia, +Bed down with a pretty girl. +Amor vincit omnia. +% +Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable. +Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table. +David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel, +And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel. +There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist. +Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed! + +John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, +On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill. +Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day. +Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, +Hobbes was fond of his dram, +And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am". +Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed; +A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed! + -- Monty Python, "The Philosopher's Drinking Song" +% +In days of old, when knights were bold, + And rubbers weren't invented, +They tied their socks around their cocks + And babies were prevented. +% +In her first passion woman loves her lover, +In all the others all she loves is love. + -- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan" +% +In the days of old, +When Knights were bold, + And women were too cautious; +Oh, those gallant days, +When women were women, + And men were really obnoxious. +% +In the morning, laughing, happy fish heads +In the evening, floating in the soup. + (chorus): + Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads; + Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up. Yum! +You can ask them anything you want to. +They won't answer; they can't talk. + (chorus) +I took a fish head out to see a movie, +Didn't have to pay to get it in. + (chorus) +They can't play baseball; they don't wear sweaters; +They aren't good dancers; they can't play drums. + (chorus) +Roly-poly fish heads are NEVER seen drinking cappucino in +Italian restaurants with Oriental women. + (chorus) +Fishy! + (chorus) + -- Fish Heads +% +In youth, it was a way I had +To do my best to please, +And change, with every passing lad, +To suit his theories. + +But now I know the things I know, +And do the things I do; +And if you do not like me so, +To hell, my love, with you! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Indian Summer" +% +It was April the 41st, +Being a quadruple leap year. +I was driving in down-town Atlantis. +My Barracuda was in the shop, +So I was in a rented stingray + -- and it was over-heating. +So, I pulled into a Shell station. +They said I'd blown a seal. +I said "Fix the damned thing and leave my private + life out of it, okay pal?" +While they were doing that, +I walked over to the Oyster Bar. + A real dive. +But I knew the owner. +He used to play for the Dolphins +I said "Hi, Gil!" +You have to yell + -- he's hard of herring. + -- Kip Adotta, "Wet Dream" +% +Jack an Jill went up the hill. +Jill went down, +Jack came. +% +Jack and Jill +Went up the hill, +Each had a buck and a quarter! +Jill came down, +With two and a half, +You think they went for water? +% +Jack and Jill went up a hill +To fetch a pail of water. +Jack fell down and broke his crown Jack on Jill produced a thrill +And Jill came tumbling after. When on the ground he got her, + Then went down and told the town + He tumbled Jill and gaffed her. +Jack to Jill thus did such ill +That Jill, to pay the rotter, +Told the town Jack's crown broke down Jack and Jill have split the bill +When he set out to shaft her. Since Jack led Jill to totter. + Half the town deals Jill a frown + And half greets Jack with laughter. +% +Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, +Jack jumped over the candle stick. +But Jack wasn't so nimble, +Jack wasn't so quick, +So Jack's in the hospital, with a burned up dick! +% +Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. +Jack jumped over the candle stick, +And burnt his balls. +% +jake hates + all the girls(the +shy ones, the bold paul scorns all +ones; the meek the girls(the +proud sloppy sleek) bright ones, the dim +all except the cold ones; the slim + ones plump tiny tall) + all except the + dull ones +gus loves all the + girls(the +warped ones, the lamed mike likes all the girls +ones; the mad (the +moronic maimed) fat ones, the lean +all except ones; the mean + the dead ones kind dirty clean) + all + except the green ones + -- e e cummings +% +Kill Kill, +Hate Hate, +Murder, Maim, and Mutilate! +% +Kitten with a whip, Teddy bear in chains, Puss in leather boots, +tail, swish swish, spread on a bed; rising thigh high; +take what you will, fantasy games, black rubber suits; +get what you wish. deep in your head. making him cry. + +Squirm from the blows, Now pussy's all hot, Teddy bear sighs; +writhe from the pain; from the power trip; kitty's on top; +but teddy bear knows, ready or not, there's fire in her eyes, +that he wants it again. next swing's from and the cat won't stop. + the hip. + +The world explodes, Teddy's still tied; Kitten with a whip, +her claws dig in; lying all alone; tail, swish swish, +then kitty cat goes, even if he tried, take what you will, +cause she's through he couldn't go home. get what you wish. + with him. + -- Kitten With A Whip +% +Left a good broad by the river, +Traveled back into town just to get some rest! +Waited for 10 hours, +Went back to the river, +But I couldn't get her out of that mess! + +chorus: + Poor Mary Jo Kopechne, + Dead Mary Jo Kopechne, + Rollin'... rollin'... rollin' down the window! + +If you're gonna run for office, +And you know that it's an election year. +Don't go in the river, +'Specially by way of bridges, +It could put an end to your political career! +(chorus) + -- Poor Mary Jo, to the tune of "Proud Mary" +% +Leprosy, all my skin is falling off of me. +I'm not half the man I used to be. +Oh, how did I get leprosy? + +Syphillis, it all started with a simple kiss. +Now it even hurts to take a piss. +Oh why did I get syphillis? + +Why'd she have VD? I don't know, she wouldn't say. +I did something wrong, now I long for yesterday .... + -- "Leprosy," to the tune of "Yesterday" +% +Let's love each other slowly, +reaching for a plane, +of exquisite pleasure, +and delicate pain. + -- Adam Beslove +% +Like private parts to the Gods are we, +they play with us for their sport. + -- Lord Melchett (Blackadder 2) +% +Lions in the street and roaming, +Dogs in heat, rabid, foaming, +A beast caged in the heart of the city. +The body of his mother lying in the summer ground, +He fled the town. +Went down south across the border, +Left the chaos and disorder +Back there, over his shoulder. +One morning he awoke in a green hotel, +A strange creature groaning beside him. +Sweat oozed from its shiny skin. +Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin. + -- Jim Morrison, "Celebration of the Lizard" +% +Lipstick on your dipstick told a tale on you, +Lipstick on your dipstick said you were untrue. +Bet your bottom dollar you and I are through, +'Cause lipstick on your dipstick told a tale on you. + -- To the tune of "Lipstick On Your Collar" +% +Little Johnny with a grin, +Drank up all of daddy's gin, +Mother said, when he was plastered, +Go to bed, you little ... love-child. +% +Little Mary on the ice, +Went out to have a frisk, +Now wasn't little Mary nice, +Her pretty *? +% +Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, +Eating her curds and whey. +Along came a spider, +And bit her right in the snatch. +% +Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, +Her knickers all tattered and torn. +For it wasn't a spider that sat down beside her, +But Little Boy Blue with his horn! +% +Little Miss Muffet, +Sat on her tuffet, +Smoking some THC. +Along came a narc'er who sat down beside her +And said, "So... what's in the bag, bitch?!" +% +Love is a word that is constantly heard, +Hate is a word that is not. +Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. +Love, I have read, is hot. +But hate is the verb that to me is superb, +And Love but a drug on the mart. +Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, +But Hating, my boy, is an Art. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Love to eat them mousies, +Mousies I love to eat. +Bite they little heads off, +Nibble at they tiny feet. + -- Kliban +% + Love's Drug + +My love is like an iron wand + That conks me on the head, +My love is like the valium + That I take before my bed, +My love is like the pint of scotch + That I drink when I be dry; +And I shall love thee still, my dear, + Until my wife is wise. +% +Man's lust for a bust is hardly recent, +Some say not even indecent. +But if you lust, +It's a must! +% +Mary had a little lamb, +It's fleece as white as snow. +It followed her to school one day, +And got fucked by a big black dog. +% +Mary had a little lamb, +She kept it in a bucket. +And every time she let it out, +The bulldog used to ... +Umm, chase it around the garden. +% +Mary had a little lamb, +The lamb turned out to be a ram, +Now Mary has a little lamb. +% +Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, +And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. +It followed her through rain or snow, lightning, sleet or hail. +It fetched the evening paper, her slippers, and the mail. +She never had a moment's peace; the lamb was always on her heels, +And on her feet its head would rest, while she ate her meals. +It followed her to school one day, the devotion never ended. +The lamb waltzed into her history class and Mary got suspended. +The night she went to Senior Prom, she thought she had him beat, +Until she heard a mournful "Baaa" coming from her car's seat. +Oh, Mary had a little lamb, it surely didn't please her. +So for dinner she had lambchops; the rest is in the freezer. + -- Alma Garcia +% +Mary had a little sheep, +And with the sheep she went to sleep, +The sheep turned out to be a ram, +And Mary had a little lamb. +% +Mary had a little watch; +She swallowed it one day. +And so she took some Ex-Lax +To pass the time away. + +But when she took the Ex-Lax +The time it did not pass. +So when you want to know the time, +Just look up Mary's ... Uncle. + +(He has a watch, too) +% +Me father makes book on the corner, +Me mother makes second hand gin, +Me sister makes love for a dollar, +And that's how the money rolls in! + + Rolls in, rolls in, just look how the money rolls in! + (Rolls in!) + Rolls in, rolls in, just look how the money rolls in! + +Me father sells cheap prophylactics, +Me mum pokes the tips with a pin, +Me sister performs the abortions, +And that's how the money rolls in! + +Me uncle's a poor missionary, +He saves fallen women from sin. +He'll save you a blonde for five dollars, +And that's how the money rolls in. +% +Men have many faults, + Women only two: +Everything they say, + And everything they do! +% +Missed the train at the railway station +Oh hell, blast, and damnation! +Asked a lady in there if she had the time, +She said "Yes", and a strong inclination. +% +Mistress Mary, quite contrary, +How does your garden grow? +With silver bells and cockle shells, +And one really fucked-up petunia. +% + +Money cannot buy +The fuel of love +but is excellent kindling. + +To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, +Is a keen observer of life, +The word intellectual suggests right away +A man who's untrue to his wife. + -- W.H. Auden, "Collected Shorter Poems" +% +Much to his Mum and Dad's dismay, Horace ate himself one day. +He didn't stop to say his grace, he just sat down and ate his face. +"We can't have this!" his Dad declared, "If that lad's ate, he should + be shared." +But even as he spoke they saw Horace eating more and more: +First his legs and then his thighs, his arms, his nose, his hair, his eyes... +"Stop him someone!" Mother cried, "Those eyeballs would be better fried!" +But all too late, for they were gone, and he had started on his dong... +"Oh! foolish child!" the father mourns "You could have deep-fried that + with prawns, +Some parsley and and some tartar sauce..." +But H. was on his second course: his liver and his lights and lung, +His ears, his neck, his chin, his tongue; "To think I raised him from the cot, +And now he's going to scoff the lot!" +His Mother cried: "What shall we do? What's left won't even make a stew..." +And as she wept, her son was seen, to eat his head, his heart his spleen. +and there he lay: a boy no more, just a stomach on the floor... +None the less, since it *was* his, they ate it -- that's what haggis is. +% +My travel agent's an Oxford chap +Who rolls his eyes when he speaks. +I asked him about the Isle of Man +For a journey of about six weeks. +And this is what he said to me +As he looked me right in the eye, +"For a far-out trip, try an ice cream dip +Of Elephant Shit On Rye." + +A brand-new store just opened its door +At the corner of 5th and Vine +And I happened to be standing right outside +When they turned on their neon sign. +I heard a strange sound, I looked around, +And that's when I almost died, +They nearly knocked me down to be the first in town +To get their Elephant Shit On Rye! +% +Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, +God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light. + +It did not last; the devil howling "Ho! +Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. +% +Nobody loves me, +Everybody hates me, +I think I'll go out and eat worms. +I'm gonna cut their heads off, +Eat their insides out, +And throw way the skins. +Big, fat, juicy ones, +Little, skinny, cute ones, +Watch how they wiggle and they squirm. +% +About a maid I'll sing a song +Sing rickety tickety tin +About a maid I'll sing a song One morning in a fit of pique +Who didn't have her family long Sing rickety tickety tin +Not only did she do them wrong One morning in a fit of pique +She did every one of them in, them in She drowned her father in the creek +She did every one of them in. The water tasted bad for a week + And we had to make do with gin, with gin +Her mother she could never stand We had to make do with gin +Sing rickety tickety tin +Her mother she could never stand She weighted her brother down with stones +And so a cyanide soup she planned Sing rickety tickety tin +The mother died with the spoon in her hand She weighted her brother down with stones +And her face in a hideous grin, a grin And sent him off to Davey Jones +He face in a hideous grin. All they ever found were some bones + And occasional pieces of skin, of skin +She set her sister's hair on fire Occasional pieces of skin. +Sing rickety tickety tin +She set her sister's hair on fire One day she had nothing to do +And as the smoke and flame rose higher Sing rickety tickety tin +Danced around the funeral pyre One day she had nothing to do +Playing a violin, olin She cut her baby brother in two +Playing a violin. And served him up as an Irish stew + And invited the neighbors in, bors in +And when at last the police came by Invited the neighbors in. +Sing rickety tickety tin +And when at last the police came by And just one thing before I go +Her little pranks she did not deny Sing rickety tickety tin +To do so she would have had to lie And just one thing before I go +And lying she knew was a sin, a sin There's something I think that you ought to know +And lying she knew was a sin. They had no proof, so they let her go + And they say that she's tall and thin, and thin +My tragic tale I won't prolong They say that she's tall and thin. +Sing rickety tickety tin +My tragic tale I won't prolong You've yourself to blame if it's too long +I hope you lile my little song You should never have let me begin, begin + You should never have let me begin. + -- "The Irish Ballad (Rickety Tickety Tin)" +% +O! If I were a fish +I'd lay hap'ly on my dish. +Yes, that's my one and only wish -- +To be a fish! + +For fish don't ever mish; +They needn't flush after they pish! +Yes, and life's just swish, swish, swish, +For all the fish!!! +% +Oh Father, my Father, Oh what must I do? +They're burning our streets and beating me blue. +"Listen my son, I'll tell you the truth: +Get a close haircut and spit-shine your shoes." + +Oh Mother, my Mother, my confusions remove, +I long to embrace her whose hair is so smooth. +"Now listen my son, although you're confused, +Cut your hair close and shine all your shoes." + +Oh Teacher, my Teacher, your life with me share. +What books ought I read? What thoughts do I dare? +"Oh Student, my Student, of dissent you beware. +Shine those dull shoes and cut short your hair." + +Oh Preacher, my Preacher, does God really care? +Are all races equal? Are laws just and fair? +"Boy -- here's the answer, no need to despair: +Shine those new shoes and cut short that hair." +% +Oh freddled gruntbuggly, thy micturations are to me +As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. +Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes, +And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, +Or I will rend thee in the goblerwarts with my blurglecruncheon, + see if I don't. + -- Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz +% +Oh give me a home, where the bookmakers roam, +Where the beer and the whiskey flows free, +Where never is heard, a discouraging word, +And the call-girls keep callin' for me! +% +Oh I'm just a typical American boy +From a typical American town. +I believe in God and Senator Dodd +And keeping old Castro down. +And when it came my time to serve +I knew "Better Dead Than Red", +But when I got to my old draft board, +Buddy, this is what I said: + +Chorus: + Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I've got a ruptured spleen, + And I always carry a purse! + I've got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat, + And my asthma's getting worse! + Yes, think of my career and my sweetheart dear, + And my poor old invalid aunt! + Besides I ain't no fool, I'm a-going to school + And I'm a-working in a defense plant! + -- Phil Ochs, "Draft Dodger Rag" +% +Oh, I could while away the hours, +Smoking herbs and flowers, +Shooting up my veins, + De-dum, De-dum, De-dum +Tell you, I've been a-thinkin' +I could drive a shiny Lincoln, +If I dealt in good cocaine. + -- To If I Only Had A Brain from "The Wizard of Oz" +% +Oh, I'm looking over, my dead dog Rover, +That got run over with my mower. +One leg is missing, and one other is gone, +The fourth one is scattered all over the lawn. +It's no use explain'n, the one remaining, +It landed by the kitchen door. +Oh, I'm looking over, my dead dog rover, +that ain't gonna walk no more... + -- Tune is something about a four-leaf clover. +% +Old King Cole was a merry old soul, +A merry old soul was he. +He called for his pipe, +And he called for his drums, +And he fiddled with his call girls three. +% +Old McDonald had a farm, +E-I-E-I-O! +And on this farm he had some chicks, +E-I-E-I-O! +With a chick-chick here, +And a chick-chick there, +Here a chick, +There a chick, +Everywhere a chick-chick, +Old McDonald lost his farm +'Cause he had too many chicks! +% +Old Mother Hubbard, +Went to the cubbard, +To get her poor doggie a bone. + +But when she stooped over, +Old Rover, he drove her. +You see, he had a bone of his own. +% +Once Law was sitting on the bench + And Mercy knelt a-weeping. +"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench! + Nor come before me creeping. +Upon you knees if you appear, +'Tis plain you have no standing here." + +Then Justice came. His Honor cried: + "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!" +"Amica curiae," she replied -- + "Friend of the court, so please you." +"Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door -- +I never saw your face before!" + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ouch mosquito, silent by night, +Why pierce my skin, so white? +You grow plump, as a leech. +Stop! I beseech (in vein). + +I have no choice. +Why waste my voice, +When only a slap will do? +Ouch, I am bitten! +What ho, you are smitten! +Yo mosquito, fuck you. + -- Mitchell Peck, "Ouch, Mosquito" +% +Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, +In all of the directions it can whiz; +As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know, +Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is. +So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, +How amazingly unlikely is your birth; +And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, +'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth! + -- Monty Python, "The Meaning of Life" +% +Piddle, twiddle, and resolve, +Not one damn thing do we solve. + -- 1776 +% +Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. +If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation. +Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations. +Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. + -- "Plunderer's Theme," to the tune of + "Supercaligragilisticexpialidocius" +% +Posterity will ne'er survey +A nobler grave than this; +Here lie the bones of Castlereagh; +Stop, traveler, and piss. + -- Lord Byron, on Lord Castlereagh +% +Puff the Jewish dragon lived in Palestine, +And frollicked in the Autumn mist, +And drank Manishiewitz wine. +Little Rabbi Jacob loved that rascal Puff, +And brought him soup and Matzah balls, +And other kosher stuff. + +Then one day it happened, Puff was eating pork. +Little Rabbi Jacob took that dragon for a walk. +Gently he explained that dragons don't eat meat, +That come from little piggies who have dirty filthy feet. +% +Reefers and roach clips and papers and rollers +Cocaine and procaine for twenty year molars +Reds and peyote to work out your bugs +These are a few of my favorite drugs. + +Uppers and downers and methedrine freakout +Take some amphetamines, watch your brains leak out +Acid and mescaline pull out your plugs +These are a few of my favorite drugs. + +Backs that are perfect for carrying monkeys +Users of heroin, often called junkies +Methadone helps then to stop being thugs +Takes them off one of my favorite drugs. + + On a bad trip + When the cops come + When I lose my head + I simply take more of my favorite drugs + And then I'm not sad -- I'm dead! + -- "My Favorite Drugs," to the tune of "My Favorite Things" +% +San Francisco is my kind of city, +Where the women are strong and the men are pretty. +% +Santa Claus wears a red suit. +He's a Communist. + +He has long hair and a beard. +Must be a pacifist. + +And what's in the pipe that he's smoking? + +Santa Claus comes in your house at night. +He must be a dope fiend to get you up tight. + +Why do police guys beat on peace guys? + -- Arlo Guthrie, "The Pause of Mr. Claus" +% +Send lawyers, guns, and money, +The shit has hit the fan. + -- Warren Zevon +% +Sex and drugs and rock and roll, +Is all my brain and body need. +Sex and drugs and rock and roll, +Are very good indeed. + +Take your silly ways, +Throw them out the window, +The wisdom of your ways, +I've been there and I know, +Lots of other ways... + -- Ian Drury, "New Boots and Panties" +% +Sex is great, +Sex is grand, +Sex around here, +Is mostly by hand. +% +Share and enjoy, share and enjoy. +Journey through life with a plastic boy or girl by your side. +Let your pal be your guide. +And when it breaks down or starts to annoy, + or grinds when it moves and gives you no joy, + 'cause it digs up your hat, + or has sex with your cat, + sprays oil on your wall or rips off your door, + and you get to the point you can't stand any more. +Bring it to us, we won't give a shit. +We'll tell you: "Go stick your head in a pig". +% +She never liked zippers, she said, +Until she opened one in bed. +% +She was bred in ol' Kentucky +But she's just a crumb up here +She was knock-knee'd and double-jointed +With a cauliflower ear +Someday we will be married +And if vegetables become too dear +I'll just cut me a slice of +Her cauliflower ear! + -- Curly Howard, "The Three Stooges" +% +She's such a kinky girl, +The kind you don't take home to mother. +She will never let your spirits down +Once you get her off the street. +% +So now +that you have- + +you know, whoever + +you're trying +to do + +a favor +for + +-you've done it- + +and I'm sure +you had + +a smirk +on your mouth + +as you got me +into this. + -- "To Linda", from The Poetry Of H. Ross Perot, + composed for Linda Wertheimer of National Public Radio. + From SPY Magazine, November 1992 +% +So, good night, you moonlit ladies, +Rock-a-bye sweet baby James. +Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose, +Won't you let me go down in my dreams? +And rock-a-bye sweet baby James. + -- James Taylor, "Rock-a-bye Sweet Baby James" +% +Sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, pederasty, +Father, why do these words sound so nasty? + -- Hair +% +SOLOIST: MOUNTIES: +I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK, He's a lumberjack and he's OK, +I sleep all night and I work all day. He sleeps all night and he works + all day. + +I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, He cuts down trees, he eats his lunch, +I go to the lavatory. He goes to the lavatory. +On Wednesday I go shopping, On Wednesday he goes shopping, +And have buttered scones for tea. And has buttered scones for tea. + +I cut down trees, I skip and jump, He cuts down trees, he skips and jumps, +I like to press wild flowers, He likes to press wild flowers. +I put on women's clothing, He puts on women's clothing, +And hang around in bars. And hangs around in bars. + +I cut down trees, I wear high heels, He cuts down trees, he wears high heels, +Suspenders and a bra. Suspenders? and a bra? +I wish I'd been a girlie, That's rude... +Just like my dear Pappa. +% +Somebody's moggy, by the side of the road, +Somebody's pussy, who forgot his highway code, +Somebody's favourite feline, who ran clean out of luck, +When he ran onto the road, and tried to argue with a truck. + +Yesterday he purred and played, in his pussy paradise, +Decapitating tweety birds, and masticating mice. +Now he's just six pounds of raw mince meat, +That don't smell very nice -- +He's nobody's moggy now. + +Oh you who love your pussy, +Be sure to keep him in. +Don't let him argue with a truck, If he tries to play +The truck is bound to win. On the road way +And upon the busy road, I'm afraid that will be that, +Don't let him play or frolic. There will be one last despairing +If you do, I'm warning you, "Meow!" +It could be cat-astrophic! And a sort of squelchy Splat! + And your pussy will be slightly dead, +He's nobody's moggy -- And very, very flat! +Just red and squashed and soggy -- +He's nobody's moggy now. + -- Eric Bogle, "Scraps of Paper" +% +Starkle, starkle, little twink, +Who the hell you are I think +I'm not as drunk as thinkle peep +I'm just a little slort of sheep. +Tee martoonis make a guy, +Feel so woozy, I don't know why. +So mass the pixer and kill my fup +I've all day sober to sunday up. +% +Tequila my girl, is deceiving: +Take two at the very most. +Take three and you're under the table, +Take four and you're under the host. +% +The blacksmith told me before he died, +And I have no reason to believe that he lied, +That no matter how he tried, +His wife was never satisfied! + +And so he built a bloody great wheel, +Harnessed to a cock of steel, +Two balls of brass were filled with cream, +And the whole damn thing was driven by steam. + +Round and round went the bloody great wheel, +In and out went the cock of steel, +Till at last the maiden cried, +"Enough! Enough! I am satisfied!" + +And now we come to the crucial bit -- +There was no way of stopping it. +And she was split from hole to hole, +And the whole fucking thing was covered in shit... +% +The mind is its own place, and in itself +Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. +What matter where, if I be still the same, +And what I should be, all but less than he +Whom thunder hath made greater? here at least +We shall be free; the almighty hath not built +Here for his envy, will not drive us hence; +Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice, +To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: +Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. + -- Satan, Milton's "Paradise Lost", I, 254-263 +% +The orders come down and they march us away. +There's a battle outside and we join in the fray. +God, it's hell when you know this could be your last day, +But it's better than working for Xerox. + -- Frank Hayes, "Don't Ask" +% +The poor little doe +Crawled out of the woods, +Tired, bedraggled and blue. +"Look," she said, "What I did for a buck, +I should have asked for two!" +% +The rich man uses vaseline, + The poor man uses lard; +The worker uses axle grease + But gets it twice as hard. +% +The sun was shining brightly The breeze was blowing briskly, +And I could hardly wait, It made the flowers sway, +To ponder at my window The garden was enchanting +And gaze at my estate. On this inspiring day. + +My eyes fell on a little bird, I smiled at him cheerfully +With a beautiful yellow bill, And gave him a crust of bread, +I beckoned him to come and light And then I closed the window +Upon my window sill. And smashed his fucking head. + -- "Good Morning", Debbie Smith +% +There are Jews in the world, there are Buddhists, Every sperm is sacred, +there are Hindus and Mormons and then Every sperm is great, +there are those that follow Mohammed ...But... If a sperm is wasted, +I've never been one of them. God gets quite irate. + +I am a Roman Catholic Every sperm is wanted, +And have been since before I was born, Every sperm is good. +And the one thing they say about Catholics is Every sperm is needed, +They'll take you as soon as you're warm. In your neighborhood. + +You don't have to be a six-footer. Let the heathens spill theirs, +You don't have to have a great brain. On the dusty ground. +You don't have to have any clothes on, God shall make them pay for +You're a Catholic the moment Dad came Each sperm that can't be found. +...Because... + +Hindu, Taoist, Mormon, Every sperm is useful, +spill theirs just anywhere Every sperm is fine. +but God loves those who treat their God needs everybodies, +semen with more care. Mine, and mine, and mine. + -- Monty Python, "Every Sperm is Sacred" +% +There were the Scots +Who kept the Sabbath +And everything else they could lay their hands on. +Then there were the Welsh +Who prayed on their knees and their neighbors. +Thirdly there were the Irish +Who never knew what they wanted +But were willing to fight for it anyway. +Lastly there were the English +Who considered themselves a self-made nation +Thus relieving the Almighty of a dreadful responsibility. +% +This land is full of trousers! +this land is full of mausers! + And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down! + -- Firesign Theater +% +This land is made of mountains, +This land is made of mud, +This land has lots of everything, +For me and Elmer Fudd. + +This land has lots of trousers, +This land has lots of mousers, +And pussycats to eat them +When the sun goes down. +% +Tiddely Quiddely +Edward M. Kennedy +Quite unaccountably +Drove in a stream. + +Pleas of amnesia +Incomprehensible +Possibly shattered +Political dream. +% +'Twas orgy, and the hip and mod +Did groove and trip out at the pad: "Beware the Radcliff girl, my son! +All whimsy were the slamming chicks, The looks that mell, the claws that +And the Radcliffe undergrad. catch! + Beware the Byrn Mawr deb, and shun +He took his venerable staff in hand: The uppity Wellesleysnatch!" +Long time the cool young stuff he + sought -- And as in raffish thought he sprawled, +So rested he among the spree The Radcliffe girl, no idle flirt, +And paused to smoke some pot. Crept past the hippies getting balled + And doffed her miniskirt. +One, two! One, two! And through + and through "And hast thou laid the Radcliffe girl? +The venerable staff went snicker-snack! Come to my arms, my horny boy! +He left her bred, sans maidenhead, O spaced-out day! Calooh! Callay!" +And went galumphing back. He cackled in his joy. + +'Twas orgy, and the hip and mod +Did groove and trip out at the pad: +All whimsy were the slamming chicks, +And the Radcliffe undergrad. +% +'Twas the night before Christmas -- the very last one -- +When the blazing of lasers destroyed all our fun. +Just as Santa had lifted off, driving his sleigh, +A satellite spotted him making his way. +The Star Wars Defense System -- Reagan's desire +Was ready for action, and started to fire! +The laser beams criss-crossed and lit up the sky +Like a fireworks show on the Fourth of July. +I'd just finished wrapping the last of the toys +When out of my chimney there came a great noise. +I looked to the fireplace, hoping to see +St. Nick bringing presents for missus and me. +But what I saw next was disturbing and shocking: +A flaming red jacket setting fire to my stocking! +Charred reindeer remains and a melted sleigh-bell; +Outside burning toys like confetti they fell. +So now you know, children, why Christmas is gone: +The Star Wars computer had got something wrong. +Only programmed for battle, it hadn't a heart; +'Twas hardly a chance it would work from the start. +It couldn't be tested, and no one could tell, +If the crazy contraption would work very well. +So after a trillion or two had been spent +The system thought Santa a Red missile sent. +So kids dry your tears now, and get off to bed, +There won't be a Christmas -- since Santa is dead. +% +Virginity is a bubble on the sea of life, +which takes but one prick to break. + -- Jordan Sand +% +Was it you that did the pushin', +Left the stains upon the cushion, +The footprints on the dashboard upside-down? +Was it you, you little pecker, +That got into my Rebecca, +If you did, you'd better leave this town! + +Yes, 'twas I that did the pushin', +Left the stains upon the cushion, +Footprints on the dashboard upside-down. +But since I stuck your daughter, +I've had trouble passin' water, +So I guess we're kind of even all around! +% +We +own +this land. + +I don't spend +any time +on this land. + +This +is a tiny +little piece + +of my +business +interests. + +It's like +a grain +of sand. + -- "Alliance Airport, from The Poetry Of H. Ross Perot, + recited on ABC's Town Meeting, June 29, 1992. + From SPY Magazine, November 1992 +% +We boggies are a hairy folk Ever hungry, ever thirsting, +Who like to eat until we choke. Never stop till belly's bursting. +Loving all like friend and brother, Chewing chop and pork and muttons, +And hardly ever eat each other. A merry race of boring gluttons. + +Sing: GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE. + +Boggies gather 'round the table, Anything edible, we've got dibs on, +Eat as much as you are able. And hope we all die with our bibs on. +Gorge yourselves from moon till noon Ever gay, we'll never grow up, +(Don't forget your plate and spoon.) Come! And sing and play and throw-up! + +Sing: GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE! + -- Bored of the Rings, "The Hobbits National Anthem" +% +We love our little Johnny +He's the best little boy in all the world +And we wouldn't trade him for anything +That's how much we love him. +No, we couldn't live without him +So that's why, since he died, +We keep him safe in our G.E. freezer. +He's so good, so well-behaved, +Even better than before; +Oh, such a wonderful kid he is. +Alice and me, we'll never be lonely, +Never miss our little Johnny, +He'll never grow up and leave us +That's why we love him like we do. + -- Mr. Mincemeat +% +We must! We must! +We must increase our bust! +The bigger the better! +The tighter the sweater! +And the boys will think more of us! +% +We will follow Zarathustra, We will worship like the Druids, +Zarathustra like we use to, Dancing naked in the woods, +I'm a Zarathustra booster, Drinking strange fermented fluids, +And he's good enough for me! And it's good enough for me! +(chorus) (chorus) + +In the church of Aphrodite, +The priestess wears a see through nightie, +She's a mighty righteous sightie, +And she's good enough for me! +(chorus) + +CHORUS: Give me that old time religion, + Give me that old time religion, + Give me that old time religion, + 'Cause it's good enough for me! +% +Well, actually, I don't mind going to weddings or anything, as long as they're +not my own, I show up, but uh, I've always kinda been partial to callin' myself +up on the phone, asking myself out, y'know, yeah, one thing about it, you're +always around. Yeah, I know, yeah, you ask yourself out, y'know, some class +joint somewhere, the Burrito King, or somethin', y'know, well, I ain't cheap +y'know. Take yourself out for a coupla drinks, mebbe, then you eat, some +provocative conversation on the way home, and uh, park in front of the house, +y'know, and you, oh yeah, you smoo with yourself, put a little nice music on, +mebbe you put on like, uh, y'know, like shoppin' music, something that's not +too interruptive, y'know, and then uh, y'know, slide over real nice, and say, +"Oh, I think you have something in your eye", well, maybe it's not that +romantic with you, but I don't, y'know, I get into it, y'know, I take myself +up to the porch, and uh, take myself inside, maybe, oh, I might get a little +something in a brandy snifter, "Would you like to listen to some of my back +records, I got something here...", well, usually, about two-thirty in the +morning, you've ended up takin' advantage of yourself, and there ain't no way +around that, y'know, yeah, makin' the scene with a magazine, ain't no way +around it. I'll confess, y'know, I'm no different, y'know, I'm not weird +about it or anything, I don't tie myself up first, I just, I just kinda +spend a little time with myself. + -- Tom Waits, "Nighthawks at the Diner" +% +Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best, +Excitable boy, they all said! +And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest, +Excitable boy, they all said! (Well, he's just an excitable boy.) + +He took in the 4am show at the Clark, +Excitable boy, they all said! +And he bit the usherette's leg in the dark, +Excitable boy, they all said! (Well, he's just an excitable boy.) + +He took little Susie to the junior prom, +Excitable boy, they all said! +And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home, +Excitable boy, they all said! (Well, he's just an excitable boy!) + +After ten long years they let him out of the home, +Excitable boy, they all said! +And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones, +Excitable boy, they all said! (Well, he's just an excitable boy.) + -- Warren Zevon, "Excitable Boy" +% +Well, I went to a party, and what did they do? +They took off their socks and they took off their shoes. +They took off their shirts, and they took off their pants, +I had a hunch, we weren't gonna dance. + +Everybody, everybody's ass was bare, +No bras left, just a queer over there. +But the whole damn thing didn't faze me a bit; +I just jumped on the pile and grabbed some tit. + +My baby's not a sports fan, +But she plays with balls whenever she can. +'Cause her favorite sport you see, +Is playing tonsil hockey. +[chorus] + Eat, bite, fuck, suck, gobble, nibble, chew; + Nipple, bosom, hair pie, finger fuck, screw. + Moose piss, cat pud, orangutan tit; + Sheep pussy, camel crack, pig-lie-in-shit. + -- Doctor Dirty, "The Eat-Bite Song" +% +Well, I'd left home just a week before, +And I'd never ever kissed a woman before, +But Lola smiled and took me by the hand, +And said 'Little boy, gonna make you a man!' +Well, I'm not the world's most masculine man, +But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man and so's Lola. +La, la, la, la-Lola... la, la, la, la-Lola... Lola. + -- The Kinks +% +What's the ugliest part of your body? +What's the ugliest part of your body? +Some say your nose, +Some say your toes, +But I think it's your mind. + -- Frank Zappa, 1965 +% +When a man grows old and his balls + grow cold, So find me a seat and stand me a drink +And the end of his knob turns blue; And a tale to you I'll tell +When it's bent in the middle like a Of Dead-eye Dick and Mexican Pete + one-string fiddle, And the gentle Eskimo Nell. +He can tell a tale or two. + +When Dead-eye Dick and Mexican Pete +Go out in search of fun, And when Dead-eye Dick and Mexican Pete +It's usually Dick who wields the prick Are sore, depressed, and mad, +And Mexican Pete the gun. 'Tis the cunt that bears the brunt + So the shooting ain't so bad. +There was rarely a day without a lay +And usually two or three Now Dead-eye Dick and Mexican Pete +For Dead-eye Dick, his kingly prick Had been hunting in Deadman's creek. +Was always like a tree. And they'd had no luck in the way of + a fuck +Just a moose or two and a caribou, For nigh on half a week. +And a bison cow or so; +And for Dead-eye Dick with his kingly prick +This fucking was mighty slow. + -- The Ballad of Eskimo Nell +% +When ev'rybody's tryin' to sleep, +I'm somewhere makin' my midnight creep. Chorus: +In the mornin' the rooster crow, I am a back door man, +Somethin' tells me I got to go. I am a back door man, + Well, the men don't know, +They take me to the doctor, But the little girls understand. + shot full of holes, +Nurse try to save a soul. +Killed her for murder first degree, +Judge what tried let the man go free. + +Stand up, cop's wife cried, don't take him down, +Rather be dead six feet in the ground. +When you come home, you can eat pork and beans, +I eats more chicken than any man's seen. + -- Willie Dixon, "Backdoor Man", 1961 +% +When I demanded of my friend what viands he preferred, +He quoth: "A large cold bottle, and a small hot bird!" + -- Eugene Field, "The Bottle and the Bird" +% +when i die, i'd like to go peacefully. +in my sleep. +like my grandfather. + +not screaming, +like the passengers in his car... +% +When I need something +To help me unwind +I find a six-foot baby What kind of guy +With a one-track mind Does a lot for me +Smart guys are nowhere Superman +They make demands With a lobotomy +Give me a moron My father's out of Harvard +With talented hands My brother's out of Yale +I go bar-hopping Well the guy I took home last night +And they say "Last call" Just got out of jail +I start shopping The way he grabbed and threw me +For a Neanderthal Oooo, it really got me hot + But the way he growled and bit me +The bigger they come I hoped he had his shots +The harder I fall +In love till we're done The bigger they are +Then they're out in the hall The harder they'll work + I got a soft spot + For a good-looking jerk + -- Julie Brown, "I Like 'Em Big and Stupid" +% +When in calling, plain speaking is out; +When the ladies (God bless 'em) are milling about, +You may wet, make water, or empty the glass; +You can powder your nose, or the "johnny" will pass. +It's a drain for the lily, or man about dog +When everyone's drunk, it's condensing the fog; +But sure as the devil, that word with a hiss +It's only in Shakespeare that characters ____. + -- Ogden Nash +% +When things go wrong as they usually will, +And your daily road seems all uphill, +When funds are low and debts are high, +When you try to smile, but can only cry -- +And you really feel you'd like to quit, +Don't talk to me; I don't give a shit. +% +When you're lying on the bed, +And the thought is in your head, +But the feeling is way down between your legs, +Take your problem in your hand, +And beat it to the band, +And try your best to keep it off the walls. + +Don't let your lover tell you, +Don't let anybody sell you, +That the joy of masturbation is a crime. +For I've rid myself of fears, +(I've been doing it for years) +And now I have an erection all the time. +% +... which the Minstrel was supposed by some authorities to have composed +beneath the gibbet at Elsdon on the occasion of his hanging, drawing and +quartering for misguidedly climbing into bed with Sir Oswald Capheughton's +wife, Lady Fleur, when that noble lord was not only in it, but in her at +the same time. Minstrel Flawse's introduction of himself into Sir Oswald +had met with that reaction known as dog-knotting on the part of all +concerned... +I gan noo wha ma organs gan +When oft I lay abed I should ha' known 'twas never Fleur +So rither hang me upside doon That smelt so mooch of sweat +Than by ma empty head. For she was iver sweet and pure + And iver her purse was wet. +But old Sir Oswald allus stank +Of horse and hound and dung So hang me noo fra' Elsdon tree +And when I chose to breech his rank And draw ma innards out +Was barrel to my bung. That all the wald around may see + What I have done without. +But ere ye come to draw ma heart +Na do it all so quick So prick 'em wet or prick 'em dry +But prise the arse of Oswald 'part 'Tis all the same to me +And bring me back ma prick. I canna wait for him to die + Afore I have a pee. + -- Tom Sharpe, "The Ballad of Prick 'Em Dry" +% +While sitting 'neath an oak one morn +In thought on this and that, +A tiny, twitt'ring little bird "Oh tiny bird, O Nature's gift +A load dropped in my hat. Of music and of wit! + Why didst thou feel that my best hat +"Thy music gladdens my poor soul, Was thy best place to shit?" +And brings joy to my heart. +But tell me, little bird divine, The tiny bird a few notes sang, +Why didst thou not just fart?" Then answer'd "Pardon me, + For thy hat I thought was my nest, +I rose and stood in solemn awe A-fallen from the tree." +His words to better mull, +Then lifted up a paving block +And crushed his fucking skull. + -- Bill Wordsworth, "A Tiny Twitt'ring Bird" +% +Willie in the cauldron fell; Willie saw some dynamite, +See the grief on mother's brow; Couldn't understand it quite; +Mother loved her darling well -- Curiosity never pays: +Willie's quite hard-boiled by now. It rained Willie seven days. + +Little Willie with a shout, William in a nice new sash, +Gouged the baby's eyeballs out; Fell in the fire and burned to an ash. +Stamped on them to make them pop. Now, although the room grows chilly, +Mother cried, "Now, William, stop!" I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy. + +William with a thirst for gore, Little Willie mean as hell, +Nailed the baby to the door. Threw his sister in the well! +Mother said, with humor quaint: Said his mother when drawing water, +"Careful, Will, don't mar the paint." 'sure is hard to raise a daughter.' + -- Harry Graham, "Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes", 1899 +% +Willie, looking in the mirror, Willie with the nursery shears +Sucked the mercury off Cut off both the baby's ears. +Thinking in his childish error To the baby so unsightly +It would cure the whooping cough. Mother raised her eyebrows slightly. + +At the funeral his weeping mother In the family drinking well +Sadly said to Mrs. Brown, Willie pushed his sister, Nell. +"'Twas a chilly day for Willie She's there still because it killed her, +When the mercury went down." Now, we have to buy a filter. +% +You may carve it on his tombstone, you may cut it on his card +That a young man married is a young man marred. + -- Rudyard Kipling, "The Story of the Gadsbys" +% +You say potatoe, +And I say potato. +You say tomatoe, +And I say tomato. +Potatoe, potato, +Tomatoe, tomato. +Let's go be the Vice President... +% +You wanna play the dozens, +Well, the dozens is a game, +But the way I fuck your mother is an ass-wringing shame! + -- George Carlin +% +You will always have friends +Some friends will peter out. +But I'll always be your friend, +Peter in or peter out. +% +Your mother's ghost stands at your shoulder +Face like ice, a little bit colder +She says "You can't do that it breaks all the rules +You learned in school," +But I don't really see +Why can't we go on as three? + -- David Crosby, "Triad" +% +Your spooning days are over, + And your pilot light is out; +When what used to be your sex appeal + Is now your water spout! +% +Zippity doo dah, zippity ay, +I just gave my sister's cherry away! +To a couple of truckers from Erie P.A., +Zippity doo dah, zippity ay. + -- John Valby +% diff --git a/fortunes/off/vulgarity b/fortunes/off/vulgarity new file mode 100644 index 0000000..92be7b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/vulgarity @@ -0,0 +1,1096 @@ +(10) Not everybody looks good naked. + (9) Joe Garagiola was a hell of an emcee. + (8) Joe Cocker really should stick with decaffeinated coffee. + (7) Fringe! Fringe! Fringe! + (6) If you've got 72 hours to kill, you can probably find room for Sha Na Na. + (5) Never attend an event with a 50,000 to 1 person to Port-A-San ratio. + (4) Bellbottoms will never go out of style. + (3) A drum solo cannot be too long. + (2) I, David Letterman, will never rent out my farm again. + (1) We are stardust. We are golden. We are going to look really stupid to + future generations. + -- David Letterman, Top Ten Lessons of Woodstock +% +A bar patron returned from the men's room grumbling to himself. + "What's the trouble, buddy?" the bartender inquired. + "You got John Wayne toilet paper in there!" + "What do you mean?" the barkeeper asked. + "It's rough, it's tough, and it doesn't take shit from nobody." +% +A bear and a rabbit are taking a crap in the woods. The bear looks +over at the rabbit and asks, "Say, does shit ever stick to your fur?" + "No." +So the bear wiped his ass with the rabbit. +% +A grade school teacher, who was doing a unit on World War II heard that +the father of one of her students had been a fighter pilot during the war +with one of the Scandinavian Air Forces. She invited him to come in and +speak to the class. The guy was more than happy to talk, and began with +a story about a morning patrol where he had been nearly shot down. + "We had been up for about 20 minutes flying over enemy held +territory, when we noticed, just in time, 3 fokkers diving on us from above." +At the first mention of `fokkers' the class giggled a little bit. + "Our group broke formation, and began the dog-fighting. As we +fought, we noticed 2 more fokkers coming at us from above and 2 more +fokkers, fresh from the landing field, come to join the battle". +At this second and third mention of `fokkers' the class was almost laughing +openly, and the teacher interrupted the story to ask the pilot to explain +to the class that a 'fokker' was a particular type of plane flown by the +German Air Force. + He replied, "Ya, dat is true, but these fokkers were Messerschmidts". +% + A man came home from work and as he entered the house he yelled, +"Hi, honey, I'm home." + There was no response. He walked through the house and saw a note +on the refrigerator. It read "I'm out with the girls and I'll be home about +8. Either fix yourself something to eat, or wait for me and we'll eat when +I get home." + Well, he decided to wait until his wife returned. However, his +stomach started to growl and he remembered that he had an apple left over +from his lunch. He got the apple, polished it a little, and heard the +doorbell ring. He went to the door and there stood a little blond haired +girl holding out a little paper bag. "Trick or treat", she said. + He looked at the girl, looked at the apple, thought how hungry he +was, looked at the girl again, and with a slight sigh dropped his apple in +the bag. The little girl looked down in the bag, looked up again, and +complained, "You stupid son-of-a-bitch. You broke my cookies!" +% +A nuclear family is out golfing one day, when it becomes clear that Dad isn't +going to win any trophies, at least on this course. On the 3rd hole, after +two miserable bogies, he misses a two foot putt and exclaims, "Shit!" + His wife glances over at their sixteen year old daughter and says +nothing. + On the fourth hole Dad tees off with an incredible hook, and, after +the inevitable exclamation, his wife reproves him with "Honey!" + This continues on, with his golfing getting worse and his wife getting +more and more upset about his language. Finally, on the 17th hole, he again +misses a very easy putt. Flinging his club down, he curses the hole, the +club, and the sunset, using the word "fuck" for the first time. His wife +whirls around and cries, "Honey! Our daughter is standing right next to you!" + Feeling remorseful, but somewhat defensive, he turns to the +daughter and says, "Well, Cindy, you've heard that word before, haven't +you?" + "Yes," the daughter replies, "but never in anger." +% +A retired schoolteacher finally decided that she was tired of living alone +and wanted some companionship, so after a good deal of thought she decided +to visit the local pet shop. The owner suggested a parrot, with which she +could conduct a civilized conversation. This seemed to be an excellent +idea, so she bought a handsome parrot, sat him on a perch in her living room, +and said, "Say 'Pretty boy.'" Silence from the bird. "Come on now, say +'Pretty boy ... pretty boy.'" + At long last, disgustedly, the bird said, "Oh, shit." + Shocked, the schoolteacher said, "Just for that, you get five minutes +in the refrigerator." Five minutes later she put the shivering bird back on +its perch and said, "Now let's hear it: 'Pretty boy ... pretty boy.'" + "Damn it, wouldja lay off, lady?" said the parrot. + Outraged, the woman grabbed the bird, said, "That's it! Ten minutes +in the freezer," and slammed the door on him. + Hopping about to keep warm, what does the parrot come across but a +big frozen turkey waiting for Thanksgiving. Startled, he squawks, "My God, +you must have told the bitch to go fuck herself!" +% +A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature +replaces it with. + -- Tennessee Williams +% +A young New York housewife was shocked by some of the language used by her +daughter. When asked about it, the daughter said she had learned it from +a small girl she played with in the park. The next day, the mother sought +out the little girl as she played in the park. "Are you the little girl +who uses bad words?" + "Who told you?" + "A little bird," answered the mother. + "Well, I like that!" exclaimed the small girl. "And I've been +feeding the little bastards, too!" +% +After making a daring escape from the penitentiary, the convict eluded +bloodhounds and police roadblocks and dodged helicopter searchlights on +his way to see his wife. Finally sneaking in the back entrance, he knocked +on the door and smiled triumphantly as she opened it. "Where the hell have +you been?" she blared. "You busted out more than six hours ago!" +% +As near as I can tell, you're not any crazier than the average asshole +on the street. + -- R. P. McMurphy, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" +% +As they say about Dungeons and Dragons, "Life's a die, and then you bitch." +% +Ask your boss to reconsider -- + +It's so difficult to take "Go to hell" for an answer. +% + At his sentencing, Herbie Sperling proved that he was the all-time +stand-up guy. + Sperling's lawyer made a lengthy, impassioned plea for his client. +He talked of mercy, justice, humanity to fellow men who have chosen the wrong +path. Yes, the crimes were serious, yes, Mr. Sperling deserves a prison +sentence, but the maximum sentence was not warranted. + Then the judge turned to Sperling. "Mr. Sperling, is there anything +you wish to say?" + "Yes, Your Honor. If you think I'm going to beg for mercy, you've +got another think coming. You're all a bunch of fucking fascist cocksuckers, +you can all go to hell, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you..." + -- Gregory Wallace, "Papa's Game" +% +Been through hell? + +What did you bring back for me? +% +Better a sister in a whorehouse than a brother on a Honda. +% +Blow it out your ass! +% +Call things by their right names... Glass of brandy and water! That is the +current but not the appropriate name: ask for a glass of fire and distilled +damnation. + -- Robert Hall, in Olinthus Gregory's, "Brief Memoir of the + Life of Hall" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to logical names.] +% +Churchill was known to drain a glass or two and, after one +particularly convivial evening, he chanced to encounter Miss Bessie Braddock, +a Socialist member of the House of Commons, who, upon seeing his condition, +said, "Winston, you're drunk." Mustering all his dignity, Churchill drew +himself up to his full height, cocked an eyebrow and rejoined, "Shove it up +your ass, you ugly cunt." + When the noted playwright George Bernard Shaw sent him two tickets to +the opening night of his new play with a note that read: "Bring a friend, if +you have one," Churchill, not to be outdone, promptly wired back: "You and +your play can go fuck yourselves." + At an elegant dinner party, Lady Astor once leaned across the table +to remark, "If you were my husband, Winston, I'd poison your coffee." "And +if you were my wife, I'd beat the shit out of you," came Churchill's +unhesitating retort. + -- "The Churchill Wit", National Lampoon +% +Confucius say too damn much! +% +"Daddy?" + +"Yes son." + +"Wha-wha-wha-what does regret mean?" + +"Well, son, a funny thing about regret is that it's better to regret +something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done. And +by the way, if you see your Mom this weekend, would be you sure and tell +her, `SATAN, SATAN, SATAN!!!'" + -- Butthole Surfers, "Sweat Loaf" +% +"Dammit, man, that's unprofessional! A good bartender laughs anyway!" +% +Damn braces. + -- William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell" +% +DAMN IT, I GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE! +% +Damn, I need a Coke! + -- Dr. William DeVries + [after implanting the first artificial human heart] +% +"Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly, +sincerely, extremely dangerously. + +They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs. +They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They used +intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. +They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used fallaron. They +used betterment incentives. They used finger prints. They used the +bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. +They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help. They used applied physics. +They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell, they caught him. + -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man" +% +Don't just eat a hamburger; eat the HELL out of it. + -- J. R. "Bob" Dobbs +% +DROP THE DAMN BEAR!!! + -- The Adventurer +% +During the darkest days of World War II, when each night brought waves of +Luftwaffe bombers raining death and destruction on a near-defenseless London, +Prime Minister Churchill went on the air to address the British people. "I +read this morning's paper that Herr Hitler plans to wring England's neck like +that of a chicken," he began, "and I was reminded of what the Irish poacher +said as he stood on the gallows. It seems the poor fellow was approached by a +well-meaning if somewhat overzealous priest who, in horrific detail, described +the unfading torments of Hades which awaited him if he did not repent of his +misdeeds. The condemned man listened patiently to all that the priest had to +say, and when he was done, grinned broadly and replied, 'Eat it raw, fuzz +nuts.'" + -- "The Churchill Wit", National Lampoon +% +Early to bed and early to rise makes a man a helluva big nuisance. +% +Eat shit and die a virgin! +% +Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain +of being a damned fool. + -- Bellamy Brooks +% +Every morning, the crowd on Coney Island beach was startled to see +a jogger with the build of a pro football player but a head the size of a +baseball. Finally, some brave young man got up the nerve to stop him and +ask, "What happened to give you such a small head?" + The jogger sadly told the story of finding a magic lamp on the beach, +which produced a beautiful genie when rubbed. The genie said, "I now give +you one wish. Do you want a quick fuck or a little head?" +% +Fie for shame, you lascivious, lewd, lecherous, libidinous, lustful, +licentious, dirty bum!! +% +Fig Newton. +% +Folks, what can I tell you about my next guest. This cat allowed himself +to be adored, but not loved. And his success in show business was matched +by failure in his personal relationship bag, now that's where he really +bombed. And he came to believe that work, show business, love, his whole +life, even himself and all that jazz was bullshit. He became numero uno +gameplayer. Uh, to the point where he didn't know where the games ended +and the reality began. Like to this cat, the only reality... is death, man. +Ladies and gentlemen, let me lay on you, a so-so entertainer, not much of +a humanitarian, and this cat was never nobody's friend. In his final +appearance on the great stage of life, uh, you can applaud if you want to, +Mr. Joe Gideon!! + -- All That Jazz +% +Fuck art; let's dance! +% +Fuck off and die! +% +Fuck you and anybody who looks like you. +% +Fuck'em if they can't take a joke! +% +GET OFF THE FUCKING SYSTEM THIS INSTANT, YOU ASSHOLE!!!! +% +Get your bytes from our backend! + -- Britton Lee +% +Getting an education at the University of California is like having +$50.00 shoved up your ass, a nickel at a time. +% +Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities! +% +Grain grows best in shit. + -- Ursula K. LeGuin +% +Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. +% +Gravity is an unforgiving motherfucker. +% +Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to +mathematics, in that it involves selective breeding. The principal difference +between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep +or cows or such, and the latter breeds (assumed) facts. The husbandryman uses +his skills to enrich the future; the historian uses his to enrich the past. +Both are usually up to their ankles in bullshit. + -- Tom Robbins +% +Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned? + +Well, I haven't. I find that whenever a woman becomes friends with me, +she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damn nuisance; and +whenever I become friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. +So here I am, Pickering, a confirmed old bachelor and very likely to +remain so. + -- Henry Higgins, "My Fair Lady" +% +Have you ever wondered what makes Californians so calm? Besides drugs, I +mean. The answer is hot tubs. A hot tub is a redwood container filled with +water that you sit in naked with members of the opposite sex, none of whom +is necessarily your spouse. After a few hours in their hot tubs, +Californians don't give a damn about earthquakes or mass murderers. They +don't give a damn about anything , which is why they are able to produce +"Laverne and Shirley" week after week. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +He who hesitates is a damned fool. + -- Mae West +% +He who trains his tongue to quote the learned sages, will be known far +and wide as a smart ass. + -- Howard Kandel +% +"He's not pining, he's passed on! This parrot won't squawk! He's +ceased to be! He's expired, and gone to meet his maker! It's a +stiff! No breath of life, he may rest in peace! If you hadn't nailed +him to the perch, he'd be pushing up the daisies! He's off the twig! +He's kicked the bucket! He's curled up his tooties! He's shuffled off +this mortal world! He's run down the curtain, and joined the bleed'n +Choir Invincible! HE'S FUCKING SNUFFED IT! Vis-a-vi his metabolic +processes is head is lost. All statements concerning this parrot is no +longer a going concern, after from now on, Inoperative... + + THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!! +% +Hell's broken loose. + -- Robert Greene +% +Hell, if you don't try to remake someone, how are they supposed to know +you care? +% +Here is the problem: for many years, the Supreme Court wrestled with the issue +of pornography, until finally Associate Justice John Paul Stevens came up with +the famous quotation about how he couldn't define pornography, but he knew it +when he saw it. So for a while, the court's policy was to have all the +suspected pornography trucked to Justice Stevens' house, where he would look it +over. "Nope, this isn't it," he'd say. "Bring some more." This went on until +one morning when his housekeeper found him trapped in the recreation room under +an enormous mound of rubberized implements, and the court had to issue a ruling +stating that it didn't know what the hell pornography was except that it was +illegal and everybody should stop badgering the court about it because the +court was going to take a nap. + -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" +% +Horsecrap, little brother. There's always something more to be done. +Another palm to be greased. Another back to be scratched. Another +weak sister to be shored up. + -- J. R. Ewing +% +Howard Cosell's biggest protrusion is his asshole. + -- John Valby +% +I am fairly unrepentant about her poetry. I really think that three quarters +of it is gibberish. However, I must crush down these thoughts otherwise the +dove of peace will shit on me. + -- Noel Coward on Edith Sitwell +% +I came; I saw; I fucked up. +% +I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about you pisses me off. + -- Peter Knight +% + I disapprove of the F-word, not because it's dirty, but because we +use it as a substitute for thoughtful insults, and it frequently leads to +violence. What we ought to do, when we anger each other, say, in traffic, +is exchange phone numbers, so that later on, when we've had time to think +of witty and learned insults or look them up in the library, we could call +each other up: + You: Hello? Bob? + Bob: Yes? + You: This is Ed. Remember? The person whose parking space you + took last Thursday? Outside of Sears? + Bob: Oh yes! Sure! How are you, Ed? + You: Fine, thanks. Listen, Bob, the reason I'm calling is: + "Madam, you may be drunk, but I am ugly, and ..." No, wait. + I mean: "you may be ugly, but I am Winston Churchill + and ..." No, wait. (Sound of reference book thudding onto + the floor.) S-word. Excuse me. Look, Bob, I'm going to + have to get back to you. + Bob: Fine. + -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" +% +I don't know why women get so upset, they have half the money and all the pussy. + -- Gary Bussy, "DC Cab" +% +I don't love you, asshole, I love your daughter. + -- The Undergraduate +% +"I had to censor everything my sons watched ... even on the Mary Tyler +Moore show I heard the word 'damn'!" + -- Mary Lou Bax +% +I love this fucking University, and this University loves fucking me. +% +I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless +bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed +as a genius. Why, in comparison with him, Riff is a genius. + -- Tchaikovsky, October 9, 1886, diary entry +% +I think we can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown ... +HEY! PAY ATTENTION WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU DAMMIT! I said I think we can +all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown today. When we take +the time to be courteous to each other, we find that we are happier and less +likely to engage in nuclear war. This point was driven home by the recent +summit talks, where Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev, each of whose husband +thinks the other's husband is vermin, were able to sit down at a high-level +tea and engage in courteous conversation ... + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +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 rather be led to hell than managed to heavan. +% +I'm sorry I'm late folks, I just got out of jail. I tried to change my +girlfriend's name. Yeah, I went down to the hall of records. I said, "I'd +like to change it... I'd like to change it to... LYING LITTLE BITCH!" + -- Sam Kinison +% +I've been watching you closely to see if you have been good this year; +and since you have, I will be telling my elves to make some goodies for me +to leave under your tree on Christmas. I was going to bring you all the +gifts from the twelve days of Christmas, but we had a little problem up here. +The twelve fiddlers fiddling have all come down with V.D. from fiddling with +the ten ladies dancing, the eleven lords-a-leaping have knocked up the eight +maids-a-milking, and the nine pipers piping have been arrested for doing +weird things to the seven swans-a-swimming and the six geese-a-laying. The +four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and the partridge +in the pear tree have me up to my ass in birdshit. On top of all this, Mrs. +Claus is going through menopause, eight of my reindeer are in heat, the elves +have joined gay liberation, and those dumb ass Polacks have scheduled +Christmas for the fifth of February. I'll do what I can. + Sincerely, + Santa +% +If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a +damn fool about it. + -- W. C. Fields + +[Also attributed to Roy Mengot. Ed.] +% +If it's not one thing, it's a mother. +% +If life's a piece of shit, Calculus III is the spoon. +% +If today is the first day of the rest of your life, what the hell was yesterday? +% +If you don't ride a camel to work, you ain't Sheeite. +% + If you work for a man, in heaven's name, work for him. + If he pays you wages which supply you bread and butter, work for him; +speak well of him; stand by him, and by the institution he represents. + If put to a pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. + If you must vilify, condemn and eternally find disparage -- resign your +position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content... but, as +long as you are part of the institution do not condemn it. + If you do that, you are loosening the tendrils that are holding you to +the institution, and at the first high wind that comes along, you will +be uprooted and blown away, and probably will never know the reason why. +% +If you're going to break up with your old lady and you live in a small +town, make sure you don't break up at three in the morning. Because you're +screwed -- there's nothing to do ... So make it about nine in the morning, +... bullshit around, worry her a little, then come back at seven in the +night. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +In the beginning was the DEMO Project. And the Project was without form. +And darkness was upon the staff members thereof. So they spake unto +their Division Head, saying, "It is a crock of shit, and it stinks." + +And the Division Head spake unto his Department Head, saying, +"It is a crock of excrement and none may abide the odor thereof." +Now, the Department Head spake unto his Directorate Head, saying, +"It is a container of excrement, and is very strong, such that none +may abide before it." And it came to pass that the Directorate Head +spake unto the Assistant Technical Director, saying, "It is a vessel +of fertilizer and none may abide by its strength." + +And the assistant Technical Director spake thus unto the Technical +Director, saying, "It containeth that which aids growth and it is +very strong." And, Lo, the Technical Director spake then unto the +Captain, saying, "The powerful new Project will help promote the +growth of the Laboratories." + +And the Captain looked down upon the Project, and He saw that it was Good! +% +In spite of all evidence to the contrary, the entire universe is composed of +only two basic substances: magic and bullshit. +% +It is a sad commentary on today's society that this fortune has to be +classified as "offensive" simply because it contains the word "fuck". +% +It may not be funny, but it's damned amusing! +% +It seems there were two young Marines walking down the street, and +they chanced upon a lady who was both very proper and very well endowed. +One of them said, "Wow! What tits! Hey lady, would I love to snuggle up with +them for awhile. What are you doing this afternoon?" + +Well, the other Marine thought that was just about the most shameful +thing he had ever witnessed, and felt that he had to restore the honor of the +Corps. "Pardon my friend, Ma'am," he apologized, "He's not been very well +brought up and don't know how to talk to cunt." +% +It used to be a man's world, and the woman's place was in the home. +They can kiss that shit goodbye. +% +It was almost closing time when a male patron who had been getting the +frosty treatment from a girl at the end of the bar called to the +bartender and said, "Give that bitchy douche bag over there one on me." + "We discourage that sort of language here, sir," the bartender +answered sternly. + "OK, OK. Serve the lady a cocktail with my compliments." + The bartender approached the female in question. "The, uh, gentleman +at the other end of the bar would like to buy you a drink, miss. What would +you like?" + "Vinegar and water." +% +It's a bit hard to bullshit the ocean. It's not listening, you know +what I mean. + -- David Crosby +% +It's a bitch being butch. +% +It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. + -- Andrew Jackson +% +It's better to be pissed off than pissed on. +% +It's so fuckin' great to be alive! +% +Life is a bitch, but the puppies can be cute. +% +Life is a shit sandwich, and every day you get to take another bite. +It's just that some days are TWO BITE days ... +% +Life is having a mother-in-law that sucks and a wife that don't. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +Life is like a cucumber -- + +one moment it's in your hand, the next it's up your ass. +% +Life is like a shit sandwich. + +The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat. +% +Life is not a cabaret. +It's a fucking circus. +% +Life isn't a bitch. Life is a virgin. A bitch is easy. +% +Look out for yourself -- or they'll pee on your grave. + -- Louis B. Mayer + +The reason so many people showed up at Louis B. Mayer's funeral was because +they wanted to make sure he was dead. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +Love is a slippery eel that bites like hell. + -- Matt Groening +% +Many a man has decided to stay alive not because of the will to live, but +because of the determination not to give assorted surviving bastards the +satisfaction of his death. + -- Brendan Francis +% + McQuillan was on the stand. The case involved a railroad and several of +the passengers who were injured. + "You say," thundered the counsel for the railroad, "that you saw +the two trains crash head on while doing sixty miles an hour. What did you +think when you saw this happen ?" + I thought," replied the Irishman, "this is one *helluva* way to run +a railroad." +% +Me, I love the rich. *Somebody* has to love them. Sure, a lot of rich +people are assholes, but believe me, a lot of poor people are assholes too. +And an asshole with money can at least pay for his own drinks. + -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" +% +Megaton Man: "LOOK at them! Helpless, tender creatures, relying on + ME, waiting for ME to make my move!" + +(from below): "Move your ASS, Fat-head!" + +Megaton Man: "It is a MANDATE, and I am DUTY BOUND to OBEY!" +% +Moody bitch in search of... + kind, considerate, loving man. Objective, love-hate relationship. +% +Moody bitch with attitude, seeks nice, good-looking guy to dump on. +% +Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass. + -- Frank Zappa +% +My advice to the women's clubs of America is to raise more hell and fewer +dahlias. + -- William Allen White +% +My brother-in-law has found a way to make ends meet. He goes around +with his head stuck up his ass. +% +Never fly under a seagull - they'll shit on your airplane. + -- Gordon Cooper +% + "Never send a MAN to do a WOMAN'S work! Why do you think I CAME here?" + "Not for the good of my ego, that was for damn sure." +% +No matter how clever the hardware boys are, the software boys piss it away. +% +Non Illegitimus Carborundum. + [Don't let the bastards wear you down.] +% +Obscene? Obscene is young men being trained to drop fire on people, but +their commanders not allowing them to write "fuck" on their airplanes +because it's obscene. +% +Obscenity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers. +% +Old mercenaries never die. They go to hell and regroup. +% + On the day of his anniversary, Joe was frantically shopping +around for a present for his wife. He knew what she wanted, a +grandfather clock for the living room, but he found the right one almost +impossible to find. Finally, after many hours of searching, Joe found +just the clock he wanted, but the store didn't deliver. Joe, desperate, +paid the shopkeeper, hoisted the clock onto his back, and staggered out +onto the sidewalk. On the way home, he passed a bar. Just as he reached +the door, a drunk stumbled out and crashed into Joe, sending himself, +Joe, and the clock into the gutter. Murphy's law being in effect, the +clock ended up in roughly a thousand pieces. + "You stupid drunk!" screamed Joe, jumping up from the wreckage. +"Why don't you look where the hell you're going!" + With quiet dignity the drunk stood up somewhat unsteadily and +dusted himself off. "And why don't you just wear a wristwatch like a +normal person?" +% +Once upon a time, there was a non-conforming sparrow who decided not to +fly south for the winter. However, soon after the weather turned cold, +the sparrow changed his mind and reluctantly started to fly south. +After a short time, ice began to form his on his wings and he fell to +earth in a barnyard almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on this +little bird and the sparrow thought it was the end, but the manure +warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy the little sparrow +began to sing. Just then, a large Tom cat came by and hearing the +chirping investigated the sounds. As Old Tom cleared away the manure, +he found the chirping bird and promptly ate him. + +There are three morals to this story: + +(1) Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy. +(2) Everyone who gets you out of shit is not necessarily your friend. +(3) If you are warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut. +% +One day a little polar bear cub says to his mother, "Mommy, am I really +a polar bear?" + "Why of course you are, honey!" his mother replies. "You live at +the North Pole and you swim under the ice to catch fish. You play on the +ice floes and you romp through the snow and chase seals. Of *course* you're +a polar bear. Why do you ask?" + "Because," says the little cub, "I'm fuckin' freezing!" +% +Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing +to go through hell to get it. +% +Pardon me, sir, but you've obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a shit. +% +People who write position papers often find themselves in an +enviable position. They are hired to write papers for both sides of the +position. + A good position paper will have many words in it like +"superincumbence," "egress," and "plurification." + You will not often find the phrase "lightweight dropcase +limp-wristed motherfucker" in a serious position paper. + Charts and multiplication tables should always be included in +position papers. They should look complicated enough to make Albert +Einstein stagger across the room for a Tylenol. + A good position paper will never underestimate the value of a +semicolon. + -- Dan Jenkins, "Baja Oklahoma" +% +People will swim through shit if you put a few bob in it. + -- Peter Sellers +% +Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow +and is certainly a damn fool. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Shit happens. +% + Shortly after Churchill had grown a moustache, he was accosted by a +certain young lady whose political views were in direct opposition to his +own. Fancying herself something of a wag, she exclaimed, "Mr. Churchill, I +care for neither your politics nor your moustache." Unabashed, the young +statesman regarded her quietly for a moment, the wryly commented, "Suck my +dick." + While serving as a subaltern in the Boer War, the young Churchill was +asked by a superior officer to give his opinion of the Boers as soldiers. + "They're assholes, sir," he ventured, then paused briefly and added, with a +whimsical smile, "They're assholes." + Churchill was given to reading in the bathtub and, while staying at +the White House, he once became so engrossed in an account of the Battle of +Fonteney that he forgot President Roosevelt was due to drop by to discuss the +upcoming conference in Yalta. At the appointed hour, the President was +wheeled into Churchill's quarters only to be informed that the Prime Minister +had not finished bathing. Roosevelt was about to apologize for the intrusion +and depart when Churchill, puffing his customary cigar, strode into the room +stark naked and greeted the nonplussed world leader with a terse, "What are +you staring at, homo?" + -- "The Churchill Wit", National Lampoon +% +Silence can be the biggest lie of all. We have a responsibility to speak +up; and whenever the occasion calls for it, we have a responsibility to +raise bloody hell. + -- Herbert Block +% +So you fucked up... you trusted us! + -- Animal House +% +Some companies idea of playing ball is, you play ball with us, +and we'll stick the fucking bat up your ass. +% +Some of the management around here are the final proof that the Indians +fucked the buffalo. +% +Sometimes, you just gotta say "What the fuck." + -- Risky Business +% +Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your +editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. + -- Mark Twain +% +Success has many fathers, but failure is a bastard. +% +Tell you what," the haberdasher said to a persistent job applicant. "I've +got one suit I can't sell -- that purple, green and yellow number over there. +If you can make that sale, you've not only got the job, you've got it for +life." + Then the store owner left for lunch. When he returned, he was shocked +to see the young man's clothes in tatters and his hands and face bleeding. + "My God, what happened to you?" + "I sold the suit! I sold the suit!" the young man shouted, a smile +on his bloodied lips. + "Congratulations," the haberdasher said. "You've got the job. But +what happened? Did the customer start a fight?" + "Oh, no," the new salesman replied. "But his Seeing Eye dog was +*pissed*." +% +The best number for a dinner party is two--myself and a damn good head waiter. + -- Nubar Gulbenkian +% +The boys in the Epperson family all acquired fine educations except for Edward. +They made him go to school, but most of the time he just ignored what was said +there. Yet there were rare moments when he could display a bit of curiosity. + One day Edward was sitting at home looking at a magazine, and he said +to his brilliant older brother, Hud, he said, "Hud, what does fox pass mean?" + Brother Hud gave the question some deep consideration and then said, +"You must mean _faux_pas_." + "The way it's spelled," said dumb Ed, "it's fox pass." + Hud took a look at the way it was spelled and then said, "It's a French +phrase -- it means a social blunder. Remember last Sunday when the Bishop came +for dinner? Mother took him out in the garden and they were looking over the +roses when the Bishop got stuck on the thumb by a thorn. It was bleeding quite +a bit so Mother brought him in the house. They went into the bathroom together +and stayed quite a while, and when they came out we all went to the dinner +table. Remember all that, Ed?" + "Yeh." + "Now," Hud continued, "you recall that I was just getting to pass +the gravy when Mother said, 'Bishop, does your prick still throb?' The gravy +bowl flew out of my hands and hit the table, and the gravy splattered all +over everyone. And just at that point you, Brother Edward, you hollered, +'Sheee-itt!' You remember that?" + "Yeh." + "Well, when you hollered 'Sheee-itt!' that was a _faux_pas_." +% +The difference between graffiti and philosophy is the word "fuck". +% + The famous Nell Gwynn, stepping one day from a house where she had +made a short visit into her coach, saw a great crowd assembled, and her +footman all bloody and dirty; the fellow being asked by his mistress, the +reason for his being in that condition, answered, "I have been fighting, +madam, with an impudent rascal who called your ladyship a whore." + "You blockhead," replied Mrs. Gywnn, "at this rate you must fight +every day of your life; why, you fool, all the world knows it." + "Do they?" cries the fellow, in a muttering voice, after he had shut +the coach door, "they shan't call me a whore's footman for all that." + -- Henry Fielding, "Tom Jones" +% +The government was contemplating the dispatch of an expedition to Burma, +with a view to taking Rangoon, and a question arose as to who would be the +fittest general to be sent in command of the expedition. The Cabinet sent +for the Duke of Wellington, and asked his advice. He instantly replied, +"Send Lord Combermere." + "But we have always understood that your Grace thought Lord +Combermere a fool." + "So he is a fool, and a damned fool; but he can take Rangoon." + -- G. W. E. Russell +% +The higher you climb, the more you show your ass. + -- Alexander Pope, "The Dunciad" +% +The more crap you put up with, the more crap you're going to get. +% +... the most exquisitely squalid hells known to middle-class man: +freshman English at a Midwestern university. + -- Tom Wolfe +% +The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughly analyze +all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have +answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems +when called upon. + However... +When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remind +yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp. +% +The old man had lived all his life in a little house on the Vermont side of the +New Hampshire-Vermont border. One day, the surveyors came to inform him that +they had just discovered that he lived in New Hampshire, not Vermont. + "Thank heavens!" was his heartfelt reply. "I don't think I could have +taken another one of those damned Vermont winters!" +% +The only thing faster than the speed of light is shit flowing downhill. + -- Mike O'Dell +% +The only way you'll ever hear from me is if you're living in the same hell. + -- Roy Harper +% +The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And littered with +sloppy analysis! +% + THE TEN STAGES OF INTOXICATION + + (1) WITTY AND CHARMING: This is after one or two drinks. The tongue + is loosened and can yet remain in step with the brain. In the + "witty and charming" state, one is likely to use foreign idioms + and phrases such as "au contraire" in place of "Now way, Jose," + or "Bullsheyet". + (2) RICH AND POWERFUL: By the third drink, you begin mentioning the + little 380 SL you've had your eye on down at the Mercedes place. + (3) BENEVOLENT: You'll buy her a Mercedes, too. It's only money. + (4) JUST ONE MORE AND THEN WE'LL EAT: Stall tactic. + (5) TO HELL WITH DINNER: Just one more and then we'll eat. + (6) PATRIOTIC: The war stories begin. + (7) CRANK UP THE "ENOLA GAY": "We could have won in Nam, but..." + (8) INVISIBLE: So this is what the Ladies' Room looks like. + (9) WITTY AND CHARMING PART II: You know, you don't sweat much for + a fat girl. + (10) BULLETPROOF: Bull-sheyet, gimme them keys, I can drive. + -- Lewis Grizzard, "My Daddy Was a Pistol and I'm a Son + of a Gun". +% +The time has come for kicking ass and taking names. +% + The townspeople stood in despair as the fire that had begun in a diner +threatened to spread to adjoining homes. Just then, a truck filled with +farm workers came speeding down a hill toward the fire. The crowd moved +back and the truck drove right into the thickest of the flames. The workers +jumped out and beat at the fire with their coats, miraculously bringing the +blaze under control. + The city fathers were so grateful for the men's heroism that they +gave each a plaque and $1000. After the ceremony, newsmen interviewed the +driver and asked him what he was going to do with the money. + "You can be damned sure the first thing I'm gonna do," he replied, +"is get the brakes fixed on that son-of-a-bitchin' truck!" +% +The world is an 8000 mile in diameter spherical pile of shit. +% +There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +There are two sides to every divorce: yours and the shithead's. +% +There is always more hell that needs raising. + -- Lauren Leveut +% +There's a man deeply in debt, see, and he takes the money he has left +and goes to Monte Carlo to try to recoup at the roulette tables. Won a +little, lost a lot, and was down to his last franc. Prayed for help. +A voice whispered in his ear: "Le rouge..." Man looked around; nobody +there. What the hell -- he puts his last franc on the red, and it won. +The voice immediately said, "Encore le rouge..." Played red again, and +it won again. The voice said, "Impair..." Played odd, and it won. Voice +said, "Quinze..." so he put all the money on 15, and it won. This went +on for hours, the voice telling him what to bet, and the man putting all +his money on what the voice said, and winning. Finally when the voice +spoke, the man protested that he'd won millions of dollars and wanted to +quit. The voice was inexorable: "Douze..." The man put the money on 12, +and 11 came up -- he had lost everything -- the voice murmured "Merde!!" +% +There's a tendency today to absolve individuals from moral responsibility and +treat them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your +soul. It's not men who limit women, it's not straights who limit gays, it's +not whites who limit blacks. What limits people is lack of character. What +limits people is that they don't have the fucking nerve or imagination to star +in their own movie, let alone direct it. + -- Bernard Mickey Wrangle +% +They ought to make butt-flavored cat food. + -- Gallagher +% +This guy makes an appointment with a doctor because his hemorrhoids are +really bothering him. The doctor gives him some suppositories and tells +him to come back in a week for a checkup. "How's it going?" he asks +the patient a week later. + "I gotta tell you the truth, Doc," said the man. "For all the +good these pills did me, I coulda shoved them up my ass." +% +This guy walks into a bank and up to a female bank teller: + +Man: "I want to open a fuckin' savings account." +Teller: "Excuse me, sir?" +M: "Listen, bitch, I want to open a fuckin' savings account." +T: "Sir, I don't have to listen to this abusive language." +M: "LOOK! I just want to open a fuckin' savings account." +T: "Sir, you leave me no choice but to speak to the manager." + +The teller walks over and explains the customer's rude behavior to the bank +manager who then accompanies her back to the teller booth. + +Mgr: "Can I help you, sir?" +M: "I want to open a fuckin' savings account." +Mgr: "Please, sir, we'll be delighted to help you, but we must request + that you not use abusive language to our tellers." +M: "Look. I just won $25 million in the state lottery and I want to + open a fuckin' savings account!" +Mgr: "I see. And has this cunt been giving you any trouble?" +% +This is National Smokers-Are-Shits Week. +% +Today is gonna be one helluva week! +% +Tomorrow never comes! It's all the same fuckin' day, man! + -- Janis Joplin +% + Two little kids, aged six and eight, decide it's time to learn how to +swear. So, the eight-year-old says to the six-year-old, "Okay, you say +`ass' and I'll say `hell'". + All excited about their plan, they troop downstairs, where their +mother asks them what they'd like for breakfast. + "Aw, hell," says the eight-year-old, "gimme some Cheerios." His mother +backhands him off the stool, sending him bawling out of the room, and +turns to the younger brother. "What'll you have?" + "I dunno," quavers the six-year-old, "but you can bet your ass it +ain't gonna be Cheerios." +% +Two morticians alternated in sharing the responsibility of covering +the night shift. One early morning about 3:00 am, a body was brought into the +mortuary, and the mortician began work. When he had unclothed the corpse, he +noticed a cork in the anus. Removing it, the strains of "Hello, Dolly, well, +hello, Dolly...!" were plainly heard being sung. He put the cork back, and +the singing stopped. Pulling it out again, the same song started, "You're +lookin' swell, Dolly!". Amazed, he telephoned his partner, and insisted he +come immediately to see something very unusual. Roused from sleep, the partner +asked if it could wait until morning. It took great persistence, but finally +the partner agreed to dress and come down to the shop. When he got there, he +said, "Now what was it that was so important you had to get me out of bed at +this ungodly hour?" + The man said, "Come into the embalming room." + They go into the embalming room, and the first partner says, "Now +watch." + He pulls out the cork, and the anus takes off singing again. The +partner looks at him disgustedly and says: "You brought me down here at +three in the morning just to hear some asshole sing Hello Dolly"? +% +VYARZERZOMANIMORORSEZASSEZANSERAREORSES? +% +"Water? Never touch the stuff! Fish fuck in it." + -- W. C. Fields +% +We aren't what we eat. We are what we don't shit. + -- Hugh Romney +% +We call our dog Egypt, because in every room he leaves a pyramid. +% +We came, we saw, we kicked its ass! + -- Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters" +% +We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass +no matter how self-seeking. + -- F. G. Withington +% +Well, now that SUN's in bed with AT&T, I sure hope she sleeps with her +back to the wall. + -- Guy Harris, on AT&T buying 20% of SUN Microsystems + +Eat shit and die. Strong memo to follow. + -- Mike O'Dell, on AT&T buying 20% of SUN Microsystems +% + Well, there was this tiger, who woke up one morning, and just felt +great (yes, just like Tony the Tiger: GREAAAAAAT). Anyway, he just felt +so good, he went out and cornered a small monkey and roared at him: "WHO IS +THE MIGHTIEST OF ALL THE JUNGLE ANIMALS?" + And this poor quaking little monkey replied: "You are of course, no +one is mightier than you." + A little while later this tiger confronts a deer, and just bellows out: +"WHO IS THE GREATEST AND STRONGEST OF ALL THE JUNGLE ANIMALS?" + The deer is shaking so hard it can barely speak, but manages to +stammer: "Oh great tiger, you are by far the mightiest animal in the jungle." + The tiger, being on a roll, swaggered, up to an elephant that was +quietly munching on some weeds, and roared at the top of his voice: "WHO IS +THE MIGHTIEST OF ALL THE ANIMALS IN THE JUNGLE?" + Well, this elephant grabs the tiger with his trunk, picks him up, slams +him down; picks him up again, and shakes him until the tiger is just a blur of +orange and black; and finally throws him violently into a nearby tree. + The tiger staggers to his feet, looks at the elephant and says: "Man, +you don't have to get so pissed, just because you don't know the answer!" +% +Well, this woman went to the butcher shop to get some ham for dinner. +She asked the butcher what kind of ham he recommended, and the butcher said, +"Well ma'am, we got some Damn ham here for $3.50 a pound..." Needless to +say, she was surprised at the butcher's language! The butcher, who was +reasonably astute, noticed the alarmed look on the woman's face, and quickly +justified himself. "No, no, ma'am, I wasn't cursin', the NAME of this here +ham is "Damn ham". Amused, the woman requested some "Damn ham." + That night, before dinner, the woman took her husband aside and +explained what had happened at the butcher shop. He also was amused, and +suggested that they play a joke on their son. So, at dinner, after grace, +the man turned to his wife and said, "Honey, pass the damn ham." + Their son looked up, surprised. "WHOAH! Dad be gettin' hip! +How 'bout them mother-fuckin' potatoes?" +% +What the fuck, over? +% +What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket. +% +When the shit hits the fan, keep your mouth shut! +% +Where the hell is Wall Drug? +% +Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? + -- Harry Warner, Warner Bros. Pictures, c. 1927 +% +Who took the MMMMMM out of MURINE? +% +Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone? + -- Jimmy Durante +% +Winning isn't everything, but losing really sucks. +% +Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours." + -- Robert Byrne +% +Work like hell, tell everyone everything you know, close a deal with +a handshake, and have fun. + -- Harold "Doc" Edgerton, summing up his life's philosophy, + shortly before dying at the age of 86. +% +Would you mind terribly much if I asked you to take your silly-assed +problem down the hall? +% +Yesterday is a memory, + Tomorrow is a vision, + Today is a bitch! +% +You are without a doubt a rogue, a rascal, a villain, a thief, a scoundrel, +and a mean, dirty, stinking, sniveling, sneaking, pimping, pocketpicking, +thrice double-damned, no-good son-of-a-bitch. +% +You can find sympathy, in the dictionary, right near shit and suicide. +% +You can lead a whore to Vasser, but you can't make her think. + -- Frederick B. Artz +% +You have been bitchy since Tuesday and you'll probably get fired today. +% +You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles +are the biggest bastards on earth. + -- John Lennon +% +"You have to regard everything I say with suspicion -- I may be trying +to bullshit you, or I may just be bullshitting you inadvertently." + -- J. Wainwright, Mathematics 140b +% +You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you sure as hell can +tell how much it's going to cost. +% +You see that fucking fish? If he'd kept his mouth shut, he wouldn'ta got +caught. + -- Sam Giancana +% +You should be a hemorrhoid, you're such a pain in the ass. +% +"I didn't realize how much I hated that play until I agreed to do it. I +don't mind Shakespeare so much, but I really hate Othello. Here was a +guy who had been all over the world, kicking ass, looting, plundering +and probably raping the baddest babes on the planet. The he falls in +love with some teenager and loses his fucking mind. I don't like that +idea at all. I mean, how stupid was he?" + -- Samuel L. Jackson, on "Othello" diff --git a/fortunes/off/zippy b/fortunes/off/zippy new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09518f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/off/zippy @@ -0,0 +1,1289 @@ +A can of ASPARAGUS, 73 pigeons, some LIVE ammo, and a FROZEN DAQUIRI!! +% +A dwarf is passing out somewhere in Detroit! +% +A shapely CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL is FIDGETING inside my costume.. +% +A wide-eyed, innocent UNICORN, poised delicately in a MEADOW filled +with LILACS, LOLLIPOPS & small CHILDREN at the HUSH of twilight?? +% +Actually, what I'd like is a little toy spaceship!! +% +All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled +by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ... +% +All of a sudden, I want to THROW OVER my promising ACTING CAREER, grow +a LONG BLACK BEARD and wear a BASEBALL HAT!! ... Although I don't know WHY!! +% +All of life is a blur of Republicans and meat! +% +All right, you degenerates! I want this place evacuated in 20 seconds! +% +All this time I've been VIEWING a RUSSIAN MIDGET SODOMIZE a HOUSECAT! +% +Alright, you!! Imitate a WOUNDED SEAL pleading for a PARKING SPACE!! +% +Am I accompanied by a PARENT or GUARDIAN? +% +Am I elected yet? +% +Am I in GRADUATE SCHOOL yet? +% +Am I SHOPLIFTING? +% +America!! I saw it all!! Vomiting! Waving! JERRY FALWELLING into +your void tube of UHF oblivion!! SAFEWAY of the mind ... +% +An air of FRENCH FRIES permeates my nostrils!! +% +An INK-LING? Sure -- TAKE one!! Did you BUY any COMMUNIST UNIFORMS?? +% +An Italian is COMBING his hair in suburban DES MOINES! +% +And furthermore, my bowling average is unimpeachable!!! +% +ANN JILLIAN'S HAIR makes LONI ANDERSON'S HAIR look like RICARDO +MONTALBAN'S HAIR! +% +Are the STEWED PRUNES still in the HAIR DRYER? +% +Are we live or on tape? +% +Are we on STRIKE yet? +% +Are we THERE yet? +% +Are we THERE yet? My MIND is a SUBMARINE!! +% +Are you mentally here at Pizza Hut?? +% +Are you selling NYLON OIL WELLS?? If so, we can use TWO DOZEN!! +% +Are you still an ALCOHOLIC? +% +As President I have to go vacuum my coin collection! +% +Awright, which one of you hid my PENIS ENVY? +% +BARBARA STANWYCK makes me nervous!! +% +Barbie says, Take quaaludes in gin and go to a disco right away! +But Ken says, WOO-WOO!! No credit at "Mr. Liquor"!! +% +BARRY ... That was the most HEART-WARMING rendition of "I DID IT MY +WAY" I've ever heard!! +% +Being a BALD HERO is almost as FESTIVE as a TATTOOED KNOCKWURST. +% +BELA LUGOSI is my co-pilot ... +% +BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI- +% +... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ... +% +Bo Derek ruined my life! +% +Boy, am I glad it's only 1971... +% +Boys, you have ALL been selected to LEAVE th' PLANET in 15 minutes!! +% +But they went to MARS around 1953!! +% +But was he mature enough last night at the lesbian masquerade? +% +Can I have an IMPULSE ITEM instead? +% +Can you MAIL a BEAN CAKE? +% +Catsup and Mustard all over the place! It's the Human Hamburger! +% +CHUBBY CHECKER just had a CHICKEN SANDWICH in downtown DULUTH! +% +Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!! +% +Clear the laundromat!! This whirl-o-matic just had a nuclear meltdown!! +% +Concentrate on th'cute, li'l CARTOON GUYS! Remember the SERIAL +NUMBERS!! Follow the WHIPPLE AVE. EXIT!! Have a FREE PEPSI!! Turn +LEFT at th'HOLIDAY INN!! JOIN the CREDIT WORLD!! MAKE me an OFFER!!! +% +CONGRATULATIONS! Now should I make thinly veiled comments about +DIGNITY, self-esteem and finding TRUE FUN in your RIGHT VENTRICLE?? +% +Content: 80% POLYESTER, 20% DACRONi ... The waitress's UNIFORM sheds +TARTAR SAUCE like an 8" by 10" GLOSSY ... +% +Could I have a drug overdose? +% +Did an Italian CRANE OPERATOR just experience uninhibited sensations in +a MALIBU HOT TUB? +% +Did I do an INCORRECT THING?? +% +Did I say I was a sardine? Or a bus??? +% +Did I SELL OUT yet?? +% +Did YOU find a DIGITAL WATCH in YOUR box of VELVEETA? +% +Did you move a lot of KOREAN STEAK KNIVES this trip, Dingy? +% +DIDI ... is that a MARTIAN name, or, are we in ISRAEL? +% +Didn't I buy a 1951 Packard from you last March in Cairo? +% +Disco oil bussing will create a throbbing naugahide pipeline running +straight to the tropics from the rug producing regions and devalue the dollar! +% +Do I have a lifestyle yet? +% +Do you guys know we just passed through a BLACK HOLE in space? +% +Do you have exactly what I want in a plaid poindexter bar bat?? +% +Do you like "TENDER VITTLES"? +% +Do you think the "Monkees" should get gas on odd or even days? +% +Does someone from PEORIA have a SHORTER ATTENTION span than me? +% +does your DRESSING ROOM have enough ASPARAGUS? +% +DON'T go!! I'm not HOWARD COSELL!! I know POLISH JOKES ... WAIT!! +Don't go!! I AM Howard Cosell! ... And I DON'T know Polish jokes!! +% +Don't hit me!! I'm in the Twilight Zone!!! +% +Don't SANFORIZE me!! +% +Don't worry, nobody really LISTENS to lectures in MOSCOW, either! ... +FRENCH, HISTORY, ADVANCED CALCULUS, COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, BLACK +STUDIES, SOCIOBIOLOGY! ... Are there any QUESTIONS?? +% +Edwin Meese made me wear CORDOVANS!! +% +Eisenhower!! Your mimeograph machine upsets my stomach!! +% +Either CONFESS now or we go to "PEOPLE'S COURT"!! +% +Everybody gets free BORSCHT! +% +Everybody is going somewhere!! It's probably a garage sale or a +disaster Movie!! +% +Everywhere I look I see NEGATIVITY and ASPHALT ... +% +Excuse me, but didn't I tell you there's NO HOPE for the survival of +OFFSET PRINTING? +% +FEELINGS are cascading over me!!! +% +Finally, Zippy drives his 1958 RAMBLER METROPOLITAN into the faculty +dining room. +% +First, I'm going to give you all the ANSWERS to today's test ... So +just plug in your SONY WALKMANS and relax!! +% +FOOLED you! Absorb EGO SHATTERING impulse rays, polyester poltroon!! +% +for ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING!! +% +Four thousand different MAGNATES, MOGULS & NABOBS are romping in my +gothic solarium!! +% +FROZEN ENTREES may be flung by members of opposing SWANSON SECTS ... +% +FUN is never having to say you're SUSHI!! +% +Gee, I feel kind of LIGHT in the head now, knowing I can't make my +satellite dish PAYMENTS! +% +Gibble, Gobble, we ACCEPT YOU ... +% +Give them RADAR-GUIDED SKEE-BALL LANES and VELVEETA BURRITOS!! +% +Go on, EMOTE! I was RAISED on thought balloons!! +% +GOOD-NIGHT, everybody ... Now I have to go administer FIRST-AID to my +pet LEISURE SUIT!! +% +HAIR TONICS, please!! +% +Half a mind is a terrible thing to waste! +% +Hand me a pair of leather pants and a CASIO keyboard -- I'm living for today! +% +Has everybody got HALVAH spread all over their ANKLES?? ... Now, it's +time to "HAVE A NAGEELA"!! +% +... he dominates the DECADENT SUBWAY SCENE. +% +He is the MELBA-BEING ... the ANGEL CAKE ... XEROX him ... XEROX him -- +% +He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE inside me +like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER! Or maybe he'd like to +PSYCHOLIGICALLY TERRORISE ME until I have no objection to a RIGHT-WING +MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!! I guess I should call AL PACINO! +% +HELLO KITTY gang terrorizes town, family STICKERED to death! +% +HELLO, everybody, I'm a HUMAN!! +% +Hello, GORRY-O!! I'm a GENIUS from HARVARD!! +% +Hello. I know the divorce rate among unmarried Catholic Alaskan females!! +% +Hello. Just walk along and try NOT to think about your INTESTINES +being almost FORTY YARDS LONG!! +% +Hello... IRON CURTAIN? Send over a SAUSAGE PIZZA! World War III? No thanks! +% +Hello? Enema Bondage? I'm calling because I want to be happy, I guess ... +% +Here I am at the flea market but nobody is buying my urine sample bottles ... +% +Here I am in 53 B.C. and all I want is a dill pickle!! +% +Here I am in the POSTERIOR OLFACTORY LOBULE but I don't see CARL SAGAN +anywhere!! +% +Here we are in America ... when do we collect unemployment? +% +Hey, wait a minute!! I want a divorce!! ... you're not Clint Eastwood!! +% +Hey, waiter! I want a NEW SHIRT and a PONY TAIL with lemon sauce! +% +Hiccuping & trembling into the WASTE DUMPS of New Jersey like some +drunken CABBAGE PATCH DOLL, coughing in line at FIORUCCI'S!! +% +Hmmm ... a CRIPPLED ACCOUNTANT with a FALAFEL sandwich is HIT by a +TROLLEY-CAR ... +% +Hmmm ... A hash-singer and a cross-eyed guy were SLEEPING on a deserted +island, when ... +% +Hmmm ... a PINHEAD, during an EARTHQUAKE, encounters an ALL-MIDGET +FIDDLE ORCHESTRA ... ha ... ha ... +% +Hmmm ... an arrogant bouquet with a subtle suggestion of POLYVINYL +CHLORIDE ... +% +Hold the MAYO & pass the COSMIC AWARENESS ... +% +HOORAY, Ronald!! Now YOU can marry LINDA RONSTADT too!! +% +How do I get HOME? +% +How do you explain Wayne Newton's POWER over millions? It's th' MOUSTACHE +... Have you ever noticed th' way it radiates SINCERITY, HONESTY & WARMTH? +It's a MOUSTACHE you want to take HOME and introduce to NANCY SINATRA! +% +How many retured bricklayers from FLORIDA are out purchasing PENCIL +SHARPENERS right NOW?? +% +How's it going in those MODULAR LOVE UNITS?? +% +How's the wife? Is she at home enjoying capitalism? +% +hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub. +% +HUGH BEAUMONT died in 1982!! +% +HUMAN REPLICAS are inserted into VATS of NUTRITIONAL YEAST ... +% +I always have fun because I'm out of my mind!!! +% +I am a jelly donut. I am a jelly donut. +% +I am a traffic light, and Alan Ginzberg kidnapped my laundry in 1927! +% +I am covered with pure vegetable oil and I am writing a best seller! +% +I am deeply CONCERNED and I want something GOOD for BREAKFAST! +% +I am having FUN... I wonder if it's NET FUN or GROSS FUN? +% +I am NOT a nut.... +% +I appoint you ambassador to Fantasy Island!!! +% +I brought my BOWLING BALL -- and some DRUGS!! +% +I can't decide which WRONG TURN to make first!! I wonder if BOB +GUCCIONE has these problems! +% +I can't think about that. It doesn't go with HEDGES in the shape of +LITTLE LULU -- or ROBOTS making BRICKS ... +% +I demand IMPUNITY! +% +I didn't order any WOO-WOO ... Maybe a YUBBA ... But no WOO-WOO! +% +I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just +a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more numbers!! +% +... I don't know why but, suddenly, I want to discuss declining I.Q. +LEVELS with a blue ribbon SENATE SUB-COMMITTEE! +% +I don't know WHY I said that ... I think it came from the FILLINGS in +my read molars ... +% +... I don't like FRANK SINATRA or his CHILDREN. +% +I don't understand the HUMOUR of the THREE STOOGES!! +% +I feel ... JUGULAR ... +% +I feel better about world problems now! +% +I feel like a wet parking meter on Darvon! +% +I feel like I am sharing a ``CORN-DOG'' with NIKITA KHRUSCHEV ... +% +I feel like I'm in a Toilet Bowl with a thumbtack in my forehead!! +% +I feel partially hydrogenated! +% +I fill MY industrial waste containers with old copies of the "WATCHTOWER" +and then add HAWAIIAN PUNCH to the top ... They look NICE in the yard ... +% +I guess it was all a DREAM ... or an episode of HAWAII FIVE-O ... +% +I guess you guys got BIG MUSCLES from doing too much STUDYING! +% +I had a lease on an OEDIPUS COMPLEX back in '81 ... +% +I had pancake makeup for brunch! +% +I have a TINY BOWL in my HEAD +% +I have a very good DENTAL PLAN. Thank you. +% +I have a VISION! It's a RANCID double-FISHWICH on an ENRICHED BUN!! +% +I have accepted Provolone into my life! +% +I have many CHARTS and DIAGRAMS.. +% +... I have read the INSTRUCTIONS ... +% +-- I have seen the FUN -- +% +I have seen these EGG EXTENDERS in my Supermarket ... I have read the +INSTRUCTIONS ... +% +I have the power to HALT PRODUCTION on all TEENAGE SEX COMEDIES!! +% +I HAVE to buy a new "DODGE MISER" and two dozen JORDACHE JEANS because +my viewscreen is "USER-FRIENDLY"!! +% +I haven't been married in over six years, but we had sexual counseling +every day from Oral Roberts!! +% +I hope I bought the right relish ... zzzzzzzzz ... +% +I hope something GOOD came in the mail today so I have a REASON to live!! +% +I hope the ``Eurythmics'' practice birth control ... +% +I hope you millionaires are having fun! I just invested half your life +savings in yeast!! +% +I invented skydiving in 1989! +% +I joined scientology at a garage sale!! +% +I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!! +% +I just got my PRINCE bumper sticker ... But now I can't remember WHO he is ... +% +I just had a NOSE JOB!! +% +I just had my entire INTESTINAL TRACT coated with TEFLON! +% +I just heard the SEVENTIES were over!! And I was just getting in touch +with my LEISURE SUIT!! +% +I just remembered something about a TOAD! +% +I KAISER ROLL?! What good is a Kaiser Roll without a little COLE SLAW +on the SIDE? +% +I Know A Joke!! +% +I know how to do SPECIAL EFFECTS!! +% +I know th'MAMBO!! I have a TWO-TONE CHEMISTRY SET!! +% +I know things about TROY DONAHUE that can't even be PRINTED!! +% +I left my WALLET in the BATHROOM!! +% +I like the way ONLY their mouths move ... They look like DYING OYSTERS +% +I like your SNOOPY POSTER!! +% +-- I love KATRINKA because she drives a PONTIAC. We're going away +now. I fed the cat. +% +I love ROCK 'N ROLL! I memorized all the WORDS to "WIPE-OUT" in +1965!! +% +I need to discuss BUY-BACK PROVISIONS with at least six studio SLEAZEBALLS!! +% +I once decorated my apartment entirely in ten foot salad forks!! +% +I own seven-eighths of all the artists in downtown Burbank! +% +I put aside my copy of "BOWLING WORLD" and think about GUN CONTROL +legislation... +% +I represent a sardine!! +% +I request a weekend in Havana with Phil Silvers! +% +... I see TOILET SEATS ... +% +I selected E5 ... but I didn't hear "Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs"! +% +I smell a RANCID CORN DOG! +% +I smell like a wet reducing clinic on Columbus Day! +% +I think I am an overnight sensation right now!! +% +... I think I'd better go back to my DESK and toy with a few common +MISAPPREHENSIONS ... +% +I think I'll KILL myself by leaping out of this 14th STORY WINDOW while +reading ERICA JONG'S poetry!! +% +I think my career is ruined! +% +I used to be a FUNDAMENTALIST, but then I heard about the HIGH +RADIATION LEVELS and bought an ENCYCLOPEDIA!! +% +... I want a COLOR T.V. and a VIBRATING BED!!! +% +I want a VEGETARIAN BURRITO to go ... with EXTRA MSG!! +% +I want a WESSON OIL lease!! +% +I want another RE-WRITE on my CEASAR SALAD!! +% +I want EARS! I want two ROUND BLACK EARS to make me feel warm 'n secure!! +% +... I want FORTY-TWO TRYNEL FLOATATION SYSTEMS installed within +SIX AND A HALF HOURS!!! +% +I want the presidency so bad I can already taste the hors d'oeuvres. +% +I want to dress you up as TALLULAH BANKHEAD and cover you with VASELINE +and WHEAT THINS ... +% +I want to kill everyone here with a cute colorful Hydrogen Bomb!! +% +... I want to perform cranial activities with Tuesday Weld!! +% +I want to read my new poem about pork brains and outer space ... +% +I want to so HAPPY, the VEINS in my neck STAND OUT!! +% +I want you to MEMORIZE the collected poems of EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY +... BACKWARDS!! +% +I want you to organize my PASTRY trays ... my TEA-TINS are gleaming in +formation like a ROW of DRUM MAJORETTES -- please don't be FURIOUS with me -- +% +I was born in a Hostess Cupcake factory before the sexual revolution! +% +I was making donuts and now I'm on a bus! +% +I wish I was a sex-starved manicurist found dead in the Bronx!! +% +I wish I was on a Cincinnati street corner holding a clean dog! +% +I wonder if I could ever get started in the credit world? +% +I wonder if I ought to tell them about my PREVIOUS LIFE as a COMPLETE +STRANGER? +% +I wonder if I should put myself in ESCROW!! +% +I wonder if there's anything GOOD on tonight? +% +I would like to urinate in an OVULAR, porcelain pool -- +% +I'd like MY data-base JULIENNED and stir-fried! +% +I'd like some JUNK FOOD ... and then I want to be ALONE -- +% +I'll eat ANYTHING that's BRIGHT BLUE!! +% +I'll show you MY telex number if you show me YOURS ... +% +I'm a fuschia bowling ball somewhere in Brittany +% +I'm a GENIUS! I want to dispute sentence structure with SUSAN SONTAG!! +% +I'm a nuclear submarine under the polar ice cap and I need a Kleenex! +% +I'm also against BODY-SURFING!! +% +I'm also pre-POURED pre-MEDITATED and pre-RAPHAELITE!! +% +I'm ANN LANDERS!! I can SHOPLIFT!! +% +I'm changing the CHANNEL ... But all I get is commercials for "RONCO +MIRACLE BAMBOO STEAMERS"! +% +I'm continually AMAZED at th'breathtaking effects of WIND EROSION!! +% +I'm definitely not in Omaha! +% +I'm DESPONDENT ... I hope there's something DEEP-FRIED under this +miniature DOMED STADIUM ... +% +I'm dressing up in an ill-fitting IVY-LEAGUE SUIT!! Too late... +% +I'm EMOTIONAL now because I have MERCHANDISING CLOUT!! +% +I'm encased in the lining of a pure pork sausage!! +% +I'm GLAD I remembered to XEROX all my UNDERSHIRTS!! +% +I'm gliding over a NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP near ATLANTA, Georgia!! +% +I'm having a BIG BANG THEORY!! +% +I'm having a MID-WEEK CRISIS! +% +I'm having a RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE ... and I don't take any DRUGS +% +I'm having a tax-deductible experience! I need an energy crunch!! +% +I'm having an emotional outburst!! +% +I'm having an EMOTIONAL OUTBURST!! But, uh, WHY is there a WAFFLE in +my PAJAMA POCKET?? +% +I'm having BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS about the INSIPID WIVES of smug and +wealthy CORPORATE LAWYERS ... +% +I'm having fun HITCHHIKING to CINCINNATI or FAR ROCKAWAY!! +% +... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM +of a KOSHER DELI -- +% +I'm in direct contact with many advanced fun CONCEPTS. +% +I'm into SOFTWARE! +% +I'm meditating on the FORMALDEHYDE and the ASBESTOS leaking into my +PERSONAL SPACE!! +% +I'm mentally OVERDRAWN! What's that SIGNPOST up ahead? Where's ROD +STERLING when you really need him? +% +I'm not an Iranian!! I voted for Dianne Feinstein!! +% +I'm not available for comment.. +% +I'm pretending I'm pulling in a TROUT! Am I doing it correctly?? +% +I'm pretending that we're all watching PHIL SILVERS instead of RICARDO +MONTALBAN! +% +I'm QUIETLY reading the latest issue of "BOWLING WORLD" while my wife +and two children stand QUIETLY BY ... +% +I'm rated PG-34!! +% +I'm receiving a coded message from EUBIE BLAKE!! +% +I'm RELIGIOUS!! I love a man with a HAIRPIECE!! Equip me with MISSILES!! +% +I'm reporting for duty as a modern person. I want to do the Latin Hustle now! +% +I'm shaving!! I'M SHAVING!! +% +I'm sitting on my SPEED QUEEN ... To me, it's ENJOYABLE ... I'm WARM +... I'm VIBRATORY ... +% +I'm thinking about DIGITAL READ-OUT systems and computer-generated +IMAGE FORMATIONS ... +% +I'm totally DESPONDENT over the LIBYAN situation and the price of CHICKEN ... +% +I'm using my X-RAY VISION to obtain a rare glimpse of the INNER +WORKINGS of this POTATO!! +% +I'm wearing PAMPERS!! +% +I'm wet! I'm wild! +% +I'm young ... I'm HEALTHY ... I can HIKE THRU CAPT GROGAN'S LUMBAR REGIONS! +% +I'm ZIPPY the PINHEAD and I'm totally committed to the festive mode. +% +I've got a COUSIN who works in the GARMENT DISTRICT ... +% +I've got an IDEA!! Why don't I STARE at you so HARD, you forget your +SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!! +% +I've read SEVEN MILLION books!! +% +... ich bin in einem dusenjet ins jahr 53 vor chr ... ich lande im +antiken Rom ... einige gladiatoren spielen scrabble ... ich rieche +PIZZA ... +% +If a person is FAMOUS in this country, they have to go on the ROAD for +MONTHS at a time and have their name misspelled on the SIDE of a +GREYHOUND SCENICRUISER!! +% +If elected, Zippy pledges to each and every American a 55-year-old houseboy ... +% +If I am elected no one will ever have to do their laundry again! +% +If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will be +replaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET! +% +If I felt any more SOPHISTICATED I would DIE of EMBARRASSMENT! +% +If I had a Q-TIP, I could prevent th' collapse of NEGOTIATIONS!! +% +... If I had heart failure right now, I couldn't be a more fortunate man!! +% +If I pull this SWITCH I'll be RITA HAYWORTH!! Or a SCIENTOLOGIST! +% +if it GLISTENS, gobble it!! +% +If our behavior is strict, we do not need fun! +% +If Robert Di Niro assassinates Walter Slezak, will Jodie Foster marry Bonzo?? +% +In 1962, you could buy a pair of SHARKSKIN SLACKS, with a "Continental +Belt," for $10.99!! +% +In Newark the laundromats are open 24 hours a day! +% +INSIDE, I have the same personality disorder as LUCY RICARDO!! +% +Inside, I'm already SOBBING! +% +Is a tattoo real, like a curb or a battleship? Or are we suffering in Safeway? +% +Is he the MAGIC INCA carrying a FROG on his shoulders?? Is the FROG +his GUIDELIGHT?? It is curious that a DOG runs already on the ESCALATOR ... +% +Is it 1974? What's for SUPPER? Can I spend my COLLEGE FUND in one +wild afternoon?? +% +Is it clean in other dimensions? +% +Is it NOUVELLE CUISINE when 3 olives are struggling with a scallop in a +plate of SAUCE MORNAY? +% +Is something VIOLENT going to happen to a GARBAGE CAN? +% +Is this an out-take from the "BRADY BUNCH"? +% +Is this going to involve RAW human ecstasy? +% +Is this TERMINAL fun? +% +Is this the line for the latest whimsical YUGOSLAVIAN drama which also +makes you want to CRY and reconsider the VIETNAM WAR? +% +Isn't this my STOP?! +% +It don't mean a THING if you ain't got that SWING!! +% +It was a JOKE!! Get it?? I was receiving messages from DAVID LETTERMAN!! +YOW!! +% +It's a lot of fun being alive ... I wonder if my bed is made?!? +% +It's NO USE ... I've gone to "CLUB MED"!! +% +It's OBVIOUS ... The FURS never reached ISTANBUL ... You were an EXTRA +in the REMAKE of "TOPKAPI" ... Go home to your WIFE ... She's making +FRENCH TOAST! +% +It's OKAY -- I'm an INTELLECTUAL, too. +% +It's the RINSE CYCLE!! They've ALL IGNORED the RINSE CYCLE!! +% +JAPAN is a WONDERFUL planet -- I wonder if we'll ever reach their level +of COMPARATIVE SHOPPING ... +% +Jesuit priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!! +% +Jesus is my POSTMASTER GENERAL ... +% +Kids, don't gross me off ... "Adventures with MENTAL HYGIENE" can be +carried too FAR! +% +Kids, the seven basic food groups are GUM, PUFF PASTRY, PIZZA, +PESTICIDES, ANTIBIOTICS, NUTRA-SWEET and MILK DUDS!! +% +Laundry is the fifth dimension!! ... um ... um ... th' washing machine +is a black hole and the pink socks are bus drivers who just fell in!! +% +LBJ, LBJ, how many JOKES did you tell today??! +% +Leona, I want to CONFESS things to you ... I want to WRAP you in a SCARLET +ROBE trimmed with POLYVINYL CHLORIDE ... I want to EMPTY your ASHTRAYS ... +% +Let me do my TRIBUTE to FISHNET STOCKINGS ... +% +Let's all show human CONCERN for REVERAND MOON's legal difficulties!! +% +Let's send the Russians defective lifestyle accessories! +% +Life is a POPULARITY CONTEST! I'm REFRESHINGLY CANDID!! +% +Like I always say -- nothing can beat the BRATWURST here in DUSSELDORF!! +% +Loni Anderson's hair should be LEGALIZED!! +% +Look DEEP into the OPENINGS!! Do you see any ELVES or EDSELS ... or a +HIGHBALL?? ... +% +Look into my eyes and try to forget that you have a Macy's charge card! +% +Look! A ladder! Maybe it leads to heaven, or a sandwich! +% +LOOK!! Sullen American teens wearing MADRAS shorts and "Flock of +Seagulls" HAIRCUTS! +% +Make me look like LINDA RONSTADT again!! +% +Mary Tyler Moore's SEVENTH HUSBAND is wearing my DACRON TANK TOP in a +cheap hotel in HONOLULU! +% +Maybe we could paint GOLDIE HAWN a rich PRUSSIAN BLUE -- +% +MERYL STREEP is my obstetrician! +% +MMM-MM!! So THIS is BIO-NEBULATION! +% +Mmmmmm-MMMMMM!! A plate of STEAMING PIECES of a PIG mixed with the +shreds of SEVERAL CHICKENS!! ... Oh BOY!! I'm about to swallow a +TORN-OFF section of a COW'S LEFT LEG soaked in COTTONSEED OIL and +SUGAR!! ... Let's see ... Next, I'll have the GROUND-UP flesh of CUTE, +BABY LAMBS fried in the MELTED, FATTY TISSUES from a warm-blooded +animal someone once PETTED!! ... YUM!! That was GOOD!! For DESSERT, +I'll have a TOFU BURGER with BEAN SPROUTS on a stone-ground, WHOLE +WHEAT BUN!! +% +Mr and Mrs PED, can I borrow 26.7% of the RAYON TEXTILE production of +the INDONESIAN archipelago? +% +My Aunt MAUREEN was a military advisor to IKE & TINA TURNER!! +% +My BIOLOGICAL ALARM CLOCK just went off ... It has noiseless DOZE +FUNCTION and full kitchen!! +% +My CODE of ETHICS is vacationing at famed SCHROON LAKE in upstate New York!! +% +My EARS are GONE!! +% +My face is new, my license is expired, and I'm under a doctor's care!!!! +% +My haircut is totally traditional! +% +MY income is ALL disposable! +% +My LESLIE GORE record is BROKEN ... +% +My life is a patio of fun! +% +My mind is a potato field ... +% +My mind is making ashtrays in Dayton ... +% +My nose feels like a bad Ronald Reagan movie ... +% +My NOSE is NUMB! +% +... My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling Alley!! +% +My pants just went to high school in the Carlsbad Caverns!!! +% +My polyvinyl cowboy wallet was made in Hong Kong by Montgomery Clift! +% +My uncle Murray conquered Egypt in 53 B.C. And I can prove it too!! +% +My vaseline is RUNNING... +% +NANCY!! Why is everything RED?! +% +NATHAN ... your PARENTS were in a CARCRASH!! They're VOIDED -- They +COLLAPSED They had no CHAINSAWS ... They had no MONEY MACHINES ... They +did PILLS in SKIMPY GRASS SKIRTS ... Nathan, I EMULATED them ... but +they were OFF-KEY ... +% +NEWARK has been REZONED!! DES MOINES has been REZONED!! +% +Nipples, dimples, knuckles, NICKLES, wrinkles, pimples!! +% +Not SENSUOUS ... only "FROLICSOME" ... and in need of DENTAL WORK ... in PAIN!!! +% +Now I am depressed ... +% +Now I think I just reached the state of HYPERTENSION that comes JUST +BEFORE you see the TOTAL at the SAFEWAY CHECKOUT COUNTER! +% +Now I understand the meaning of "THE MOD SQUAD"! +% +Now I'm being INVOLUNTARILY shuffled closer to the CLAM DIP with the +BROKEN PLASTIC FORKS in it!! +% +Now I'm concentrating on a specific tank battle toward the end of World War II! +% +Now I'm having INSIPID THOUGHTS about the beautiful, round wives of +HOLLYWOOD MOVIE MOGULS encased in PLEXIGLASS CARS and being approached +by SMALL BOYS selling FRUIT ... +% +Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS ... +% +Now my EMOTIONAL RESOURCES are heavily committed to 23% of the SMELTING +and REFINING industry of the state of NEVADA!! +% +Now that I have my "APPLE", I comprehend COST ACCOUNTING!! +% +Now, let's SEND OUT for QUICHE!! +% +Of course, you UNDERSTAND about the PLAIDS in the SPIN CYCLE -- +% +Oh my GOD -- the SUN just fell into YANKEE STADIUM!! +% +Oh, I get it!! "The BEACH goes on", huh, SONNY?? +% +Okay ... I'm going home to write the "I HATE RUBIK's CUBE HANDBOOK FOR +DEAD CAT LOVERS" ... +% +OKAY!! Turn on the sound ONLY for TRYNEL CARPETING, FULLY-EQUIPPED +R.V.'S and FLOATATION SYSTEMS!! +% +OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS of JELL-O +and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th'WRENCH in the JELL-O as if +it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... ... or ... I ... um ... WHERE'S +the WASHING MACHINES? +% +On SECOND thought, maybe I'll heat up some BAKED BEANS and watch REGIS +PHILBIN ... It's GREAT to be ALIVE!! +% +On the other hand, life can be an endless parade of TRANSSEXUAL +QUILTING BEES aboard a cruise ship to DISNEYWORLD if only we let it!! +% +On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a POINT. +% +Once upon a time, four AMPHIBIOUS HOG CALLERS attacked a family of +DEFENSELESS, SENSITIVE COIN COLLECTORS and brought DOWN their PROPERTY +VALUES!! +% +Once, there was NO fun ... This was before MENU planning, FASHION +statements or NAUTILUS equipment ... Then, in 1985 ... FUN was +completely encoded in this tiny MICROCHIP ... It contain 14,768 vaguely +amusing SIT-COM pilots!! We had to wait FOUR BILLION years but we +finally got JERRY LEWIS, MTV and a large selection of creme-filled +snack cakes! +% +One FISHWICH coming up!! +% +ONE LIFE TO LIVE for ALL MY CHILDREN in ANOTHER WORLD all THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES. +% +ONE: I will donate my entire "BABY HUEY" comic book collection to + the downtown PLASMA CENTER ... +TWO: I won't START a BAND called "KHADAFY & THE HIT SQUAD" ... +THREE: I won't ever TUMBLE DRY my FOX TERRIER again!! +% +... or were you driving the PONTIAC that HONKED at me in MIAMI last Tuesday? +% +Our father who art in heaven ... I sincerely pray that SOMEBODY at this +table will PAY for my SHREDDED WHEAT and ENGLISH MUFFIN ... and also +leave a GENEROUS TIP .... +% +over in west Philadelphia a puppy is vomiting ... +% +OVER the underpass! UNDER the overpass! Around the FUTURE and BEYOND REPAIR!! +% +PARDON me, am I speaking ENGLISH? +% +Pardon me, but do you know what it means to be TRULY ONE with your BOOTH! +% +PEGGY FLEMMING is stealing BASKET BALLS to feed the babies in VERMONT. +% +People humiliating a salami! +% +PIZZA!! +% +Place me on a BUFFER counter while you BELITTLE several BELLHOPS in the +Trianon Room!! Let me one of your SUBSIDIARIES! +% +Please come home with me ... I have Tylenol!! +% +Psychoanalysis?? I thought this was a nude rap session!!! +% +PUNK ROCK!! DISCO DUCK!! BIRTH CONTROL!! +% +Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!! +% +RELATIVES!! +% +Remember, in 2039, MOUSSE & PASTA will be available ONLY by prescription!! +% +RHAPSODY in Glue! +% +SANTA CLAUS comes down a FIRE ESCAPE wearing bright blue LEG WARMERS +... He scrubs the POPE with a mild soap or detergent for 15 minutes, +starring JANE FONDA!! +% +Send your questions to ``ASK ZIPPY'', Box 40474, San Francisco, CA +94140, USA +% +SHHHH!! I hear SIX TATTOOED TRUCK-DRIVERS tossing ENGINE BLOCKS into +empty OIL DRUMS ... +% +Should I do my BOBBIE VINTON medley? +% +Should I get locked in the PRINCICAL'S OFFICE today -- or have a VASECTOMY?? +% +Should I start with the time I SWITCHED personalities with a BEATNIK +hair stylist or my failure to refer five TEENAGERS to a good OCULIST? +% +Sign my PETITION. +% +So this is what it feels like to be potato salad +% +So, if we convert SUPPLY-SIDE SOYABEAN FUTURES into HIGH-YIELD T-BILL +INDICATORS, the PRE-INFLATIONARY risks will DWINDLE to a rate of 2 +SHOPPING SPREES per EGGPLANT!! +% +Someone in DAYTON, Ohio is selling USED CARPETS to a SERBO-CROATIAN +% +Sometime in 1993 NANCY SINATRA will lead a BLOODLESS COUP on GUAM!! +% +Somewhere in DOWNTOWN BURBANK a prostitute is OVERCOOKING a LAMB CHOP!! +% +Somewhere in suburban Honolulu, an unemployed bellhop is whipping up a +batch of illegal psilocybin chop suey!! +% +Somewhere in Tenafly, New Jersey, a chiropractor is viewing "Leave it +to Beaver"! +% +Spreading peanut butter reminds me of opera!! I wonder why? +% +TAILFINS!! ... click ... +% + Talking Pinhead Blues: +Oh, I LOST my ``HELLO KITTY'' DOLL and I get BAD reception on channel + TWENTY-SIX!! + +Th'HOSTESS FACTORY is closin' down and I just heard ZASU PITTS has been + DEAD for YEARS.. (sniff) + +My PLATFORM SHOE collection was CHEWED up by th' dog, ALEXANDER HAIG + won't let me take a SHOWER 'til Easter ... (snurf) + +So I went to the kitchen, but WALNUT PANELING whup me upside mah HAID!! + (on no, no, no.. Heh, heh) +% +TAPPING? You POLITICIANS! Don't you realize that the END of the "Wash +Cycle" is a TREASURED MOMENT for most people?! +% +Tex SEX! The HOME of WHEELS! The dripping of COFFEE!! Take me to +Minnesota but don't EMBARRASS me!! +% +Th' MIND is the Pizza Palace of th' SOUL +% +Thank god!! ... It's HENNY YOUNGMAN!! +% +The appreciation of the average visual graphisticator alone is worth +the whole suaveness and decadence which abounds!! +% +The entire CHINESE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM all share ONE personality -- +and have since BIRTH!! +% +The fact that 47 PEOPLE are yelling and sweat is cascading down my +SPINAL COLUMN is fairly enjoyable!! +% +The FALAFEL SANDWICH lands on my HEAD and I become a VEGETARIAN ... +% +... the HIGHWAY is made out of LIME JELLO and my HONDA is a barbequeued +OYSTER! Yum! +% +The Korean War must have been fun. +% +... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!! +% +The Osmonds! You are all Osmonds!! Throwing up on a freeway at dawn!!! +% +The PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY is CRYING for an END to BURT REYNOLDS movies!! +% +The PINK SOCKS were ORIGINALLY from 1952!! But they went to MARS +around 1953!! +% +The SAME WAVE keeps coming in and COLLAPSING like a rayon MUU-MUU ... +% +There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY. +There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS. I'm very probably wrong. +% +There's a little picture of ED MCMAHON doing BAD THINGS to JOAN RIVERS +in a $200,000 MALIBU BEACH HOUSE!! +% +There's enough money here to buy 5000 cans of Noodle-Roni! +% + "These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!" + "These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!" + "These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP +out of MEGATON MAN!" +% +These PRESERVES should be FORCE-FED to PENTAGON OFFICIALS!! +% +They collapsed ... like nuns in the street ... they had no teen +appeal! +% +This ASEXUAL PIG really BOILS my BLOOD ... He's so ... so ... URGENT!! +% +"This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT DOG." + -- Bob Violence +% +This is a NO-FRILLS flight -- hold th' CANADIAN BACON!! +% +This MUST be a good party -- My RIB CAGE is being painfully pressed up +against someone's MARTINI!! +% +... this must be what it's like to be a COLLEGE GRADUATE!! +% +This PIZZA symbolizes my COMPLETE EMOTIONAL RECOVERY!! +% +This PORCUPINE knows his ZIPCODE ... And he has "VISA"!! +% +This TOPS OFF my partygoing experience! Someone I DON'T LIKE is +talking to me about a HEART-WARMING European film ... +% +Those aren't WINOS -- that's my JUGGLER, my AERIALIST, my SWORD +SWALLOWER, and my LATEX NOVELTY SUPPLIER!! +% +Thousands of days of civilians ... have produced a ... feeling for the +aesthetic modules -- +% +Today, THREE WINOS from DETROIT sold me a framed photo of TAB HUNTER +before his MAKEOVER! +% +Toes, knees, NIPPLES. Toes, knees, nipples, KNUCKLES ... +Nipples, dimples, knuckles, NICKLES, wrinkles, pimples!! +% +TONY RANDALL! Is YOUR life a PATIO of FUN?? +% +Uh-oh -- WHY am I suddenly thinking of a VENERABLE religious leader +frolicking on a FORT LAUDERDALE weekend? +% +Uh-oh!! I forgot to submit to COMPULSORY URINALYSIS! +% +UH-OH!! I put on "GREAT HEAD-ON TRAIN COLLISIONS of the 50's" by +mistake!!! +% +UH-OH!! I think KEN is OVER-DUE on his R.V. PAYMENTS and HE'S having a +NERVOUS BREAKDOWN too!! Ha ha. +% +Uh-oh!! I'm having TOO MUCH FUN!! +% +UH-OH!! We're out of AUTOMOBILE PARTS and RUBBER GOODS! +% +Used staples are good with SOY SAUCE! +% +VICARIOUSLY experience some reason to LIVE!! +% +Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and TAX-DEFERRED! +% +Wait ... is this a FUN THING or the END of LIFE in Petticoat Junction?? +% +Was my SOY LOAF left out in th'RAIN? It tastes REAL GOOD!! +% +We are now enjoying total mutual interaction in an imaginary hot tub ... +% +We have DIFFERENT amounts of HAIR -- +% +We just joined the civil hair patrol! +% +We place two copies of PEOPLE magazine in a DARK, HUMID mobile home. +45 minutes later CYNDI LAUPER emerges wearing a BIRD CAGE on her head! +% +Well, here I am in AMERICA.. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I +HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE ... +EMOTIONS are SWEEPING over me!! +% +Well, I'm a classic ANAL RETENTIVE!! And I'm looking for a way to +VICARIOUSLY experience some reason to LIVE!! +% +Well, I'm INVISIBLE AGAIN ... I might as well pay a visit to the LADIES +ROOM ... +% +Well, O.K. I'll compromise with my principles because of EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR! +% +Were these parsnips CORRECTLY MARINATED in TACO SAUCE? +% +What a COINCIDENCE! I'm an authorized "SNOOTS OF THE STARS" dealer!! +% +What GOOD is a CARDBOARD suitcase ANYWAY? +% +What I need is a MATURE RELATIONSHIP with a FLOPPY DISK ... +% +What I want to find out is -- do parrots know much about Astro-Turf? +% +What PROGRAM are they watching? +% +What UNIVERSE is this, please?? +% +What's the MATTER Sid? ... Is your BEVERAGE unsatisfactory? +% +When I met th'POPE back in '58, I scrubbed him with a MILD SOAP or +DETERGENT for 15 minutes. He seemed to enjoy it ... +% +When this load is DONE I think I'll wash it AGAIN ... +% +When you get your PH.D. will you get able to work at BURGER KING? +% +When you said "HEAVILY FORESTED" it reminded me of an overdue CLEANING +BILL ... Don't you SEE? O'Grogan SWALLOWED a VALUABLE COIN COLLECTION +and HAD to murder the ONLY MAN who KNEW!! +% +Where do your SOCKS go when you lose them in th' WASHER? +% +Where does it go when you flush? +% +Where's SANDY DUNCAN? +% +Where's th' DAFFY DUCK EXHIBIT?? +% +Where's the Coke machine? Tell me a joke!! +% +While my BRAINPAN is being refused service in BURGER KING, Jesuit +priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!! +% +While you're chewing, think of STEVEN SPIELBERG'S bank account ... his +will have the same effect as two "STARCH BLOCKERS"! +% +WHO sees a BEACH BUNNY sobbing on a SHAG RUG?! +% +WHOA!! Ken and Barbie are having TOO MUCH FUN!! It must be the +NEGATIVE IONS!! +% +Why are these athletic shoe salesmen following me?? +% +Why don't you ever enter any CONTESTS, Marvin?? Don't you know your +own ZIPCODE? +% +Why is everything made of Lycra Spandex? +% +Why is it that when you DIE, you can't take your HOME ENTERTAINMENT +CENTER with you?? +% +Will it improve my CASH FLOW? +% +Will the third world war keep "Bosom Buddies" off the air? +% +Will this never-ending series of PLEASURABLE EVENTS never cease? +% +With YOU, I can be MYSELF ... We don't NEED Dan Rather ... +% +World War III? No thanks! +% +World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced dress code! +% +Wow! Look!! A stray meatball!! Let's interview it! +% +Xerox your lunch and file it under "sex offenders"! +% +Yes, but will I see the EASTER BUNNY in skintight leather at an IRON +MAIDEN concert? +% +You can't hurt me!! I have an ASSUMABLE MORTGAGE!! +% +You mean now I can SHOOT YOU in the back and further BLUR th' +distinction between FANTASY and REALITY? +% +You mean you don't want to watch WRESTLING from ATLANTA? +% +YOU PICKED KARL MALDEN'S NOSE!! +% +You should all JUMP UP AND DOWN for TWO HOURS while I decide on a NEW CAREER!! +% +You were s'posed to laugh! +% +YOU!! Give me the CUTEST, PINKEST, most charming little VICTORIAN +DOLLHOUSE you can find!! An make it SNAPPY!! +% +Your CHEEKS sit like twin NECTARINES above a MOUTH that knows no BOUNDS -- +% +Youth of today! Join me in a mass rally for traditional mental +attitudes! +% +Yow! +% +Yow! Am I having fun yet? +% +Yow! Am I in Milwaukee? +% +Yow! And then we could sit on the hoods of cars at stop lights! +% +Yow! Are we laid back yet? +% +Yow! Are we wet yet? +% +Yow! Are you the self-frying president? +% +Yow! Did something bad happen or am I in a drive-in movie?? +% +Yow! I just went below the poverty line! +% +Yow! I threw up on my window! +% +Yow! I want my nose in lights! +% +Yow! I want to mail a bronzed artichoke to Nicaragua! +% +Yow! I'm having a quadrophonic sensation of two winos alone in a steel mill! +% +Yow! I'm imagining a surfer van filled with soy sauce! +% +Yow! Is my fallout shelter termite proof? +% +Yow! Is this sexual intercourse yet?? Is it, huh, is it?? +% +Yow! It's a hole all the way to downtown Burbank! +% +Yow! It's some people inside the wall! This is better than mopping! +% +Yow! Maybe I should have asked for my Neutron Bomb in PAISLEY -- +% +Yow! Now I get to think about all the BAD THINGS I did to a BOWLING +BALL when I was in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL! +% +Yow! Now we can become alcoholics! +% +Yow! Those people look exactly like Donnie and Marie Osmond!! +% +Yow! We're going to a new disco! +% +YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL! +% +YOW!! I'm in a very clever and adorable INSANE ASYLUM!! +% +YOW!! Now I understand advanced MICROBIOLOGY and th' new TAX REFORM laws!! +% +YOW!! The land of the rising SONY!! +% +YOW!! Up ahead! It's a DONUT HUT!! +% +YOW!! What should the entire human race DO?? Consume a fifth of +CHIVAS REGAL, ski NUDE down MT. EVEREST, and have a wild SEX WEEKEND! +% +YOW!!! I am having fun!!! +% +Zippy's brain cells are straining to bridge synapses ... +% diff --git a/fortunes/paradoxum b/fortunes/paradoxum new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39e2da1 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/paradoxum @@ -0,0 +1,199 @@ +% + A little pain never hurt anyone. +% + "A unified, neutral Germany? Given that nation's heritage, such a + phrase may prove to be the oxymoron of the decade." -Kevin M. + Matarese, Fulda, West Germany; as seen in "Letters", Time + magazine, p. 5, March 5, 1990. +% + A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. Include + me out. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Christ was born in 4 B.C. +% + Cum tacent, clamant. When they are silent, they shout. -Cicero +% + Gentlemen, I want you to know that I am not always right, but I am + never wrong. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Goes (Went) over like a lead balloon. +% + Honk if you are against noise pollution! +% + I'll give you a definite maybe. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + I'm not going to say, "I told you so." +% + I am a deeply superficial person. -Andy Warhol +% + I'm proud of my humility. +% + I can resist everything except temptation. -Oscar Wilde +% + If Roosevelt were alive, he'd turn over in his grave. -Samuel + Goldwyn +% + If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive! + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% + If you fall and break your legs, don't come running to me. -Samuel + Goldwyn +% + I never put on a pair of shoes until I've worn them five years. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% + It isn't an optical illusion. It just looks like one. +% + It's more than magnificent-it's mediocre. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + May I ask a question? +% + No one goes to that restaurant anymore-it's always too crowded. + (attributed to Yogi Berra) +% + Our comedies are not to be laughed at. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Parting is such sweet sorrow. -William Shakespeare +% + Procrastination means never having to say you're sorry. +% + "Professional certification for car people may sound like an + oxymoron." -The Wall Street Journal, page B1, Tuesday, July 17, + 1990. +% + Referring to a book: I read part of it all the way through. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% + Smoking is the leading cause of statistics. +% + Some bachelors want a meaningful overnight relationship. +% + Talking about a piece of movie dialogue: Let's have some new + cliches. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + The scene is dull. Tell him to put more life into his dying. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% + Thank God I'm an atheist. +% + This report is filled with omissions. +% + We are not anticipating any emergencies. +% + We're overpaying him, but he's worth it. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + His honour rooted in dishonour stood, + And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. + -- Alfred Lord Tennyson +% + The good oxymoron, to define it by a self-illustration, must be a + planned inadvertency. -Wilson Follett +% + An Irishman is never at peace except when he's fighting. +% + I marvel at the strength of human weakness. +% + Always be sincere, even when you don't mean it. -Irene Peter +% + Live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so. + -- Josh Billings +% + Of course I can keep secrets. It's the people I tell them to that + can't keep them. -Anthony Haden-Guest +% + The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. -W. C. Fields +% + I distinctly remember forgetting that. -Clara Barton +% + We must believe in free will. We have no choice. -Isaac B. Singer +% + I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. +% + Monotheism is a gift from the gods. +% + After they got rid of capital punishment, they had to hang twice + as many people as before. +% + I never liked you, and I always will. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Why don't you pair `em up in threes? -Yogi Berra +% + Our similarities are different. -Dale Berra, son of Yogi +% + After Donald Trump's stretch limousine was stolen and found + undamaged a few blocks away; he said, "Nothing was stolen. I had + an honest thief."-International Herald Tribune, page 3, March 2, + 1992 +% + Some bird populations soaring down + -Headline of an article in + Science News, page 126, February 20, 1993. +% + Most bacteria have the decency to be microscopic. Epulopiscium + fishelsoni is not among them. The newly identified one-celled + macro-microorganism is a full .5 mm long, large enough to be seen + with the naked eye. Described in the current Nature, "It is a + million times as massive as a typical bacterium."-Time, page 25, + March 29, 1993 +% + "Triumph without Victory, The Unreported History of the Persian + Gulf War", -Headline published in the U.S. News & World Report, + 1992. +% + An empty cab drove up and Sarah Bernhardt got out. -Arthur Baer, + American comic and columnist +% + She used to diet on any kind of food she could lay her hands on. + -- Arthur Baer, American comic and columnist +% + The first condition of immortality is death. -Stanislaw Lec +% + As famous as the unknown soldier. +% + I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? -Benjamin Disraeli +% + Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man + can never learn anything from history. -George Bernard Shaw +% + William Safire's rules for writing as seen in the New York Times + + Do not put statements in the negative form. + And don't start sentences with a conjunction. + If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great + deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. + Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. + Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. + If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. + Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. + Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. + Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration. + Last, but not least, avoid cliche's like the plague. +% + Everyone writes on the walls except me. -Said to be graffiti seen in Pompeii +% + I tripped over a hole that was sticking up out of the ground. +% + I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after + they're dead. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + This page intentionally left blank. +% + Evil isn't all bad. +% + I disagree with unanimity. +% + "It's a step forward although there was no progress." + President Hosni Murbarak of Egypt attempting to put the best face + on a disappointing summit meeting between President Clinton and + the Syrian dictator Hafez Assad. +% + "I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better + to prophesy after the event has already taken place. " - Winston + Churchill +% + All truths are true to an extend, including this one. -XA +% + Assume a virtue, if you have it not. -William Shakespeare +% + All generalisations are dangerous, including this one. +% diff --git a/fortunes/people b/fortunes/people new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8805eeb --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/people @@ -0,0 +1,4352 @@ +A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. +Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. +But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest. + -- Lazarus Long +% +A 'full' life in my experience is usually full only of other people's demands. +% +A bore is a man who talks so much about himself that you can't talk about +yourself. +% +A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have +enlightened him with ours. +% +A city is a large community where people are lonesome together + -- Herbert Prochnow +% +A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. + -- Victor Hugo +% +A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern. + -- Edgar A. Shoaff +% +A fair exterior is a silent recommendation. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +A friend is a present you give yourself. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson +% +A gossip is one who talks to you about others, a bore is one who talks to +you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to +you about yourself. + -- Lisa Kirk +% +A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The +green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that +grew in the ears themselvse, stuck out on either side like turn signals +indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the +bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled +with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor +of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down +upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D. H. Holmes department +store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several +of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be +properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of +anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and +geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul. + -- John Kennedy Toole, "Confederacy of Dunces" +% +A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own +weight in other people's patience. + -- John Updike +% +A man is crawling through the Sahara desert when he is approached by another +man riding on a camel. When the rider gets close enough, the crawling man +whispers through his sun-parched lips, "Water... please... can you give... +water..." + "I'm sorry," replies the man on the camel, "I don't have any water +with me. But I'd be delighted to sell you a necktie." + "Tie?" whispers the man. "I need *water*." + "They're only four dollars apiece." + "I need *water*." + "Okay, okay, say two for seven dollars." + "Please! I need *water*!", says the man. + "I don't have any water, all I have are ties," replies the salesman, +and he heads off into the distance. + The man, losing track of time, crawls for what seems like days. +Finally, nearly dead, sun-blind and with his skin peeling and blistering, he +sees a restaurant in the distance. Summoning the last of his strength he +staggers up to the door and confronts the head waiter. + "Water... can I get... water," the dying man manages to stammer. + "I'm sorry, sir, ties required." +% +A man of genius makes no mistakes. +His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. + -- James Joyce, "Ulysses" +% + A man pleaded innocent of any wrong doing when caught by the police +during a raid at the home of a mobster, excusing himself by claiming that he +was making a bolt for the door. +% +A man who keeps stealing mopeds is an obvious cycle-path. +% +A man who turns green has eschewed protein. +% +A man with 3 wings and a dictionary is cousin to the turkey. +% +A man would still do something out of sheer perversity - he would create +destruction and chaos - just to gain his point... and if all this could in +turn be analyzed and prevented by predicting that it would occur, then man +would deliberately go mad to prove his point. + -- Feodor Dostoevsky, "Notes From the Underground" +% +A narcissist is someone better looking than you are. + -- Gore Vidal +% +A paranoid is a man who knows a little of what's going on. + -- William S. Burroughs +% +A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants. +% + "A penny for your thoughts?" + "A dollar for your death." + -- The Odd Couple +% +A person forgives only when they are in the wrong. +% +A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. +% +A person who has nothing looks at all there is and wants something. +A person who has something looks at all there is and wants all the rest. +% +A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +A pretty foot is one of the greatest gifts of nature... please send me your +last pair of shoes, already worn out in dancing... so I can have something +of yours to press against my heart. + -- Goethe +% +A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions. + -- George Eliot +% +A private sin is not so prejudicial in the world as a public indecency. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +A real friend isn't someone you use once and then throw away. +A real friend is someone you can use over and over again. +% +A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and +the real reason. +% +A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single +man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. + -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery +% +A sadist is a masochist who follows the Golden Rule. +% +A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep +him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those that are +worth committing. + -- Samuel Butler +% + "...A strange enigma is man!" + "Someone calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested. + "Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarked +that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he +becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what +any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number +will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says +the statistician." + -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four" +% +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 great man will neither trample on a worm nor sneak to an emperor. + -- B. Franklin +% +A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without +getting nervous. +% +A well-known friend is a treasure. +% + A young honeymoon couple were touring southern Florida and happened +to stop at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road. After seeing the +sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes. +"Gosh!" exclaimed the new bride. "You certainly have a dangerous job. +Don't you ever get bitten by the snakes?" + "Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler. + "Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by +a snake?" + "I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I +am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then +suck the poison from the wound." + "What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally *sit* on +a rattler?" persisted the woman. + "Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn +who my real friends are." +% +Accept people for what they are -- completely unacceptable. +% +According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never dies. +% +Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the +apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in +not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Advice is a dangerous gift; be cautious about giving and receiving it. +% +Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic, +then at least be aseptic. +% +After all, it is only the mediocre who are always at their best. + -- Jean Giraudoux +% +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 living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe everything. +Just in case. +% + After Snow White used a couple rolls of film taking pictures of the +seven dwarfs, she mailed the roll to be developed. Later she was heard to +sing, "Some day my prints will come." +% +Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain. + -- Friedrich von Schiller, "The Maid of Orleans", III, 6 +% +Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball. +% +Ah, sweet Springtime, when a young man lightly turns his fancy over! +% +Al didn't smile for forty years. You've got to admire a man like that. + -- from "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" +% +Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself +or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has +a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and +Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. + -- Tom Robbins +% +All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, +barely presentable. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +All his life he has looked away... to the horizon, to the sky, +to the future. Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing. + -- Yoda +% +All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. +% +All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +All I've got left on the list of desirable vocations is heiress to the +throne of any country in Western Europe and Laurie Anderson. "Be +practical", was the choral reply from the dinner table. Well, Laurie +Anderson is already Laurie Anderson, but I read an article in Harpers +that said there were eleven countries, in the world this is I think, +that have queens as sovereign rulers. That's probably my best shot. +% +All men have the right to wait in line. +% +All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest +would be folly. To believe none so is something worse. + -- John Quincy Adams +% +All most people want is a little more than they'll ever get. +% +All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane. +% +"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific." + -- Jane Wagner +% +All of the animals except man know that the principal business of life is +to enjoy it. +% +All possibility of understanding is rooted in the ability to say no. + -- Susan Sontag +% +All progress is based upon a universal innate desire of every organism +to live beyond its income. + -- Samuel Butler, "Notebooks" +% +All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. + -- Sean O'Casey +% +All we know is the phenomenon: we spend our time sending messages to each +other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. +This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with +our lives." + -- Lewis Thomas, "The Lives of a Cell" +% +Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. +% +Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else. +% +Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. + -- Charlie McCarthy +% +America's best buy for a quarter is a telephone call to the right person. +% +An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. +% +An elderly couple were flying to their Caribbean hideaway on a chartered plane +when a terrible storm forced them to land on an uninhabited island. When +several days passed without rescue, the couple and their pilot sank into a +despondent silence. Finally, the woman asked her husband if he had made his +usual pledge to the United Way Campaign. + "We're running out of food and water and you ask *that*?" her husband +barked. "If you really need to know, I not only pledged a half million but +I've already paid them half of it." + "You owe the U.W.C. a *quarter million*?" the woman exclaimed +euphorically. "Don't worry, Harry, they'll find us! They'll find us!" +% +An evil mind is a great comfort. +% +An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. He wears +a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised +only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich +Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in +incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote excellence: + +"The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and +discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able +to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting +things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch parts +or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a timeless +statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who doesn't need to +be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful +than the people who laughed at him in high school. Because of his acne. +People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now. Maybe +he'll go to his 20th reunion, and they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. +Hahahahahahahahaha." + -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" +% +An expert is a person who avoids the small errors as he sweeps on to the +grand fallacy. + -- Benjamin Stolberg +% +An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows +absolutely everything about nothing. +% +An idealist is one who helps the other fellow to make a profit. + -- Henry Ford +% +An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be +devoured. + -- Konrad Adenauer +% +An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. + -- Albert Camus +% +An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience. + -- Don Marquis +% +And I suppose the little things are harder to get used to than the big +ones. The big ones you get used to, you make up your mind to them. The +little things come along unexpectedly, when you aren't thinking about +them, aren't braced against them. + -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, "The Forbidden Tower" +% +And I will do all these good works, and I will do them for free! +My only reward will be a tombstone that says "Here lies Gomez Addams -- +he was good for nothing." + -- Jack Sharkey, The Addams Family +% +And on the eighth day, we bulldozed it. +% +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, you know, I mustn't preach to you, but surely it wouldn't be right for +you to take away people's pleasure of studying your attire, by just going +and making yourself like everybody else. You feel that, don't you?" said +he, earnestly. + -- William Morris, "Notes from Nowhere" +% +Anger is momentary madness. + -- Horace +% +Anger kills as surely as the other vices. +% +Animals can be driven crazy by putting too many in too small a pen. +Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. + -- Charles McCabe +% +Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a +mountain in a fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside +than in bed. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? +And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? +Is there a better way to die? + -- Charles Lindbergh +% +Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of sense to know +how to lie well. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Any man can work when every stroke of his hand brings down the fruit +rattling from the tree to the ground; but to labor in season and out of +season, under every discouragement, by the power of truth -- that +requires a heroism which is transcendent. + -- Henry Ward Beecher +% +Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad. + -- Leo Rosten, on W. C. Fields +% +Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. +% +Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is +probably parked. +% +Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire. +% +Anyone can become angry -- that is easy; but to be angry with the right +person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose +and in the right way -- that is not easy. + -- Aristotle +% +"Anyone can say 'no'. It is the first word a child learns and often the +first word he speaks. It is a cheap word because it requires no +explanation, and many men and women have acquired a reputation for +intelligence who know only this word and have used it in place of +thought on every occasion." + -- Chuck Jones (Warner Bros. animation director.) +% +Anyone stupid enough to be caught by the police is probably guilty. +% +Apathy Club meeting this Friday. If you want to come, you're not invited. +% +"Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution" +% +Appearances often are deceiving. + -- Aesop +% +Are your glasses mended with a strip of masking tape right over your nose? +Do you put pennies in the slots in your penny loafers? +Does your bow-tie flash "hey you kid" in red neon at parties? +Do you think pizza before noon is unhealthy? +Do you use the "greasy kid's stuff" to stick down your cowlick? +Do you wear a "nerd-pack" in your shirt pocket to keep the dozen + or so pencils from marking the cloth? +Do you think Mary Jane is somebody's name? +Is illegal fishing something only a daring criminal would do? +Is Batman your hero? Superman? Green Lantern? The Shadow? +Do you think girls who kiss on the first date are loose? + + Rate yourself on the nerd-o-matic scale. (1 point for each YES answer) +0-2 -- You are really hip, a real cool cat, a hoopy frood. +3-5 -- There is hope for you yet. +6-7 -- Uh-oh, trouble in River City. +8-10 -- Your immortal soul is in peril. +11+ -- Does suicide seem attractive? +% +Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly +the same opinion. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +"Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +As crazy as hauling timber into the woods. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. +One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly +useful and interesting, I just had to share it. + +Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" + + 1. I salivate at the sight of mittens. + 2. If I go into the street, I'm apt to be bitten by a horse. + 3. Some people never look at me. + 4. Spinach makes me feel alone. + 5. My sex life is A-okay. + 6. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. + 7. I like to kill mosquitoes. + 8. Cousins are not to be trusted. + 9. It makes me embarrassed to fall down. +10. I get nauseous from too much roller skating. +11. I think most people would cry to gain a point. +12. I cannot read or write. +13. I am bored by thoughts of death. +14. I become homicidal when people try to reason with me. +15. I would enjoy the work of a chicken flicker. +16. I am never startled by a fish. +17. My mother's uncle was a good man. +18. I don't like it when somebody is rotten. +19. People who break the law are wise guys. +20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend. +% +As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. +One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly +useful and interesting, I just had to share it. + +Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" + + 1. I think beavers work too hard. + 2. I use shoe polish to excess. + 3. God is love. + 4. I like mannish children. + 5. I have always been diturbed by the sight of Lincoln's ears. + 6. I always let people get ahead of me at swimming pools. + 7. Most of the time I go to sleep without saying goodbye. + 8. I am not afraid of picking up door knobs. + 9. I believe I smell as good as most people. +10. Frantic screams make me nervous. +11. It's hard for me to say the right thing when I find myself in a room + full of mice. +12. I would never tell my nickname in a crisis. +13. A wide necktie is a sign of disease. +14. As a child I was deprived of licorice. +15. I would never shake hands with a gardener. +16. My eyes are always cold. +17. Cousins are not to be trusted. +18. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. +19. I am never startled by a fish. +20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend. +% +As you grow older, you will still do foolish things, but you will do them +with much more enthusiasm. + -- The Cowboy +% +Ask not what's inside your head, but what your head's inside of. + -- J. J. Gibson +% +Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. + -- John Stuart Mill +% +Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run +with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened. Keep +the company of bums and you will become a bum. Hang around with rich people +and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke. + -- Stanley Walker +% +At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his +thumb with a hammer. + -- Marshall Lumsden +% +Back when I was a boy, it was 40 miles to everywhere, uphill both ways +and it was always snowing. +% +Bacon's not the only thing that's cured by hanging from a string. +% +Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink +that they may live. + -- Socrates +% +Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. +% +Be careful how you get yourself involved with persons or situations that +can't bear inspection. +% +Be careful what you set your heart on -- for it will surely be yours. + -- James Baldwin, "Nobody Knows My Name" +% +Be incomprehensible. If they can't understand, they can't disagree. +% +Be independent. Insult a rich relative today. +% +Be nice to people on the way up, because you'll meet them on your way down. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +Be not anxious about what you have, but about what you are. + -- Pope St. Gregory I +% +Be open to other people -- they may enrich your dream. +% +Be self-reliant and your success is assured. +% +Be valiant, but not too venturous. +Let thy attire be comely, but not costly. + -- John Lyly +% +Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone. + -- Redd Foxx +% +Before borrowing money from a friend, decide which you need more. + -- Addison H. Hallock +% +Before destruction a man's heart is haughty, but humility goes before honour. + -- Proverbs 18:12 +% +Being popular is important. Otherwise people might not like you. +% +Being ugly isn't illegal. Yet. +% +Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember +and be sad. + -- Christina Rossetti +% +Beware of self-styled experts: an ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a +drip under pressure. +% +Beware of the man who knows the answer before he understands the question. +% +"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and +finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of +murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by +their ignorance the hard way." + -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" +% +BEWARE! People acting under the influence of human nature. +% +Birds are entangled by their feet and men by their tongues. +% +Birthdays are like busses, never the number you want. +% +Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders. + -- Nietzsche +% +Blessed are they that have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded +to say it. + -- James Russell Lowell +% +Blessed is he who expects no gratitude, for he shall not be disappointed. + -- W. C. Bennett +% +Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. + -- Alexander Pope +% +Blessed is he who has reached the point of no return and knows it, +for he shall enjoy living. + -- W. C. Bennett +% +Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving +wordy evidence of the fact. + -- George Eliot +% +Bounders get bound when they are caught bounding. + -- Ralph Lewin +% +Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast +more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. +If you are civil to the voluble, they will abuse your patience; if +brusque, your character. + -- Jonathan Swift +% +Buck-passing usually turns out to be a boomerang. +% +But I find the old notions somehow appealing. Not that I want to go back +to them -- it is outrageous to have some outer authority tell you what is +proper use and abuse of your own faculties, and it is ludicrous to hold +reason higher than body or feeling. Still there is something true and +profoundly sane about the belief that acts like murder or theft or +assault violate the doer as well as the done to. We might even, if we +thought this way, have less crime. The popular view of crime, as far as +I can deduce it from the movies and television, is that it is a breaking +of a rule by someone who thinks they can get away with that; implicitly, +everyone would like to break the rule, but not everyone is arrogant +enough to imagine they can get away with it. It therefore becomes very +important for the rule upholders to bring such arrogance down. + -- Marilyn French, "The Woman's Room" +% +But Officer, I stopped for the last one, and it was green! +% +"But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coast +to the nearest gas station." +% +But since I knew now that I could hope for nothing of greater value than +frivolous pleasures, what point was there in denying myself of them? + -- M. Proust +% +By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task +completely overwhelm you. +% +By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. +% +By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart. + -- Confucius +% +Calling you stupid is an insult to stupid people! + -- Wanda, "A Fish Called Wanda" +% +Can you buy friendship? You not only can, you must. It's the +only way to obtain friends. Everything worthwhile has a price. + -- Robert J. Ringer +% +Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, +But it's very funny -- did you ever try buying them without money? + -- Ogden Nash +% +Character is what you are in the dark! + -- Lord John Whorfin +% +Charlie Brown: Why was I put on this earth? +Linus: To make others happy. +Charlie Brown: Why were others put on this earth? +% +Charm is a way of getting the answer "Yes" -- without having asked any +clear question. +% +Class, that's the only thing that counts in life. Class. +Without class and style, a man's a bum; he might as well be dead. + -- "Bugsy" Siegel +% +Class: when they're running you out of town, to look like you're +leading the parade. + -- Bill Battie +% +Clones are people two. +% +Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery. +% +Coming together is a beginning; + keeping together is progress; + working together is success. +% +Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at +different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. + -- Clive James +% +Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius. + -- Josh Billings +% +Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Common sense is the most evenly distributed quantity in the world. +Everyone thinks he has enough. + -- Descartes, 1637 +% +Conceit causes more conversation than wit. + -- LaRochefoucauld +% +Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven; +confess them to man and you will be laughed at. + -- Josh Billings +% +Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is +good for dandruff. + -- Peter de Vries +% +Confession is good for the soul, but bad for the career. +% +Confessions may be good for the soul, but they are bad for the reputation. + -- Lord Thomas Dewar +% +Confidence is simply that quiet, assured feeling you have before you +fall flat on your face. + -- Dr. L. Binder +% +Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. +% +Conformity is the refuge of the unimaginative. +% +Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. + -- H. L. Mencken, "A Mencken Chrestomathy" +% +Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. +% +Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you +wish you weren't. +% +Convention is the ruler of all. + -- Pindar +% +Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius. +% +Cops never say good-bye. They're always hoping to see you again in the line-up. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +Correction does much, but encouragement does more. + -- Goethe +% +Courage is fear that has said its prayers. +% +Courage is grace under pressure. +% +Creativity in living is not without its attendant difficulties, for +peculiarity breeds contempt. And the unfortunate thing about being +ahead of your time when people finally realize you were right, they'll +say it was obvious all along. + -- Alan Ashley-Pitt +% +Creativity is no substitute for knowing what you are doing. +% +Creativity is not always bred in an environment of tranquility; +sometimes you have to squeeze a little to get the paste out of the tube. +% +Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship. + -- Zeuxis +% +Dare to be naive. + -- R. Buckminster Fuller +% +Dave Mack: "Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par." +Allen Gwinn: "Yours is." +% +Dear Lord: Please make my words sweet and tender, for tomorrow I may +have to eat them. +% +Death rays don't kill people, people kill people!! +% +Defeat is worse than death because you have to live with defeat. + -- Bill Musselman +% +Delay is preferable to error. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +Did you know that clones never use mirrors? +% +Dishonor will not trouble me, once I am dead. + -- Euripides +% +Distance doesn't make you any smaller, but it does make you part of a +larger picture. +% +Do clones have navels? +% +Do more than anyone expects, and pretty soon everyone will expect more. +% +Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes +may not be the same. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Do not think by infection, catching an opinion like a cold. +% +Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each +day as it comes. + -- Donald Kaul +% +Do you know, I think that Dr. Swift was silly to laugh about Laputa. I +believe it is a mistake to make a mock of people, just because they think. +There are ninety thousand people in this world who do not think, for every +one who does, and these people hate the thinkers like poison. Even if some +thinkers are fanciful, it is wrong to make fun of them for it. Better to +think about cucumbers even, than not to think at all. + -- T. H. White +% +Do you mean that you not only want a wrong answer, but a certain wrong answer? + -- Tobaben +% +Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take +the time to take the dirt out of them? +% +Don't be overly suspicious where it's not warranted. +% +Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. +% +Don't change the reason, just change the excuses! + -- Joe Cointment +% +Don't confuse things that need action with those that take care of themselves. +% +Don't despise your poor relations, they may become suddenly rich one day. + -- Josh Billings +% +Don't ever slam a door; you might want to go back. +% +Don't expect people to keep in step--it's hard enough just staying in line. +% +Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier. +% +Don't interfere with the stranger's style. +% +Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Don't remember what you can infer. + -- Harry Tennant +% +Don't say "yes" until I finish talking. + -- Darryl F. Zanuck +% +Don't shoot until you're sure you both aren't on the same side. +% +Don't shout for help at night. You might wake your neighbors. + -- Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, "Unkempt Thoughts" +% +Don't tell me that worry doesn't do any good. I know better. The things +I worry about don't happen. + -- Watchman Examiner +% +Don't tell me what you dreamed last night for I've been reading Freud. +% +Don't try to have the last word -- you might get it. + -- Lazarus Long +% +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 avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it starts +avoiding you. + -- The Old Farmer's Almanac +% +Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, +you'll have to ram them down people's throats. + -- Howard Aiken +% +Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too +busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. +% +Don't you wish that all the people who sincerely want to help you +could agree with each other? +% +Dorothy: But how can you talk without a brain? +Scarecrow: Well, I don't know... but some people without brains + do an awful lot of talking. + -- The Wizard of Oz +% +Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. + -- Voltaire +% +Drive defensively. Buy a tank. +% +Early to bed and early to rise and you'll be groggy when everyone else is +wide awake. +% + Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and +looked at himself in the water. + "Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic." + He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, +splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he +looked at himself again. + "As I thought," he said, "no better from *____this* side. But nobody +minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that's what it is. + -- A. A. Milne, "Winnie the Pooh," Chapter VI, "In Which Eeyore + Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents" +% +Elevators smell different to midgets. +% +Enjoy your life; be pleasant and gay, like the birds in May. +% +Enjoy yourself while you're still old. +% +Envy is a pain of mind that successful men cause their neighbors. + -- Onasander +% +Etiquette is for those with no breeding; fashion for those with no taste. +% +Even a hawk is an eagle among crows. +% +Even God lends a hand to honest boldness. + -- Menander +% +Even if you persuade me, you won't persuade me. + -- Aristophanes +% +Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. + -- Will Rogers +% +Even moderation ought not to be practiced to excess. +% + Everything is farther away than it used to be. It is even twice as +far to the corner and they have added a hill. I have given up running for +the bus; it leaves earlier than it used to. + It seems to me they are making the stairs steeper than in the old +days. And have you noticed the smaller print they use in the newspapers? + There is no sense in asking anyone to read aloud anymore, as everbody +speaks in such a low voice I can hardly hear them. + The material in dresses is so skimpy now, especially around the hips +and waist, that it is almost impossible to reach one's shoelaces. And the +sizes don't run the way they used to. The 12's and 14's are so much smaller. + Even people are changing. They are so much younger than they used to +be when I was their age. On the other hand people my age are so much older +than I am. + I ran into an old classmate the other day and she has aged so much +that she didn't recognize me. + I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair +this morning and in so doing I glanced at my own reflection. Really now, +they don't even make good mirrors like they used to. + Sandy Frazier, "I Have Noticed" +% +Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible. + -- Frank Moore Colby +% +Every man is apt to form his notions of things difficult to be apprehended, +or less familiar, from their analogy to things which are more familiar. +Thus, if a man bred to the seafaring life, and accustomed to think and talk +only of matters relating to navigation, enters into discourse upon any other +subject; it is well known, that the language and the notions proper to his +own profession are infused into every subject, and all things are measured +by the rules of navigation: and if he should take it into his head to +philosophize concerning the faculties of the mind, it cannot be doubted, +but he would draw his notions from the fabric of the ship, and would find +in the mind, sails, masts, rudder, and compass. + -- Thomas Reid, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind", 1764 +% +Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits +of the world. + -- Schopenhauer +% +Every time I look at you I am more convinced of Darwin's theory. +% +Everybody has something to conceal. + -- Humphrey Bogart +% +Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. + -- Dykstra +% +Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. +% +Everyone complains of his memory, no one of his judgement. +% +Everyone hates me because I'm paranoid. +% +Everyone is a genius. It's just that some people are too stupid to realize it. +% +Everyone is entitled to my opinion. +% +Everyone is more or less mad on one point. + -- Rudyard Kipling +% +Everyone talks about apathy, but no one ____does anything about it. +% +Everyone wants results, but no one is willing to do what it takes to get them. + -- Dirty Harry +% +Everyone was born right-handed. Only the greatest overcome it. +% +Everyone's in a high place when you're on your knees. +% +Evil is that which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil +of others, but it is seldom a mistake. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. + -- Albert Schweitzer +% + Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping +mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as +"Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you +how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence", +"Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night +So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc. + -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" +% +Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from +acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. + -- W. Somerset Maugham +% +Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, +and just before you realize what is wrong with it. +% +Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens +to you. + -- Aldous Huxley +% +Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake +when you make it again. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones. +% +Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. +% +Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else. +% +Experience teaches you that the man who looks you straight in the eye, +particularly if he adds a firm handshake, is hiding something. + -- Clifton Fadiman, "Enter Conversing" +% +Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever. +% +Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it +every six months. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Fashions have done more harm than revolutions. + -- Victor Hugo +% +Fess: Well, you must admit there is something innately humorous about + a man chasing an invention of his own halfway across the galaxy. +Rod: Oh yeah, it's a million yuks, sure. But after all, isn't that the + basic difference between robots and humans? +Fess: What, the ability to form imaginary constructs? +Rod: No, the ability to get hung up on them. + -- Christopher Stasheff, "The Warlock in Spite of Himself" +% +Flattery is like cologne -- to be smelled, but not swallowed. + -- Josh Billings +% +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. + -- Harrison +% +For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill. + -- R. Clopton +% +For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. + -- Paul of Tarsus, (Saint Paul) +% + "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence +of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind." + "Whose?" + "MINE! HA-HA!" +% +For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble: +and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust. + -- Sir Thomas More +% +For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to +get themselves filed. + -- Clifton Fadiman +% +For people who like that kind of book, that is the kind of book they will like. +% +For perfect happiness, remember two things: + (1) Be content with what you've got. + (2) Be sure you've got plenty. +% +For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +"For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but +phone calls taper off." + -- Johnny Carson +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #2 + + If at first you don't succeed, think how many people + you've made happy. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #21 + + Shall I compare thee to a Summer day? + No, I guess not. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #6 + + "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" + It's nothing, honey. Go back to sleep. +% +Four fifths of the perjury in the world is expended on tombstones, women +and competitors. + -- Lord Thomas Dewar +% +Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate. + -- Thomas Jones +% +Friendships last when each friend thinks he has a slight superiority +over the other. + -- Honore DeBalzac +% +Genius is the talent of a person who is dead. +% +Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty. +% +Give me a sleeping pill and tell me your troubles. +% +Go out and tell a lie that will make the whole family proud of you. + -- Cadmus, to Pentheus, in "The Bacchae" by Euripides +% +Go slowly to the entertainments of thy friends, but quickly to their +misfortunes. + -- Chilo +% +God gives us relatives; thank goodness we can chose our friends. +% +God must love the common man; He made so many of them. +% +Good advice is one of those insults that ought to be forgiven. +% +Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad +example. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. + -- Jim Horning +% +Gratitude, like love, is never a dependable international emotion. + -- Joseph Alsop +% +Great minds run in great circles. +% +Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. +% +Growing old isn't bad when you consider the alternatives. + -- Maurice Chevalier +% +Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at. +% +Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, +and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. +% +Hate is like acid. It can damage the vessel in which it is stored as well +as destroy the object on which it is poured. +% +Hate the sin and love the sinner. + -- Mahatma Gandhi +% +Have no friends not equal to yourself. + -- Confucius +% +Having no talent is no longer enough. + -- Gore Vidal +% +He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation perfectly +delightful. + -- Sydney Smith +% +He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and heavy +presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever +behaving "normally." + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" +% +He hadn't a single redeeming vice. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +He is a man capable of turning any colour into grey. + -- John LeCarre +% +He is considered a most graceful speaker who can say nothing in the most words. +% +He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +He laughs at every joke three times... once when it's told, once when +it's explained, and once when he understands it. +% +He looked at me as if I were a side dish he hadn't ordered. + -- Ring Lardner +% +He missed an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue. + -- Andrew Lang +% +He only knew his iron spine held up the sky -- he didn't realize his brain +had fallen to the ground. + -- The Book of Serenity +% +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 who always plows a straight furrow is in a rut. +% +He who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +He who hoots with owls by night cannot soar with eagles by day. +% +He who is flogged by fate and laughs the louder is a masochist. +% +He who is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. +% +He who is known as an early riser need not get up until noon. +% +He who minds his own business is never unemployed. +% +He who walks on burning coals is sure to get burned. + -- Sinbad +% +He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. + -- M. C. Escher +% +He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd +be there... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter. +% +"He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..." +% +Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; always busy without getting +on, always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; +wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied +with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping, or +reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect. + -- J. Austen +% +Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still don't know what I want to be when +I grow up. + -- Peter Drucker +% +Hi! I'm Larry. This is my brother Bob, and this is my other brother +Jimbo. We thought you might like to know the names of your assailants. +% +Higgins: Doolittle, you're either an honest man or a rogue. +Doolittle: A little of both, Guv'nor. Like the rest of us, a + little of both. + -- Shaw, "Pygmalion" +% +Hindsight is always 20:20. + -- Billy Wilder +% +Hindsight is an exact science. +% +His life was formal; his actions seemed ruled with a ruler. +% +His mind is like a steel trap: full of mice. + -- Foghorn Leghorn +% +History repeats itself -- the first time as a tragi-comedy, the second +time as bedroom farce. +% +History repeats itself only if one does not listen the first time. +% +History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history. +% +Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. + -- Robert Frost, "The Death of the Hired Man" +% +Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is +to a cockatoo. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Hope is a waking dream. + -- Aristotle +% +Hope not, lest ye be disappointed. + -- M. Horner +% +How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, +and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule? + -- A. Cooper +% +How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. +% +How many "coming men" has one known! Where on earth do they all go to? + -- Sir Arthur Wing Pinero +% +However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional +manner ... sulking and nausea. + -- Tom K. Ryan +% +Human kind cannot bear very much reality. + -- T. S. Eliot, "Four Quartets: Burnt Norton" +% +Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, +responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and +immature. + -- Tom Robbins +% +Humans are communications junkies. We just can't get enough. + -- Alan Kay +% +Humility is the first of the virtues -- for other people. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes +% +I allow the world to live as it chooses, and I allow myself to live as I +choose. +% +I always choose my friends for their good looks and my enemies for their +good intellects. Man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" +% +I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. +It is never any good to oneself. + -- Oscar Wilde, "An Ideal Husband" +% +I always say beauty is only sin deep. + -- Saki, "Reginald's Choir Treat" +% +I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. + -- Winston Churchill +% +I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool. + -- Katharine Whitehorn +% +I am looking for a honest man. + -- Diogenes the Cynic +% +"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 believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. + -- G. K. Chesterton +% +I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up. + -- Biff Barf +% +I can give you my word, but I know what it's worth and you don't. + -- Nero Wolfe, "Over My Dead Body" +% +I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write +faster than anybody who can write better. + -- A. J. Liebling +% +I can't seem to bring myself to say, "Well, I guess I'll be toddling along." +It isn't that I can't toddle. It's that I can't guess I'll toddle. + -- Robert Benchley +% +I can't stand squealers; hit that guy. + -- Albert Anastasia +% +I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can +understand it. + -- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. +% +I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened +of the old ones. + -- John Cage +% +I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions. + -- Lillian Hellman +% +I consider the day misspent that I am not either charged with a crime, +or arrested for one. + -- "Ratsy" Tourbillon +% +I didn't get sophisticated -- I just got tired. But maybe that's what +sophisticated is -- being tired. + -- Rita Gain +% +"I didn't know it was impossible when I did it." +% +I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to +tell such LIES! +% +I do not know myself and God forbid that I should. + -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe +% +I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, +any adequate account of that nature with which I am acquainted. Mythology +comes nearest to it of any. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% + "I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said. + Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't -- +till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" + "But glory doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice +objected. + "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful +tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." + "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean +so many different things." + "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- +that's all." + -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know +what his grandson will be. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +I don't know why we're here, I say we all go home and free associate. +% +I don't make the rules, Gil, I only play the game. + -- Cash McCall +% +I don't mind arguing with myself. It's when I lose that it bothers me. + -- Richard Powers +% +I don't remember it, but I have it written down. +% +"I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the other +hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out." +% +"I don't understand," said the scientist, "why you lemmings all rush down +to the sea and drown yourselves." + +"How curious," said the lemming. "The one thing I don't understand is why +you human beings don't." + -- James Thurber +% +I don't want to bore you, but there's nobody else around for me to bore. +% +I either want less decadence or more chance to participate in it. +% +I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. + -- Mae West +% +I give you the man who -- the man who -- uh, I forgets the man who? + -- Beauregard Bugleboy +% +I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals. + -- Butch Cassidy +% +I guess I've been wrong all my life, but so have billions of other people... +Certainty is just an emotion. + -- Hal Clement +% +I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know +how bad I am. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park +there's nothing else to do. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable +to sit still in a room. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +I have found little that is good about human beings. In my experience +most of them are trash. + -- Sigmund Freud +% +I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it. + -- Edgar Allan Poe +% +I have learned silence from the talkative, +toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. + -- Kahlil Gibran +% +I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming +that I have never made one. + -- James Gordon Bennett +% +I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his +own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks +of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin. + -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery +% +I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better +take one along that worked. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +I love mankind ... It's people I hate. + -- Schulz +% + I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments +of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use +of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such +as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I conceive", +"I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it appears to me +at present". + When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied +myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him +immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by +observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, +but in the present case there appeared or semed to me some difference, etc. + I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the +conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I +proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. +I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily +prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I +happened to be in the right. + -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin +% +"I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, but don't +let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age ... at the speed of light." + -- Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk +% +I may be getting older, but I refuse to grow up! +% +I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +I never killed a man that didn't deserve it. + -- Mickey Cohen +% +I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest. + -- Alexandre Dumas, fils +% +I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. + -- William F. Buckley +% +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. + -- William Gibson, "Johnny Mnemonic" +% +"... I should explain that I was wearing a black velvet cape that was +supposed to make me look like the dashing, romantic Zorro but which actually +made me look like a gigantic bat wearing glasses ..." + -- Dave Barry, "The Wet Zorro Suit and Other Turning + Points in l'Amour" +% +I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +I think I'm schizophrenic. One half of me's paranoid and the other half's +out to get him. +% +I treasure this strange combination found in very few persons: a fierce +desire for life as well as a lucid perception of the ultimate futility of +the quest. + -- Madeleine Gobeil +% +I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in +my body. Then I realized who was telling me this. + -- Emo Phillips +% +I waited and waited and when no message came I knew it must be from you. +% +I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can +help it. + -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne +% +I'll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I'd +listen to it! + -- Tom Galloway with apologies to Voltaire +% +I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell ... their heart's +in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ. + -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Summing Up" +% +I'll pretend to trust you if you'll pretend to trust me. +% +I'm not the person your mother warned you about... her imagination isn't +that good. + -- Amy Gorin +% +"I'm really enjoying not talking to you ... Let's not talk again ____REAL +soon ..." +% +I'm so miserable without you, it's almost like you're here. +% +I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you. +% +I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma. +% +I'm successful because I'm lucky. The harder I work, the luckier I get. +% +I've already told you more than I know. +% +I've found my niche. If you're wondering why I'm not there, there was +this little hole in the bottom ... + -- John Croll +% +I've given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself. +% +I've known him as a man, as an adolescent and as a child -- sometimes +on the same day. +% +"I've seen, I SAY, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer" + -- Senator Claghorn +% +Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't like +solitary confinement. +% +If a man has talent and cannot use it, he has failed. + -- Thomas Wolfe +% +If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet. +% +If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way. +% +If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the +airport. + -- George Winters +% +If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger hands. +% +If God hadn't wanted you to be paranoid, He wouldn't have given you such +a vivid imagination. +% +If God wanted us to be brave, why did he give us legs? + -- Marvin Kitman +% +If he should ever change his faith, it'll be because he no longer thinks +he's God. +% +If I'm over the hill, why is it I don't recall ever being on top? + -- Jerry Muscha +% +If man is only a little lower than the angels, the angels should reform. + -- Mary Wilson Little +% +If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants. + -- A. Einstein. +% +If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out. + -- Oscar Wilde, "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use + of the Young" +% +If only I could be respected without having to be respectable. +% +If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without +having to accomplish anything. +% +If only you had a personality instead of an attitude. +% +If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough. +% +If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, +then we are a sorry lot indeed. + -- Albert Einstein +% +If people see that you mean them no harm, they'll never hurt you, nine +times out of ten! +% +If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, why practice? +% +If some people didn't tell you, you'd never know they'd been away on vacation. +% +If someone says he will do something "without fail", he won't. +% +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 is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it. + -- Edward A. Murphy Jr. +% +If there was any justice in the world, "trust" would be a four-letter word. +% +If things don't improve soon, you'd better ask them to stop helping you. +% +"If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage." +% +If we were meant to get up early, God would have created us with alarm clocks. +% +If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it? + -- Ann Edwards-Duff +% +If you are honest because honesty is the best policy, your honesty is corrupt. +% +If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then +you clearly don't understand the situation. +% +If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me. + -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth +% +If you cannot in the long run tell everyone what you have been doing, +your doing was worthless. + -- Edwim Schrodinger +% +If you continually give you will continually have. +% +If you didn't get caught, did you really do it? +% +If you didn't have most of your friends, you wouldn't have most of +your problems. +% +If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about +it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else. + -- Carlyle +% +If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost. +% +If you don't do it, you'll never know what would have happened if you +had done it. +% +If you don't do the things that are not worth doing, who will? +% +If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours. + -- Clarence Day +% +If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter. + -- Freeman Dyson +% +If you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk! +% +If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will. +% +If you flaunt it, expect to have it trashed. +% +If you float on instinct alone, how can you calculate the buoyancy for +the computed load? + -- Christopher Hodder-Williams +% +If you go out of your mind, do it quietly, so as not to disturb those +around you. +% +If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous. +% +If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to +boot yourself in the posterior. + -- A. J. Liebling, "The Press" +% +If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of +rubbish into it. + -- William Orton +% +If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets +and fire them all off, wouldn't you? + -- Garrison Keillor +% +If you look good and dress well, you don't need a purpose in life. + -- Robert Pante, fashion consultant +% +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 mess with a thing long enough, it'll break. + -- Schmidt +% +If you notice that a person is deceiving you, they must not be +deceiving you very well. +% +If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have +schizophrenia. + -- Thomas Szasz +% +If you think before you speak the other guy gets his joke in first. +% +If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it. + -- Arthur Kasspe +% +If you think things can't get worse it's probably only because you +lack sufficient imagination. +% +If you try to please everyone, somebody is not going to like it. +% +If you want to know how old a man is, ask his brother-in-law. +% +If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that +fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and +heartbeats. +% +If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced +in it. People in disguise speak freely. +% +If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you. +% +If you're constantly being mistreated, you're cooperating with the treatment. +% +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 very clever you should be conciliatory. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +In good speaking, should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of +the matter about which he is to speak? + -- Plato +% +In matters of principle, stand like a rock; +in matters of taste, swim with the current. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +In most instances, all an argument proves is that two people are present. +% +In success there's a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing. + -- Alan Kay +% +In the misfortune of our friends we find something that is not displeasing +to us. + -- La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims" +% +In this world some people are going to like me and some are not. So, I may +as well be me. Then I know if someone likes me, they like me. +% +In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one +wants, and the other is getting it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. + -- Joan Didion, "On Self Respect" +% +Intolerance is the last defense of the insecure. +% +Involvement with people is always a very delicate thing -- +it requires real maturity to become involved and not get all messed up. + -- Bernard Cooke +% +It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +It does not matter if you fall down as long as you pick up something +from the floor while you get up. +% +It doesn't matter what you do, it only matters what you say you've +done and what you're going to do. +% +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 man is a rational animal. All my life I have +been searching for evidence which could support this. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +It is all right to hold a conversation, but you should let go of it +now and then. + -- Richard Armour +% +It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, +you are an exceptionally good liar. + -- Jerome K. Jerome +% +It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. +% +It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be +coming up it. + -- Henry Allen +% +It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. +% +It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig. + -- George Santayana +% +It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted. + -- Aeschylus +% +It is equally bad when one speeds on the guest unwilling to go, and when he +holds back one who is hastening. Rather one should befriend the guest who +is there, but speed him when he wishes. + -- Homer, "The Odyssey" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to scheduling.] +% +It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is a proper judge of it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without +your help. + -- Miss Manners +% +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 impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly surprised. +% +It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. +% +It is indeed desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to +our ancestors. + -- Plutarch +% +It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. + -- Rene Descartes +% +It is not enough to have great qualities, we should also have the +management of them. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +It is not good for a man to be without knowledge, +and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way. + -- Proverbs 19:2 +% +It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. + -- Grace Murray Hopper +% +It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it. + -- Cervantes +% +It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their dignity. +% +It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared +to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great. + -- Havelock Ellis +% +It is the business of little minds to shrink. + -- Carl Sandburg +% +It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, +and it were but to roast their eggs. + -- Francis Bacon +% +It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. + -- Francis Bacon +% +It is the wise bird who builds his nest in a tree. +% +It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether II win or lose. + -- Darrin Weinberg +% +It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn't too +good either if you speak when your head is empty. +% +It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a +warning to others. +% +It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. +% +It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept +better... while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more. + -- Woody Allen, "Side Effects" +% +It seems to make an auto driver mad if he misses you. +% +It takes a special kind of courage to face what we all have to face. +% +It takes all kinds to fill the freeways. + -- Crazy Charlie +% +It takes both a weapon, and two people, to commit a murder. +% +It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you +did it wrong. + -- H. W. Longfellow +% +It takes two to tell the truth: one to speak and one to hear. +% +It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature +and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant examples. + -- Charles Dickens +% +It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything. +% +It's amazing how many people you could be friends with if only they'd +make the first approach. +% +It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired. +% +It's amazing how nice people are to you when they know you're going away. + -- Michael Arlen +% +It's bad enough that life is a rat-race, but why do the rats always have to win? +% +It's better to be quotable than to be honest. + -- Tom Stoppard +% +It's better to be wanted for murder that not to be wanted at all. + -- Marty Winch +% +It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. +% +It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for being +right. +% +It's hard not to like a man of many qualities, even if most of them are bad. +% +It's hard to be humble when you're perfect. +% +It's hard to keep your shirt on when you're getting something off your chest. +% +It's interesting to think that many quite distinguished people have +bodies similar to yours. +% +It's only by NOT taking the human race seriously that I retain +what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess. + -- Roger Noe +% +It's reassuring to know that if you behave strangely enough, society will +take full responsibility for you. +% +It's sweet to be remembered, but it's often cheaper to be forgotten. +% +Jealousy is all the fun you think they have. +% +Just because I turn down a contract on a guy doesn't mean he isn't going +to get hit. + -- Joey +% +Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you. +% +"Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some +of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?" + -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US +% +Just weigh your own hurt against the hurt of all the others, and then +do what's best. + -- Lovers and Other Strangers +% +Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes a faster rat!! +% +Justice always prevails ... three times out of seven! + -- Michael J. Wagner +% +Keep cool, but don't freeze. + -- Hellman's Mayonnaise +% +Keep your mouth shut and people will think you stupid; +Open it and you remove all doubt. +% +Lack of capability is usually disguised by lack of interest. +% +Lack of money is the root of all evil. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Largest Number of Driving Test Failures + By April 1970 Mrs. Miriam Hargrave had failed her test thirty-nine +times. In the eight preceding years she had received two hundred and +twelve driving lessons at a cost of L300. She set the new record while +driving triumphantly through a set of red traffic lights in Wakefield, +Yorkshire. Disappointingly, she passed at the fortieth attempt (3 August +1970) but eight years later she showed some of her old magic when she was +reported as saying that she still didn't like doing right-hand turns. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +Last guys don't finish nice. + -- Stanley Kelley, on the cult of victory at all costs +% +Laughter is the closest distance between two people. + -- Victor Borge +% +Learn from other people's mistakes, you don't have time to make your own. +% +Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Let the meek inherit the earth -- they have it coming to them. + -- James Thurber +% +Let's do it. + -- Gary Gilmore, to his firing squad +% +Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by the desire to +change his bed. + -- Charles Baudelaire +% +Life is a series of rude awakenings. + -- R. V. Winkle +% +Life is a serious burden, which no thinking, humane person would +wantonly inflict on someone else. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others. +% +Life is like bein' on a mule team. Unless you're the lead mule, all the +scenery looks about the same. +% +"Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if it +weren't for other people" + -- Blore +% +Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. +It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches +over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow +His precepts -- there is just too much misery and cruelty for that. On the +other hand, I respect and envy the people who get inspiration from their +religions. + -- Benjamin Spock +% + Looking for a cool one after a long, dusty ride, the drifter strode +into the saloon. As he made his way through the crowd to the bar, a man +galloped through town screaming, "Big Mike's comin'! Run fer yer lives!" + Suddenly, the saloon doors burst open. An enormous man, standing over +eight feet tall and weighing an easy 400 pounds, rode in on a bull, using a +rattlesnake for a whip. Grabbing the drifter by the arm and throwing him over +the bar, the giant thundered, "Gimme a drink!" + The terrified man handed over a bottle of whiskey, which the man +guzzled in one gulp and then smashed on the bar. He then stood aghast as +the man stuffed the broken bottle in his mouth, munched broken glass and +smacked his lips with relish. + "Can I, ah, uh, get you another, sir?" the drifter stammered. + "Naw, I gotta git outa here, boy," the man grunted. "Big Mike's +a-comin'." +% +Lord, defend me from my friends; I can account for my enemies. + -- Charles D'Hericault +% +Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood. + -- Louise Beal +% +Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to. +% +Love your neighbour, yet don't pull down your hedge. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable. + -- Bergan Evans +% +Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood. + -- Daniel Hudson Burnham +% +Man belongs wherever he wants to go. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Man has made his bedlam; let him lie in it. + -- Fred Allen +% +Man has never reconciled himself to the ten commandments. +% +Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon +to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the +victims he intends to eat until he eats them. + -- Samuel Butler (1835-1902) +% +Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal +that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they +ought to be. + -- William Hazlitt +% +Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it +is an enemy. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Man's horizons are bounded by his vision. +% +Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between +the desire to stand out and the need to blend in. + -- Sydney J. Harris +% +Many a family tree needs trimming. +% +Many a man that can't direct you to a corner drugstore will get a respectful +hearing when age has further impaired his mind. + -- Finley Peter Dunne +% +Many mental processes admit of being roughly measured. For instance, +the degree to which people are bored, by counting the number of their +fidgets. I not infrequently tried this method at the meetings of the +Royal Geographical Society, for even there dull memoirs are occasionally +read. [...] The use of a watch attracts attention, so I reckon time +by the number of my breathings, of which there are 15 in a minute. They +are not counted mentally, but are punctuated by pressing with 15 fingers +successively. The counting is reserved for the fidgets. These observations +should be confined to persons of middle age. Children are rarely still, +while elderly philosophers will sometimes remain rigid for minutes altogether. + -- Francis Galton, 1909 +% +Many people are desperately looking for some wise advice which will +recommend that they do what they want to do. +% +Many people are secretly interested in life. +% +Many people feel that if you won't let them make you happy, they'll make you +suffer. +% +Many people feel that they deserve some kind of recognition for all the +bad things they haven't done. +% +Many people resent being treated like the person they really are. +% +Many receive advice, few profit by it. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +May those that love us love us; and those that don't love us, may +God turn their hearts; and if he doesn't turn their hearts, may +he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping. +% +May you die in bed at 95, shot by a jealous spouse. +% +Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the +earth -- but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three. + -- Lazarus Long +% +"Maybe we can get together and show off to each other sometimes." +% +Meekness is uncommon patience in planning a worthwhile revenge. +% +Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our +pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs +and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, +inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us +sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness +and acts that are contrary to habit... + -- Hippocrates "The Sacred Disease" +% +Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only to +conceal their thoughts. + -- Voltaire +% +Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a +rainy Sunday afternoon. + -- Susan Ertz +% +Mind your own business, then you don't mind mine. +% +Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans; it's lovely to be silly +at the right moment. + -- Horace +% +Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings. +% +Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue. + -- J. K. Galbraith +% +More are taken in by hope than by cunning. + -- Vauvenargues +% +More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice. + -- R. S. Surtees +% +Most of our lives are about proving something, either to ourselves or to +someone else. +% +Most of the fear that spoils our life comes from attacking difficulties +before we get to them. + -- Dr. Frank Crane +% +Most of your faults are not your fault. +% +Most people are too busy to have time for anything important. +% +Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and +they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment +to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Most people can do without the essentials, but not without the luxuries. +% +Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently +than they do. + -- Turgenev +% +Most people deserve each other. + -- Shirley +% +Most people feel that everyone is entitled to their opinion. +% +Most people have a furious itch to talk about themselves and are restrained +only by the disinclination of others to listen. Reserve is an artificial +quality that is developed in most of us as the result of innumerable rebuffs. + -- W. S. Maugham +% +Most people have a mind that's open by appointment only. +% +Most people have two reasons for doing anything -- a good reason, and +the real reason. +% +Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, +reformed or potential lunatics. + -- Susan Sontag +% +Most people need some of their problems to help take their mind off +some of the others. +% +Most people prefer certainty to truth. +% +Mother told me to be good but she's been wrong before. +% +Murder is always a mistake -- one should never do anything one cannot +talk about after dinner. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" +% +My brain is my second favorite organ. + -- Woody Allen +% +My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say. +And then say it with the utmost levity. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly +with my legs. + -- Woody Allen, on Epistemology +% +My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. +% +My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +My philosophy is: Don't think. + -- Charles Manson +% +Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's +character, give him power. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +Needs are a function of what other people have. +% +Neither spread the germs of gossip nor encourage others to do so. +% +Never argue with a fool -- people might not be able to tell the difference. +% +Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel. +% +Never ask the barber if you need a haircut. +% +Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will never +believe you anyway. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +Never face facts; if you do you'll never get up in the morning. + -- Marlo Thomas +% +Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry. +% +Never frighten a small man -- he'll kill you. +% +Never get into fights with ugly people because they have nothing to lose. +% +Never insult an alligator until you've crossed the river. +% +Never kick a man, unless he's down. +% +Never leave anything to chance; make sure all your crimes are premeditated. +% +Never pay a compliment as if expecting a receipt. +% +Never speak ill of yourself, your friends will always say enough on +that subject. + -- Charles-Maurice De Talleyrand +% +Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient. +% +Never trust anybody whose arm is bigger than your leg. +% +Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. +% +Never, ever lie to someone you love unless you're absolutely sure they'll +never find out the truth. +% +Nezvannyi gost'--khuzhe tatarina. + [An uninvited guest is worse than the Mongol invasion] + -- Russian proverb +% +Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. + -- Foghorn Leghorn +% +No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, +however false. + -- Alexander Hamilton +% +No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a +nuisance after three days. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas. +% +No man is useless who has a friend, and if we are loved we are indispensable. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson +% +No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next. + -- E. W. Howe +% +No matter what happens, there is always someone who knew it would. +% +No one becomes depraved in a moment. + -- Decimus Junius Juvenalis +% +No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a +dirty little beast. + -- W. S. Gilbert +% +No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. + -- Eleanor Roosevelt +% +No one can put you down without your full cooperation. +% +"No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid." +% +No one knows what he can do till he tries. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars. + -- Quintus Ennius +% +No one so thoroughly appreciates the value of constructive criticism as the +one who's giving it. + -- Hal Chadwick +% +No question is so difficult as one to which the answer is obvious. +% +No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. +% +No sooner said than done -- so acts your man of worth. + -- Quintus Ennius +% +Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest. +% +Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet. + -- Kin Hubbard +% +Nobody is one block of harmony. We are all afraid of something, or feel +limited in something. We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good +if we talked to each other--not just pitter-patter, but real talk. We +shouldn't be so afraid, because most people really like this contact; +that you show you are vulnerable makes them free to be vulnerable too. +It's so much easier to be together when we drop our masks. + -- Liv Ullman +% +Nobody knows the trouble I've been. +% +Nobody knows what goes between his cold toes and his warm ears. + -- Roy Harper +% +Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with +constructive praise. +% +Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. +Conscience makes egotists of us all. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at +which the hearer is permitted to laugh. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +O Lord, grant that we may always be right, for Thou knowest we will +never change our minds. +% +Objects are lost only because people look where they are not rather than +where they are. +% +Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off your goal. +% +Oh this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is. + -- Gaius Valerius Catullus +% +Oh wearisome condition of humanity! +Born under one law, to another bound. + -- Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke +% +"Oh, yes. The important thing about having lots of things to remember is +that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you +see? You've got to stop. You haven't really been anywhere until you've got +back home. I think that's what I mean." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill. +% +Old age is always fifteen years old than I am. + -- B. Baruch +% +Old age is the harbor of all ills. + -- Bion +% +Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. + -- Trotsky +% +Old age is too high a price to pay for maturity. +% +Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their +inability to set a bad example. + -- La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims" +% +On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are +created jerks. + -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow" +% +One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody's +listening. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. + -- Helen Keller +% +One family builds a wall, two families enjoy it. +% +One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. +Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, +a rivalry of aim. + -- Henry Brook Adams +% +One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious. + -- Chateaubriand (1768-1848) +% +One is often kept in the right road by a rut. + -- Gustave Droz +% +One man tells a falsehood, a hundred repeat it as true. +% +One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends +can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention. + -- Clifton Fadiman +% +One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people. +% +One of the large consolations for experiencing anything unpleasant is +the knowledge that one can communicate it. + -- Joyce Carol Oates +% +One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with +Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just +to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't +be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending +to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't +understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was +renowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the +time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be +puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be +genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they +need no answer. + -- George Gordon, Lord Byron +% +One of the worst of my many faults is that I'm too critical of myself. +% +One would like to stroke and caress human beings, but one dares not do so, +because they bite. + -- Vladimir Il'ich Lenin +% +Only a fool has no doubts. +% +Only a mediocre person is always at his best. + -- Laurence Peter +% +Only fools are quoted. + -- Anonymous +% +Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right +to use the editorial "we". + -- Mark Twain +% +Only someone with nothing to be sorry for smiles back at the rear of an +elephant. +% +Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. + -- Hannah Arendt +% +Only two of my personalities are schizophrenic, but one of them is +paranoid and the other one is out to get him. +% +Optimism is the content of small men in high places. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack Up" +% +Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born +to people you could not have possibly met. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Others can stop you temporarily, only you can do it permanently. +% +Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your nails. +% +Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made. + -- Immanuel Kant +% +Paranoia doesn't mean the whole world isn't out to get you. +% +Paranoia is heightened awareness. +% +Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life. +% +Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one. +% +Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy +to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too. + -- D. J. Hicks +% +Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. + -- Eric Hoffer +% +Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as virtue. + -- Ambrose Bierce, on qualifiers +% +Pelorat sighed. + "I will never understand people." + "There's nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look +at yourself and you will understand everyone else. How would Seldon have +worked out his Plan -- and I don't care how subtle his mathematics was -- +if he didn't understand people; and how could he have done that if people +weren't easy to understand? You show me someone who can't understand +people and I'll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself +-- no offense intended." + -- Asimov, "Foundation's Edge" +% +People (a group that in my opinion has always attracted an undue amount of +attention) have often been likened to snowflakes. This analogy is meant to +suggest that each is unique -- no two alike. This is quite patently not the +case. People ... are simply a dime a dozen. And, I hasten to add, their +only similarity to snowflakes resides in their invariable and lamentable +tendency to turn, after a few warm days, to slush. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +People are like onions -- you cut them up, and they make you cry. +% +People are unconditionally guaranteed to be full of defects. +% +People don't change; they only become more so. +% +People don't usually make the same mistake twice -- they make it three +times, four time, five times... +% +People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33-percent plausible. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +People need good lies. There are too many bad ones. + -- Bokonon, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. +% +People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the +future. +% +People respond to people who respond. +% +People say I live in my own little fantasy world... well, at least they +*know* me there! + -- D. L. Roth +% +People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people +have been left out on the pleasure. + -- Russell Baker +% +People tend to make rules for others and exceptions for themselves. +% +People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never +slept in a room with a single mosquito. +% +People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes. + -- Abigail Van Buren +% +People who have no faults are terrible; there is no way of taking +advantage of them. +% +People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't +what they want that they don't want it. + -- Ogden Nash +% +People who make no mistakes do not usually make anything. +% +People who push both buttons should get their wish. +% +People who take cat naps don't usually sleep in a cat's cradle. +% +People who take cold baths never have rheumatism, but they have cold baths. +% +People who think they know everything greatly annoy those of us who do. +% +People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin +Franklin said it first. +% +People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they +did yesterday. +% +People with narrow minds usually have broad tongues. +% +Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore. + -- Cecil Beaton +% +Personifiers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity! + -- Bernadette Bosky +% +Please don't put a strain on our friendship by asking me to do something +for you. +% +Please don't recommend me to your friends-- it's difficult enough to +cope with you alone. +% +Please forgive me if, in the heat of battle, I sometimes forget which +side I'm on. +% +Practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their thinking. + -- Mary Poppins +% +Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist! +% +Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their +minds cannot change anything. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +Put your brain in gear before starting your mouth in motion. +% +Put your trust in those who are worthy. +% +Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +"Quite frankly, I don't like you humans. After what you all have done, +I find being 'inhuman' a compliment." + -- Spider Robinson, "Callahan's Secret" +% +Rarely do people communicate; they just take turns talking. +% +Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't the remotest +knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest" +% +... relaxed in the manner of a man who has no need to put up a front of +any kind. + -- John Ball, "Mark One: the Dummy" +% +Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life. + -- Dave Butler +% +Revenge is a form of nostalgia. +% +Revenge is a meal best served cold. +% + "Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing +what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt +somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if..." + "He was going to suck my blood!" + "Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt +if they don't live our way." +... + "The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that +happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, +ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. +Nobody else. My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him? That's +his decision to be hurt, that's his choice. What you do about it is your +decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake +through his heart. If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist, +in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices." + "When you look at it that way..." + "Listen," he said, "it's important. We are all. Free. To do. +Whatever. We want. To do." + -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" +% +Rincewind looked down at him and grinned slowly. It was a wide, manic, and +utterly humourless rictus. It was the sort of grin that is normally +accompanied by small riverside birds wandering in and out, picking scraps +out of the teeth. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Lure of the Wyrm" +% +Rudeness is a weak man's imitation of strength. +% +Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent. + -- George Orwell, "Reflections on Gandhi" +% +Sanity and insanity overlap a fine grey line. +% +Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. + -- Mark Harrold +% +Say no, then negotiate. + -- Helga +% +Say something you'll be sorry for, I love receiving apologies. +% +Scenery is here, wish you were beautiful. +% +Schizophrenia beats being alone. +% +Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else. +% +"See - the thing is - I'm an absolutist. I mean, kind of ... in a way ..." +% +Sentimentality -- that's what we call the sentiment we don't share. + -- Graham Greene +% +Serenity through viciousness. +% +Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a +little kinder than is necessary? + -- J. M. Barrie +% +Shame is an improper emotion invented by pietists to oppress the human race. + -- Robert Preston, Toddy, "Victor/Victoria" +% +She often gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it). + -- Lewis Carroll +% +Short people get rained on last. +% +Show your affection, which will probably meet with pleasant response. +% +Sin boldly. + -- Martin Luther +% +Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. +% +Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are +invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful -- just stupid). + -- Lazarus Long +% +Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're alive. + -- John Sloan +% +Since we're all here, we must not be all there. + -- Bob "Mountain" Beck +% +Sinners can repent, but stupid is forever. +% +So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far +as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical +way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist. + -- T. S. Eliot, essay on Baudelaire +% +So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the +town gossip. +% +Some don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit. +% +Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men +have mediocrity thrust upon them. + -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" +% +Some men are discovered; others are found out. +% +Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear +lest she should catch a cold on overexposure. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Some of the things that live the longest in peoples' memories never +really happened. +% +Some people around here wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them on the head. +% +Some people cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. +% +Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have +only one life to live, let me live it as a jerk." +% +Some people have parts that are so private they themselves have no +knowledge of them. +% +Some people's mouths work faster than their brains. They say things they +haven't even thought of yet. +% +Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall. +% +Someone will try to honk your nose today. +% +Something better... + + 1 (obvious): Excuse me. Is that your nose or did a bus park on your face? + 2 (meteorological): Everybody take cover. She's going to blow. + 3 (fashionable): You know, you could de-emphasize your nose if you wore + something larger. Like ... Wyoming. + 4 (personal): Well, here we are. Just the three of us. + 5 (punctual): Alright gentlemen. Your nose was on time but you were fifteen + minutes late. + 6 (envious): Oooo, I wish I were you. Gosh. To be able to smell your + own ear. + 7 (naughty): Pardon me, Sir. Some of the ladies have asked if you wouldn't + mind putting that thing away. + 8 (philosophical): You know. It's not the size of a nose that's important. + It's what's in it that matters. + 9 (humorous): Laugh and the world laughs with you. Sneeze and it's goodbye, + Seattle. +10 (commercial): Hi, I'm Earl Schibe and I can paint that nose for $39.95. +11 (polite): Ah. Would you mind not bobbing your head. The orchestra keeps + changing tempo. +12 (melodic): Everybody! "He's got the whole world in his nose." + -- Steve Martin, "Roxanne" +% +Something better... + +13 (sympathetic): Oh, What happened? Did your parents lose a bet with God? +14 (complimentary): You must love the little birdies to give them this to + perch on. +15 (scientific): Say, does that thing there influence the tides? +16 (obscure): Oh, I'd hate to see the grindstone. +17 (inquiry): When you stop to smell the flowers, are they afraid? +18 (french): Say, the pigs have refused to find any more truffles until you + leave. +19 (pornographic): Finally, a man who can satisfy two women at once. +20 (religious): The Lord giveth and He just kept on giving, didn't He. +21 (disgusting): Say, who mows your nose hair? +22 (paranoid): Keep that guy away from my cocaine! +23 (aromatic): It must be wonderful to wake up in the morning and smell the + coffee ... in Brazil. +24 (appreciative): Oooo, how original. Most people just have their teeth + capped. +25 (dirty): Your name wouldn't be Dick, would it? + -- Steve Martin, "Roxanne" +% +Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +Sometimes I get the feeling that I went to a party on Perry Lane in 1962, and +the party spilled out of the house, and came down the street, and covered the +world. + -- Robert Stone +% +Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Sometimes when you look into his eyes you get the feeling that someone +else is driving. + -- David Letterman +% +Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword. +% +Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman. + -- Dave Millman +% +Start every day off with a smile and get it over with. + -- W. C. Fields +% +Start the day with a smile. After that you can be your nasty old self again. +% +Stay together, drag each other down. +% +Still looking for the glorious results of my misspent youth. Say, do you +have a map to the next joint? +% +Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out? +% +Stupidity is its own reward. +% +Style may not be the answer, but at least it's a workable alternative. +% +Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way +before it is understood. +% +Success is a journey, not a destination. +% +Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. +% +Success is in the minds of Fools. + -- William Wrenshaw, 1578 +% +Success is relative: It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things. + -- T. S. Eliot, "The Family Reunion" +% +Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring. +% +Such a fine first dream! +But they laughed at me; they said +I had made it up. +% +Suicide is simply a case of mistaken identity. +% +Suicide is the sincerest form of self-criticism. + -- Donald Kaul +% +Support your local Search and Rescue unit -- get lost. +% +Sure he's sharp as a razor ... he's a two-dimensional pinhead! +% +Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average. +% +Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far. + -- Jean Cocteau +% +Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a +hole in his head. +% +Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy. +% +Take a lesson from the whale; the only time he gets speared is when he +raises to spout. +% +Talk is cheap because supply always exceeds demand. +% +Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. + -- Euripides +% +Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than +a gallon of vinegar. + -- B. Franklin +% +Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. +Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure. +% +Tell me what to think!!! +% +Telling the truth to people who misunderstand you is generally promoting +a falsehood, isn't it? + -- A. Hope +% +"That boy's about as sharp as a pound of wet liver" + -- Foghorn Leghorn +% +That must be wonderful: I don't understand it at all. + -- Moliere +% +That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee. +% +That's always the way when you discover something new; everyone thinks +you're crazy. + -- Evelyn E. Smith +% +The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither +hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that +makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain +undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely +anyone who achieves anything is, essentially, abnormal. + -- Dr. Karl Menninger, "The Human Mind", 1930 +% +The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that +he is already degraded. + -- George Orwell +% +The angry man always thinks he can do more than he can. + -- Albertano of Brescia +% +The average nutritional value of promises is roughly zero. +% +The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in +the morning feeling just terrible. + -- Jean Kerr +% +The best laid plans of mice and men are usually about equal. + -- Blair +% +The best portion of a good man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts +of kindness and love. + -- Wordsworth +% +The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and +fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are +drifting side by side to our common doom. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time. +% +The best way to get rid of worries is to let them die of neglect. +% +The best way to keep your friends is not to give them away. +% +The bigger they are, the harder they hit. +% +The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred. +% +The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch. +% +The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream; it is a most depressing +and humiliating reality. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none +of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use +excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat +is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +The difference between a good haircut and a bad one is seven days. +% +The difference between common-sense and paranoia is that common-sense is +thinking everyone is out to get you. That's normal -- they are. Paranoia +is thinking that they're conspiring. + -- J. Kegler +% +The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. +% +The difference between sentiment and being sentimental is the following: +Sentiment is when a driver swerves out of the way to avoid hitting a +rabbit on the road. Being sentimental is when the same driver, when +swerving away from the rabbit hits a pedestrian. + -- Frank Herbert, "The White Plague" +% +The discerning person is always at a disadvantage. +% +The distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly +blurred by... the pollution of the language. + -- Arne Tiselius +% +The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +The forest is safe because a lion lives therein and the lion is safe because +it lives in a forest. Likewise the friendship of persons rests on mutual help. + -- Laukikanyay. +% +The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached until a friend +of both parties tactfully interferes. + -- G. K. Chesterton +% +The Golden Rule is of no use to you whatever unless you realize it +is your move. + -- Frank Crane +% +The great merit of society is to make one appreciate solitude. + -- Charles Chincholles, "Reflections on the Art of Life" +% +The great secret in life ... [is] not to open your letters for a fortnight. +At the expiration of that period you will find that nearly all of them have +answered themselves. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. +% +The greatest remedy for anger is delay. +% +The hardest thing is to disguise your feelings when you put a lot of +relatives on the train for home. +% +The hatred of relatives is the most violent. + -- Tacitus (c.55 - c.117) +% +... the heat come 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day. +% +The help people need most urgently is help in admitting that they need help. +% +The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet, +challenging us to be true to ourselves by appeals to the martial spirit that +keeps the blood at heat. Some little, unassuming, unobtrusive choice presents +itself before us slyly and craftily, glib and insinuating, in the modest garb +of innocence. To yield to its blandishments is so easy. The wrong, it seems, +is venial... Then it is that you will be summoned to show the courage of +adventurous youth. + -- Benjamin Cardozo +% +The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange +protein -- it rejects it. + -- P. Medawar +% +The human race never solves any of its problems. It merely outlives them. + -- David Gerrold +% +The idle mind knows not what it is it wants. + -- Quintus Ennius +% +The important thing is not to stop questioning. +% +The kind of danger people most enjoy is the kind they can watch from +a safe place. +% +The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable. + -- Irving Howe +% +The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand. + -- Fred Allen +% +The Least Successful Defrosting Device + The all-time record here is held by Mr. Peter Rowlands of Lancaster +whose lips became frozen to his lock in 1979 while blowing warm air on it. + "I got down on my knees to breathe into the lock. Somehow my lips +got stuck fast." + While he was in the posture, an old lady passed an inquired if he +was all right. "Alra? Igmmlptk", he replied at which point she ran away. + "I tried to tell her what had happened, but it came out sort of... +muffled," explained Mr. Rowlands, a pottery designer. + He was trapped for twenty minutes ("I felt a bit foolish") until +constant hot breathing brought freedom. He was subsequently nicknamed "Hot +Lips". + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason that He makes +so many of them. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the +societies in which they occur. + -- A. N. Whitehead +% +The man who raises a fist has run out of ideas. + -- H. G. Wells, "Time After Time" +% +The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two +chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. + -- Carl Jung +% +The minute a man is convinced that he is interesting, he isn't. +% +The mirror sees the man as beautiful, the mirror loves the man; another +mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him; and it is always the same +being who produces the impressions. + -- Marquis D. A. F. de Sade +% +The more I know men the more I like my horse. +% +The more I see of men the more I admire dogs. + -- Mme De Sevigne, 1626-1696 +% +The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us is right. +% +The most disagreeable thing that your worst enemy says to your face does +not approach what your best friends say behind your back. + -- Alfred De Musset +% +The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise. +% +The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people. + -- Lucille S. Harper +% +The odds are a million to one against your being one in a million. +% +The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. +% +The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age +brings wisdom. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint +has a past and every sinner has a future. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The only really decent thing to do behind a person's back is pat it. +% +The only rose without thorns is friendship. +% +The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any +use to oneself. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The only two things that motivate me and that matter to me are revenge +and guilt. + -- Elvis Costello +% +The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement. +% +The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +The part of the world that people find most puzzling is the part called "Me". +% +The people sensible enough to give good advice are usually sensible +enough to give none. +% +The perfect friend sees the best in you -- sees it constantly -- not just +when you occasionally are that way, but also when you waver, when you +forget yourself, act like less than you are. In time, you become more +like his vision of you -- which is the person you have always wanted to be. + -- Nancy Friday +% +The point is, you see, that there is no point in driving yourself mad +trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and +save your sanity for later. +% +... the privileged being which we call human is distinguished from +other animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in +charity we can only call "inhuman." + -- R. A. Lafferty +% +The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the +stupidity of your action. +% +The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can +be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues. + -- Elizabeth Taylor +% +The propriety of some persons seems to consist in having improper +thoughts about their neighbours. + -- F. H. Bradley +% +The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one +persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress +depends on the unreasonable man. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This +means that only left handed people are in their right mind. +% +"The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography" +% +The second best policy is dishonesty. +% +The secret of happiness is total disregard of everybody. +% +The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero +% +The strong give up and move away, while the weak give up and stay. +% +The strong individual loves the earth so much he lusts for recurrence. He +can smile in the face of the most terrible thought: meaningless, aimless +existence recurring eternally. The second characteristic of such a man is +that he has the strength to recognise -- and to live with the recognition -- +that the world is valueless in itself and that all values are human ones. +He creates himself by fashoning his own values; he has the pride to live +by the values he wills. + -- Nietzsche +% +The sudden sight of me causes panic in the streets. They have yet to learn +-- only the savage fears what he does not understand. + -- The Silver Surfer +% +The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher +esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. + -- Nietzsche +% +The things that interest people most are usually none of their business. +% +The three questions of greatest concern are -- 1. Is it attractive? +2. Is it amusing? 3. Does it know its place? + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds +the other fellow of a dull one. + -- Sid Caesar +% +The truth about a man lies first and foremost in what he hides. + -- Andre Malraux +% +The very remembrance of my former misfortune proves a new one to me. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones. + -- Nathaniel Howe +% +The way some people find fault, you'd think there was some kind of reward. +% +The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle. +% +The wise man seeks everything in himself; the ignorant man tries to get +everything from somebody else. +% +The wise shepherd never trusts his flock to a smiling wolf. +% +The wonderful thing about a dancing bear is not how well he dances, +but that he dances at all. +% +The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an +open doorway with an open mind. + -- E. B. White +% +The world needs more people like us and fewer like them. +% +The worst cliques are those which consist of one man. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +The worst is not so long as we can say "This is the worst." + -- King Lear +% +The worst part of having success is trying to find someone who is happy for you. + -- Bette Midler +% +The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, +but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober. + -- William Butler Yeats +% +The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and +not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could +have materialized -- and never knowing. + -- David Viscott +% + Then there's the story of the man who avoided reality for 70 years +with drugs, sex, alcohol, fantasy, TV, movies, records, a hobby, lots of +sleep... And on his 80th birthday died without ever having faced any of +his real problems. + The man's younger brother, who had been facing reality and all his +problems for 50 years with psychiatrists, nervous breakdowns, tics, tension, +headaches, worry, anxiety and ulcers, was so angry at his brother for having +gotten away scott free that he had a paralyzing stroke. + The moral to this story is that there ain't no justice that we can +stand to live with. + -- R. Geis +% +There are few people more often in the wrong than those who cannot endure +to be thought so. +% +There are many people today who literally do not have a close personal +friend. They may know something that we don't. They are probably +avoiding a great deal of pain. +% +There are more dead people than living, and their numbers are increasing. + -- Eugene Ionesco +% +There are no emotional victims, only volunteers. +% +There are no great men, buster. There are only men. + -- Elaine Stewart, "The Bad and the Beautiful" +% +There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced +by circumstances to meet. + -- Admiral William Halsey +% +There are only two kinds of men -- the dead and the deadly. + -- Helen Rowland +% +There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the +truth without lying. + -- Josh Billings +% +There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good +sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more. + -- Woody Allen +% +There comes a time to stop being angry. + -- A Small Circle of Friends +% +There is a certain frame of mind to which a cemetery is, if not an antidote, +at least an alleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson: Immortelles +% +There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it +has not yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +There is brutality and there is honesty. There is no such thing as brutal +honesty. +% +There is no delight the equal of dread. As long as it is somebody else's. + -- Clive Barker +% +There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist. +% +There is no statute of limitations on stupidity. +% +There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast reflexes. +% +There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death. +Any attempt to prove otherwise constitutes unacceptable behaviour. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +There is nothing more silly than a silly laugh. + -- Gaius Valerius Catullus +% +There is nothing stranger in a strange land than the stranger who comes +to visit. +% +There is only one word for aid that is genuinely without strings, +and that word is blackmail. + -- Colm Brogan +% +There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly +divide the people of the world into two classes and those who do not. + -- Robert Benchley +% +There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not a fence. +% +There's a lot to be said for not saying a lot. +% +There's no saint like a reformed sinner. +% +There's no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it. +% +Therefore it is necessary to learn how not to be good, and to use +this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the cause. + -- Machiavelli +% +They also serve who only stand and wait. + -- John Milton +% +They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see +nothing but sea. + -- Francis Bacon +% +"They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!" +% +They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid! +% +"They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really. They'd be difficult to like." + -- Avon +% +Thinking you know something is a sure way to blind yourself. + -- Frank Herbert, "Chapterhouse: Dune" +% +This generation doesn't have emotional baggage. We have emotional moving vans. + -- Bruce Feirstein +% +This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's +side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little +else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds happiness in +a world in which happiness is always in short supply. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Those of you who think you know everything are annoying those of us who do. +% +Those who are mentally and emotionally healthy are those who have +learned when to say yes, when to say no and when to say whoopee. + -- W. S. Krabill +% +Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. + -- George Santayana +% +Those who don't know, talk. Those who don't talk, know. +% +Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose. +% +To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am always right. +% +To be great is to be misunderstood. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +To be is to be related. + -- C. J. Keyser. +% +To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved. +% +To be who one is, is not to be someone else. +% +To be wise, the only thing you really need to know is when to say +"I don't know." +% +To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for +you in your private heart is true for all men -- that is genius. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +To criticize the incompetent is easy; it is more difficult to criticize +the competent. +% +To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient +solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. + -- H. Poincar'e +% +To find a friend one must close one eye; to keep him -- two. + -- Norman Douglas +% +To keep your friends treat them kindly; to kill them, treat them often. +% +To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools. +% +To make an enemy, do someone a favor. +% +To refuse praise is to seek praise twice. +% +To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn +old falsehoods. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love" +% +To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what +he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do. +% +Too clever is dumb. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Troglodytism does not necessarily imply a low cultural level. +% +Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence. + -- Henrik Tikkanen +% +Try to be the best of whatever you are, even if what you are is no good. +% +Try to divide your time evenly to keep others happy. +% +Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth. + -- Alan Watts +% +Uh-oh -- I've let the cat out of the bag. Let me, then, straightforwardly +state the thesis I shall now elaborate: Making variations on a theme is +really the crux of creativity. + -- Douglas R. Hofstadter, "Metamagical Themas" +% +Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense. + -- e.e. cummings +% +Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life." + +Orac: "It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater mistakes + waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it." +% +Violence stinks, no matter which end of it you're on. But now and then +there's nothing left to do but hit the other person over the head with a +frying pan. Sometimes people are just begging for that frypan, and if we +weaken for a moment and honor their request, we should regard it as +impulsive philanthropy, which we aren't in any position to afford, but +shouldn't regret it too loudly lest we spoil the purity of the deed. + -- Tom Robbins +% +Virtue does not always demand a heavy sacrifice -- only the willingness +to make it when necessary. + -- Frederick Dunn +% +Virtue is its own punishment. + -- Denniston + +Righteous people terrify me ... virtue is its own punishment. + -- Aneurin Bevan +% +Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. + -- Confucius +% +Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +Visits always give pleasure: if not on arrival, then on the departure. + -- Edouard Le Berquier, "Pensees des Autres" +% +Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. +For a first offense, that is. +% +Walk softly and carry a BFG-9000. +% +Walk softly and carry a big stick. + -- Theodore Roosevelt +% +Walk softly and carry a megawatt laser. +% +We all dream of being the darling of everybody's darling. +% +We all know that no one understands anything that isn't funny. +% +We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. + -- Dr. Konrad Adenauer +% +We are all born mad. Some remain so. + -- Samuel Beckett +% +We are all dying -- and we're gonna be dead for a long time. +% +We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +We are all so much together and yet we are all dying of loneliness. + -- A. Schweitzer +% +We are anthill men upon an anthill world. + -- Ray Bradbury +% +We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it. + -- Whole Earth Catalog +% +We are each only one drop in a great ocean -- but some of the drops sparkle! +% +We are not loved by our friends for what we are; rather, we are loved in +spite of what we are. + -- Victor Hugo +% +We are so fond of each other because our ailments are the same. + -- Jonathan Swift +% +We are stronger than our skin of flesh and metal, for we carry and share a +spectrum of suns and lands that lends us legends as we craft our immortality +and interweave our destinies of water and air, leaving shadows that gather +color of their own, until they outshine the substance that cast them. +% +We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the +machinations of the wicked. +% +We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves. + -- Eric Hoffer +% +We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always respect +their good judgement. +% +We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are +free from great ones. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +We prefer to believe that the absence of inverted commas guarantees the +originality of a thought, whereas it may be merely that the utterer has +forgotten its source. + -- Clifton Fadiman, "Any Number Can Play" +% +We prefer to speak evil of ourselves rather than not speak of ourselves at all. +% +We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears. +% +We read to say that we have read. +% +We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best +friends are trying to kill us. +% +We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them. + -- Thucydides +% +We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much. + -- Jean de la Bruyere +% +We thrive on euphemism. We call multi-megaton bombs "Peace-keepers", closet +size apartments "efficient" and incomprehensible artworks "innovative". In +fact, "euphemism" has become a euphemism for "bald-faced lie". And now, here +are the euphemisms so colorfully employed in Personal Ads: + +EUPHEMISM REALITY +------------------- ------------------------- +Excited about life's journey No concept of reality +Spiritually evolved Oversensitive +Moody Manic-depressive +Soulful Quiet manic-depressive +Poet Boring manic-depressive +Sultry/Sensual Easy +Uninhibited Lacking basic social skills +Unaffected and earthy Slob and lacking basic social skills +Irreverent Nasty and lacking basic social skills +Very human Quasimodo's best friend +Swarthy Sweaty even when cold or standing still +Spontaneous/Eclectic Scatterbrained +Flexible Desperate +Aging child Self-centered adult +Youthful Over 40 and trying to deny it +Good sense of humor Watches a lot of television +% +Well, I'm disenchanted too. We're all disenchanted. + -- James Thurber +% +Were it not for the presence of the unwashed and the half-educated, the +formless, queer and incomplete, the unreasonable and absurd, the infinite +shapes of the delightful human tadpole, the horizon would not wear so wide +a grin. + -- F. M. Colby, "Imaginary Obligations" +% +What do I consider a reasonable person to be? I'd say a reasonable person +is one who accepts that we are all human and therefore fallible, and takes +that into account when dealing with others. Implicit in this definition is +the belief that it is the right and the responsibility of each person to +live his or her own life as he or she sees fit, to respect this right in +others, and to demand the assumption of this responsibility by others. +% +What good is it if you talk in flowers, and they think in pastry? + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% + What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional +chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that +conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and +repulsion. You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and +they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor +passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run. Conversely, +all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice +and they remain permanent influences on your life. + Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen +as familiar wallpaper or instant friend. The chemical action it entails is +less worth analyzing than enjoying. At any rate, these six pieces are about +men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's +more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy". + -- Alistair Cooke, "Six Men" +% +What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed +of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that +is the first law of nature. + -- Voltaire +% +What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think +themselves cleverer than we are. +% +What on earth would a man do with himself if something did not stand in his way? + -- H. G. Wells +% +What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no +longer believe you. + -- Nietzsche +% +What we see depends on mainly what we look for. + -- John Lubbock +% +What you see is from outside yourself, and may come, or not, but is beyond +your control. But your fear is yours, and yours alone, like your voice, or +your fingers, or your memory, and therefore yours to control. If you feel +powerless over your fear, you have not yet admitted that it is yours, to do +with as you will. + -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, "Stormqueen" +% +What's the matter with the world? Why, there ain't but one thing wrong +with every one of us -- and that's "selfishness." + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +What's this stuff about people being "released on their own recognizance"? +Aren't we all out on our own recognizance? +% +What, after all, is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean. + -- Christopher Fry +% +Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like +other people. + -- James Russell Lowell, "My Study Windows" +% +Whatever you want to do, you have to do something else first. +% +When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his +mind wonderfully. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years +ago, he is a broad-minded man who has courage enough to change his mind +with changing conditions. When a man you don't like does it, he is a +liar who has broken his promises. + -- Franklin Adams +% +When all other means of communication fail, try words. +% +When among apes, one must play the ape. +% +When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them. +% +When in doubt, do it. It's much easier to apologize than to get permission. + -- Grace Murray Hopper +% +When it comes to helping you, some people stop at nothing. +% +When people say nothing, they don't necessarily mean nothing. +% +When there are two conflicting versions of the story, the wise course +is to believe the one in which people appear at their worst. + -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow" +% +When you dig another out of trouble, you've got a place to bury your own. +% +When you jump for joy, beware that no-one moves the ground from beneath +your feet. + -- Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, "Unkempt Thoughts" +% +When you speak to others for their own good it's advice; +when they speak to you for your own good it's interference. +% +When you try to make an impression, the chances are that is the +impression you will make. +% +WHENEVER ANYBODY SAYS he's struggling to become a human being I have to +laugh because the apes beat him to it by about a million years. Struggle +to become a parrot or something. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. +% +Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Whenever someone tells you to take their advice, you can be pretty sure +that they're not using it. +% +... whether it is better to spend a life not knowing what you want or to +spend a life knowing exactly what you want and that you will never have it. + -- Richard Shelton +% +While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is +admission to someone else. +% +While having never invented a sin, I'm trying to perfect several. +% +While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their +correctness never does. +% +While we are sleeping, two-thirds of the world is plotting to do us in. + -- Dean Rusk +% +While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very +reassuring to know that it's still there. +% +While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are +safe, for you can watch both of his. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not +become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks +into you. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +Whoever would lie usefully should lie seldom. +% +Why be difficult when, with a bit of effort, you could be impossible? +% +Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to +avoid responsibility with? +% +Why my thoughts are my own, when they are in, but when they are out they +are another's. + -- Susanna Martin, executed for witchcraft, 1681 +% +Why was I born with such contemporaries? + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Why, every one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow. + -- Rabelais +% +Will your long-winded speeches never end? +What ails you that you keep on arguing? + -- Job 16:3 +% +Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as +it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. +% +With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I +try to be a fraud and a half. + -- Otto von Bismark +% +With clothes the new are best, with friends the old are best. +% +Words must be weighed, not counted. +% +Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair -- It gives you something to do, +but it doesn't get you anywhere. +% +Write a wise saying and your name will live forever. + -- Anonymous +% +Ye've also got to remember that ... respectable people do the most astonishin' +things to preserve their respectability. Thank God I'm not respectable. + -- Ruthven Campbell Todd +% +Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache. +% +Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +You ain't learning nothing when you're talking. +% +You are a wish to be here wishing yourself. + -- Philip Whalen +% +You are absolute plate-glass. I see to the very back of your mind. + -- Sherlock Holmes +% +You are not a fool just because you have done something foolish -- +only if the folly of it escapes you. +% +You can always tell luck from ability by its duration. +% +You can always tell the people that are forging the new frontier. +They're the ones with arrows sticking out of their backs. +% +You can bear anything if it isn't your own fault. + -- Katharine Fullerton Gerould +% +You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow. + -- Janis Joplin +% +You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks. +% +You can't cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or +smarten up a chump. + -- W. C. Fields +% +You can't cross a large chasm in two small jumps. +% +You can't erase a dream, you can only wake me up. + -- Peter Frampton +% +You can't have your cake and let your neighbor eat it too. + -- Ayn Rand +% +You can't hold a man down without staying down with him. + -- Booker T. Washington +% +You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle +is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. + -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Circle" +% +You can't play your friends like marks, kid. + -- Henry Gondorf, "The Sting" +% +You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic +enough worrying about what's happening now. + -- Lauren Bacall +% +"You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they don't." + -- Dagwood Bumstead +% +You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. +% +You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. +% +You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back. +% +You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. + -- Indira Gandhi +% +You cannot use your friends and have them too. +% +You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first +and last month in advance. +% +You don't have to be nice to people on the way up if you're not planning on +coming back down. + -- Oliver Warbucks, "Annie" +% +You don't have to explain something you never said. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +You give me space to belong to myself yet without separating me +from your own life. May it all turn out to your happiness. + -- Goethe +% +You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, +because you might not get there. + -- Yogi Berra +% +You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. + -- John Viscount Morley +% +You humans are all alike. +% +You just wait, I'll sin till I blow up! + -- Dylan Thomas +% +You know how to win a victory, Hannibal, but not how to use it. + -- Maharbal +% +You know it's going to be a bad day when you want to put on the clothes +you wore home from the party and there aren't any. +% +You know it's going to be a long day when you get up, shave and shower, +start to get dressed and your shoes are still warm. + -- Dean Webber +% +You know it's Monday when you wake up and it's Tuesday. + -- Garfield +% +You know what they say -- the sweetest word in the English language is revenge. + -- Peter Beard +% +You know you are getting old when you think you should drive the speed limit. + -- E. A. Gilliam +% +You know you're in trouble when... +(1) You wake up face down on the pavement. +(2) Your wife wakes up feeling amorous and you have a headache. +(3) You turn on the news and they're showing emergency routes + out of the city. +(4) Your twin sister forgot your birthday. +(5) You wake up and discover your waterbed broke and then + remember that you don't have a waterbed. +(6) Your doctor tells you you're allergic to chocolate. +% +You know you're in trouble when... +(1) You've been at work for an hour before you notice that your + skirt is caught in your pantyhose. + Especially if you're a man. +(2) Your blind date turns out to be your ex-wife. +(3) Your income tax check bounces. +(4) You put both contact lenses in the same eye. +(5) Your wife says, "Good morning, Bill" and your name is George. +(6) You wake up to the soothing sound of flowing water... the day + after you bought a waterbed. +(7) You go on your honeymoon to a remote little hotel and the desk + clerk, bell hop, and manager have a "Welcome Back" party + for your spouse. +% +You know you're in trouble when... +(1) Your car horn goes off accidentally and remains stuck as you + follow a group of Hell's Angels on the freeway. +(2) You want to put on the clothes you wore home from the party + and there aren't any. +(3) Your boss tells you not to bother to take off your coat. +(4) The bird singing outside your window is a buzzard. +(5) You wake up and your braces are locked together. +(6) Your mother approves of the person you're dating. +% +You know you're in trouble when... +(1) Your only son tells you he wishes Anita Bryant would mind + her own business. +(2) You put your bra on backwards and it fits better. +(3) You call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold. +(4) You see a `60 Minutes' news team waiting in your office. +(5) Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles. +(6) Your 4-year old reveals that it's "almost impossible" to + flush a grapefruit down the toilet. +(7) You realize that you've memorized the back of the cereal box. +% +You know your apartment is small... + when you can't know its position and velocity at the same time. + you put your key in the lock and it breaks the window. + you have to go outside to change your mind. + you can vacuum the entire place using a single electrical outlet. +% +You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," he +is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing. + -- Sydney Harris +% +You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue -- agree with him. + -- Ed Howe +% +You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for success. +You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits or white +plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume party disguised +as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World. + -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success" +% +You must know that a man can have only one invulnerable loyalty, loyalty +to his own concept of the obligations of manhood. All other loyalties +are merely deputies of that one. + -- Nero Wolfe +% +You never gain something but that you lose something. + -- Thoreau +% +You never get a second chance to make a first impression. +% +You never go anywhere without your soul. +% +You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough. + -- William Blake +% +You never learn anything by doing it right. +% +You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could +know how seldom they do. + -- Olin Miller. +% + "You say there are two types of people?" + "Yes, those who separate people into two groups and those that don't." + "Wrong. There are three groups: + Those who separate people into three groups. + Those who don't separate people into groups. + Those who can't decide." + "Wait a minute, what about people who separate people into two groups?" + "Oh. Okay, then there are four groups." + "Aren't you then separating people into four groups?" + "Yeah." + "So then there's a fifth group, right?" + "You know, the problem is these idiots who can't make up their minds." +% +You see things; and you say "Why?" +But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" + -- George Bernard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah" + [No, it wasn't J. F. Kennedy. Ed.] +% +You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends. + -- Joseph Conrad +% +You should avoid hedging, at least that's what I think. +% +You should make a point of trying every experience once -- except +incest and folk-dancing. + -- A. Bax, "Farewell My Youth" +% +You shouldn't wallow in self-pity. But it's OK to put your feet in it +and swish them around a little. + -- Guindon +% +You want to know why I kept getting promoted? Because my mouth knows more +than my brain. + -- W.G. +% +You won't skid if you stay in a rut. + -- Frank Hubbard +% +You'd best be snoozin', 'cause you don't be gettin' no work done at 5 a.m. +anyway. + -- From the wall of the Wurster Hall stairwell +% +You'd better smile when they watch you, smile like you're in control. + -- Smile, "Was (Not Was)" +% +You're always thinking you're gonna be the one that makes 'em act different. + -- Woody Allen, "Manhattan" +% +You're either part of the solution or part of the problem. + -- Eldridge Cleaver +% +You're never too old to become younger. + -- Mae West +% +You've always made the mistake of being yourself. + -- Eugene Ionesco +% +You've been telling me to relax all the way here, and now you're telling +me just to be myself? + -- The Return of the Secaucus Seven +% +Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for +counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business. For the +experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth +them; but in new things, abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin +of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might +have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and management of +actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly +to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few +principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not how they innovate, +which draws unknown inconveniences; and, that which doubleth all errors, will +not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop +nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, +repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but +content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly, it is good to +compound employments of both ... because the virtues of either age may correct +the defects of both. + -- Francis Bacon, "Essay on Youth and Age" +% +Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools. + -- George Chapman +% +Young men, hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young. + -- Augustus Caesar +% +Your Co-worker Could Be a Space Alien, Say Experts + ...Here's How You Can Tell +Many Americans work side by side with space aliens who look human -- but you +can spot these visitors by looking for certain tip-offs, say experts. They +listed 10 signs to watch for: + (3) Bizarre sense of humor. Space aliens who don't understand + earthly humor may laugh during a company training film or tell + jokes that no one understands, said Steiger. + (6) Misuses everyday items. "A space alien may use correction + fluid to paint its nails," said Steiger. + (8) Secretive about personal life-style and home. "An alien won't + discuss details or talk about what it does at night or on weekends." + (10) Displays a change of mood or physical reaction when near certain + high-tech hardware. "An alien may experience a mood change when + a microwave oven is turned on," said Steiger. +The experts pointed out that a co-worker would have to display most if not +all of these traits before you can positively identify him as a space alien. + -- National Enquirer, Michael Cassels, August, 1984. + + [I thought everybody laughed at company training films. Ed.] +% +Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you +from enjoying it. +% +Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your +acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. + -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" +% +Youth -- not a time of life but a state of mind... a predominance of +courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. + -- Robert F. Kennedy +% +Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret. + -- Benjamin Disraeli, "Coningsby" +% +Youth is a disease from which we all recover. + -- Dorothy Fuldheim +% + Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of +the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance +of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. + Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow +old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up +enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair +-- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit +back to dust. + Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love +of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and +thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite +for what next, and the joy and the game of life. + You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your +self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your +despair. + So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, +grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long +you are young. + -- Samuel Ullman +% +If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save +you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not +bring forth will destroy you. + -- Jesus, "Gnostic Gospels" (Elaine Pagel) +% +I am myself plus my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I cannot +save myself. + -- Jos'e Ortega Y Gasset +% +If a man slept by day, he had little time to work. That was a +satisfying notion to Escargot. + -- "The Stone Giant", James P. Blaylock +% +He liked fishing a little too much, and he believed that work was +something a man did when he had to. He had always been able to get +along well enough without it, especially for the last couple of +years. + -- "The Stone Giant", James P. Blaylock +% +Would a giant, profit-oriented cartel lie to you? + -- Top Ten List, Late Night with David Letterman +% +Some days you wake and immediately start worrying. Nothing in +particular is wrong, it's just the suspicion that forces are aligning +quietly and there will be trouble. + -- "Survival Series", Jenny Holzer +% +When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but +only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered +glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat +crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard +powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything +like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to +someone else. + -- Margaret Atwood, "Alias Grace" +% +I am examining you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian +on earth believes. + -- Clarence Darrow, to William Jennings Bryan +% +"Go on, girl! You'll never get a better chance to buy Jif at this +price. *Carpe diem*, babe!" + -- "The Naked Consumer", Erik Larson +% +I'm enthralled by combine harvesters. In fact, I yearn to have one -- +as a pet. + -- "The Day of the Jackal" +% +The horizon of many people is a circle with a radius of zero. They call +this their point of view. + -- Albert Einstein +% +The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. +The pessimist is afraid this might be true. + -- crazyphilman's sig on kuro5hin +% +It's rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute +something amazing. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want +a chance to change the world? + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at +night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the +last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And +whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to +change something. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever +encountered to help me make the big choices in life. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one +year.... It's very character-building + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% diff --git a/fortunes/perl b/fortunes/perl new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66d00ee --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/perl @@ -0,0 +1,1026 @@ +All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul13.010945.19157@netlabs.com +% +Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, I hesitate +to make 10 ways to do something. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <9695@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +And don't tell me there isn't one bit of difference between null and space, +because that's exactly how much difference there is. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <10209@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +"And I don't like doing silly things (except on purpose)." + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul3.191825.14435@netlabs.com> +% +: And it goes against the grain of building small tools. +Innocent, Your Honor. Perl users build small tools all day long. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */ +/* in its mouth... */ + -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code +% +Because . doesn't match \n. [\0-\377] is the most efficient way to match +everything currently. Maybe \e should match everything. And \E would +of course match nothing. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <9847@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Be consistent. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +Besides, including is a fatal error on machines that +don't have it yet. Bad language design, there... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug22.220929.6857@netlabs.com> +% +Besides, it's good to force C programmers to use the toolbox occasionally. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991May31.181659.28817@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +Besides, REAL computers have a rename() system call. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7937@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +break; /* don't do magic till later */ + -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code +% +But you have to allow a little for the desire to evangelize when you +think you have good news. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +Chip Salzenberg sent me a complete patch to add System V IPC (msg, sem and +shm calls), so I added them. If that bothers you, you can always undefine +them in config.sh. :-) -- Larry Wall in <9384@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +/* dbmrefcnt--; */ /* doesn't work, rats */ + -- Larry Wall in hash.c from the perl source code +% +#define NULL 0 /* silly thing is, we don't even use this */ + -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code +% +#define SIGILL 6 /* blech */ + -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code +% +Does the same as the system call of that name. +If you don't know what it does, don't worry about it. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page regarding chroot(2) +% +double value; /* or your money back! */ +short changed; /* so triple your money back! */ + -- Larry Wall in cons.c from the perl source code +% +Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is +paved with melting snowballs. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com> +% +echo "Congratulations. You aren't running Eunice." + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +echo "Hmmm...you don't have Berkeley networking in libc.a..." +echo "but the Wollongong group seems to have hacked it in." + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +echo "ICK, NOTHING WORKED!!! You may have to diddle the includes.";; + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +echo $package has manual pages available in source form. +echo "However, you don't have nroff, so they're probably useless to you." + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +echo "Your stdio isn't very std." + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +#else /* !STDSTDIO */ /* The big, slow, and stupid way */ + -- Larry Wall in str.c from the perl source code +% +[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled +programming...] + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who +has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens in +the wrong place. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +"Help save the world!" -- Larry Wall in README +% +Hey, I had to let awk be better at *something*... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Nov7.200504.25280@netlabs.com>1 +% +I already have too much problem with people thinking the efficiency of +a perl construct is related to its length. On the other hand, I'm +perfectly capable of changing my mind next week... :-) --lwall +% +I don't know if it's what you want, but it's what you get. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +I dunno, I dream in Perl sometimes... + -- Larry Wall in <8538@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +If I allowed "next $label" then I'd also have to allow "goto $label", +and I don't think you really want that... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Mar11.230002.27271@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +If I don't document something, it's usually either for a good reason, +or a bad reason. In this case it's a good reason. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan17.005405.16806@netlabs.com> +% +"I find this a nice feature but it is not according to the documentation. +Or is it a BUG?" +"Let's call it an accidental feature. :-)" + -- Larry Wall in <6909@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +if (instr(buf,sys_errlist[errno])) /* you don't see this */ + -- Larry Wall in eval.c from the perl source code +% +if (rsfp = mypopen("/bin/mail root","w")) { /* heh, heh */ + -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code +% +If you consistently take an antagonistic approach, however, people are +going to start thinking you're from New York. :-) + -- Larry Wall to Dan Bernstein in <10187@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +If you want to program in C, program in C. It's a nice language. I +use it occasionally... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7577@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +If you want to see useful Perl examples, we can certainly arrange to have +comp.lang.misc flooded with them, but I don't think that would help the +advance of civilization. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1992Mar5.180926.19041@netlabs.com> +% +If you want your program to be readable, consider supplying the argument. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +I know it's weird, but it does make it easier to write poetry in perl. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7865@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +I'll say it again for the logic impaired. + -- Larry Wall +% +I might be able to shoehorn a reference count in on top of the numeric +value by disallowing multiple references on scalars with a numeric value, +but it wouldn't be as clean. I do occasionally worry about that. --lwall +% +I'm sure that that could be indented more readably, but I'm scared of +the awk parser. + -- Larry Wall in <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because it +usually is. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul31.174523.9447@netlabs.com> +% +In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +Interestingly enough, since subroutine declarations can come anywhere, +you wouldn't have to put BEGIN {} at the beginning, nor END {} at the +end. Interesting, no? I wonder if Henry would like it. :-) --lwall +% +I think it's a new feature. Don't tell anyone it was an accident. :-) + -- Larry Wall on s/foo/bar/eieio in <10911@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +"It is easier to port a shell than a shell script." + -- Larry Wall +% +It is, of course, written in Perl. Translation to C is left as an +exercise for the reader. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7448@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +It's all magic. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7282@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +It's documented in The Book, somewhere... + -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +> (It's sorta like sed, but not. It's sorta like awk, but not. etc.) +Guilty as charged. Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers. :-) + -- Larry Wall regarding 10_000_000 in <11556@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +It won't be covered in the book. The source code has to be useful for +something, after all... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <10160@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +: I've heard that there is a shell (bourne or csh) to perl filter, does +: anyone know of this or where I can get it? +Yeah, you filter it through Tom Christiansen. :-) -- Larry Wall +% +: I've tried (in vi) "g/[a-z]\n[a-z]/s//_/"...but that doesn't +: cut it. Any ideas? (I take it that it may be a two-pass sort of solution). +In the first pass, install perl. :-) + -- Larry Wall <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +I won't mention any names, because I don't want to get sun4's into +trouble... :-) -- Larry Wall in <11333@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Just don't compare it with a real language, or you'll be unhappy... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1992May12.190238.5667@netlabs.com> +% +Just don't create a file called -rf. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <11393@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +last|perl -pe '$_ x=/(..:..)...(.*)/&&"'$1'"ge$1&&"'$1'"lt$2' +That's gonna be tough for Randal to beat... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr29.072206.5621@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +Let's say the docs present a simplified view of reality... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <6940@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature :-) + -- Larry Wall in <2609@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> +% +Lispers are among the best grads of the Sweep-It-Under-Someone-Else's-Carpet +School of Simulated Simplicity. [Was that sufficiently incendiary? :-)] + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan10.201804.11926@netlabs.com +% +No, I'm not going to explain it. If you can't figure it out, you didn't +want to know anyway... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug7.180856.2854@netlabs.com> +% +/* now make a new head in the exact same spot */ + -- Larry Wall in cons.c from the perl source code +% +OK, enough hype. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +OOPS! You naughty creature! You didn't run Configure with sh! +I will attempt to remedy the situation by running sh for you... + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so +consider picking the most readable one. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +Perl itself is usually pretty good about telling you what you shouldn't +do. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <11091@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Perl programming is an *empirical* science! + -- Larry Wall in <10226@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +pos += screamnext[pos] /* does this goof up anywhere? */ + -- Larry Wall in util.c from the perl source code +% +Q. Why is this so clumsy? +A. The trick is to use Perl's strengths rather than its weaknesses. + -- Larry Wall in <8225@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Randal said it would be tough to do in sed. He didn't say he didn't +understand sed. Randal understands sed quite well. Which is why he +uses Perl. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7874@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Remember though that +THERE IS NO GENERAL RULE FOR CONVERTING A LIST INTO A SCALAR. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +s = (char*)(long)retval; /* ouch */ + -- Larry Wall in doio.c from the perl source code +% +signal(i, SIG_DFL); /* crunch, crunch, crunch */ + -- Larry Wall in doarg.c from the perl source code +% +Sorry. My testing organization is either too small, or too large, depending +on how you look at it. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr22.175438.8564@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +stab_val(stab)->str_nok = 1; /* what a wonderful hack! */ + -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code +% +str->str_pok |= SP_FBM; /* deep magic */ +s = (unsigned char*)(str->str_ptr); /* deeper magic */ + -- Larry Wall in util.c from the perl source code +% +Tactical? TACTICAL!?!? Hey, buddy, we went from kilotons to megatons +several minutes ago. We don't need no stinkin' tactical nukes. +(By the way, do you have change for 10 million people?) --lwall +% +That means I'll have to use $ans to suppress newlines now. +Life is ridiculous. + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +The autodecrement is not magical. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +The only disadvantage I see is that it would force everyone to get Perl. +Horrors. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <8854@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +*** The previous line contains the naughty word "$&".\n +if /(ibm|apple|awk)/; # :-) + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug19.041614.6963@netlabs.com> +% +There are many times when you want it to ignore the rest of the string just +like atof() does. Oddly enough, Perl calls atof(). How convenient. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Jun24.231628.14446@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +There are probably better ways to do that, but it would make the parser +more complex. I do, occasionally, struggle feebly against complexity... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7886@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +There are still some other things to do, so don't think if I didn't fix +your favorite bug that your bug report is in the bit bucket. (It may be, +but don't think it. :-) Larry Wall in <7238@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of +something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit. + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +"The road to hell is paved with melting snowballs." + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com> +% +/* This bit of chicanery makes a unary function followed by +a parenthesis into a function with one argument, highest precedence. */ + -- Larry Wall in toke.c from the perl source code +% +"...this does not mean that some of us should not want, in a rather +dispassionate sort of way, to put a bullet through csh's head." +Larry Wall in <1992Aug6.221512.5963@netlabs.com> +% +> This made me wonder, suddenly: can telnet be written in perl? +Of course it can be written in Perl. Now if you'd said nroff, +that would be more challenging... -- Larry Wall +% +Though I'll admit readability suffers slightly... + -- Larry Wall in <2969@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> +% +tmps_base = tmps_max; /* protect our mortal string */ + -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code +% +Unix is like a toll road on which you have to stop every 50 feet to +pay another nickel. But hey! You only feel 5 cents poorer each time. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug13.192357.15731@netlabs.com> +% +"We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on +when it's necessary to compromise." + -- Larry Wall in <1991Nov13.194420.28091@netlabs.com> +% +/* we have tried to make this normal case as abnormal as possible */ + -- Larry Wall in cmd.c from the perl source code +% +What about WRITING it first and rationalizing it afterwords? :-) + -- Larry Wall in <8162@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +: 1. What is the possibility of this being added in the future? +In the near future, the probability is close to zero. In the distant +future, I'll be dead, and posterity can do whatever they like... :-) --lwall +% +"What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that +people have stopped banging their heads against?" + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some +poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +"You can't have filenames longer than 14 chars. +You can't even think about them!" + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +You have to admit that it's difficult to misplace the Perl sources. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +Your csh still thinks true is false. Write to your vendor today and tell +them that next year Configure ought to "rm /bin/csh" unless they fix their +blasted shell. :-) -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +You want it in one line? Does it have to fit in 80 columns? :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7349@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Well, enough clowning around. Perl is, in intent, a cleaned up and +summarized version of that wonderful semi-natural language known as +"Unix". + -- Larry Wall in <1994Apr6.184419.3687@netlabs.com> +% +Anyway, there's plenty of room for doubt. It might seem easy enough, +but computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. + +Jurassic Park, that is. + -- Larry Wall in <1994Jun15.074039.2654@netlabs.com> +% +I want to see people using Perl to glue things together creatively, not +just technically but also socially. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org> +% +The whole history of computers is rampant with cheerleading at best and +bigotry at worst. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org> +% +Unix weanies are as bad at this as anyone. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org> +% +If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to +avoid them. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org> +% +As usual, I'm overstating the case to knock a few neurons loose, but the +truth is usually somewhere in the muddle, uh, middle. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111639.IAA28425@wall.org> +% +Odd that we think definitions are definitive. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org> +% +: But for some things, Perl just isn't the optimal choice. + +(yet) :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org> +% +I don't like this official/unofficial distinction. It sound, er, officious. + -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org> +% +If you write something wrong enough, I'll be glad to make up a new +witticism just for you. + -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org> +% +Perl 5 introduced everything else, including the ability to introduce +everything else. + -- Larry Wall in <199702252152.NAA28845@wall.org> +% +So far we've managed to avoid turning Perl into APL. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199702251904.LAA28261@wall.org> +% +Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already. + -- Larry Wall in <199702271735.JAA04048@wall.org> +% +They can always run stderr through uniq. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199704012331.PAA16535@wall.org> +% +I'd put my money where my mouth is, but my mouth keeps moving. + -- Larry Wall in <199704051723.JAA28035@wall.org> +% +Of course, I reserve the right to make wholly stupid changes to Perl +if I think they improve the language. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199704251604.JAA27300@wall.org> +% +Call me bored, but don't call me boring. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +I think $[ is more like a coelacanth than a mastadon. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +: I used to think that this was just another demonstration of Larry's +: enormous skill at pulling off what other people would fail or balk at. + +Well, everyone else knew it was impossible, so they didn't try. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +We question most of the mantras around here periodically, in case +you hadn't noticed. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +(Presuming for the sake of argument that it's even *possible* to design +better code in Perl than in C. :-) + -- Larry Wall on core code vs. module code design +% +: The hierarchy is excessive. + +So is the anarchy. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +That could certainly be done, but I don't want to fall into the Forth +trap, where every running Forth implementation is really a different +language. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +Tcl long ago fell into the Forth trap, and is now trying desperately to +extricate itself (with some help from Sun's marketing department). + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +The core is not frozen, but slushy. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth +of Perl culture rather than the Perl core. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +Randal can write one-liners again. Everyone is happy, and peace spreads +over the whole Earth. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +Life gets boring, someone invents another necessity, and once again we +turn the crank on the screwjack of progress hoping that nobody gets +screwed. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +No prisoner's dilemma here. Over the long term, symbiosis is more +useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria. + -- Larry Wall in <199705102042.NAA00851@wall.org> +% +Obviously I was either onto something, or on something. + -- Larry Wall on the creation of Perl +% +It's the Magic that counts. + -- Larry Wall on Perl's apparent ugliness +% +May you do Good Magic with Perl. + -- Larry Wall's blessing +% +P.S. Perl's master plan (or what passes for one) is to take over the +world like English did. Er, *as* English did... + -- Larry Wall in <199705201832.LAA28393@wall.org> +% +You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language. :-) + + -- Larry Wall in <199706242038.NAA29853@wall.org> +% +I think you didn't get a reply because you used the terms "correct" and +"proper", neither of which has much meaning in Perl culture. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199706251602.JAA01786@wall.org> +% +I'm sure a mathematician would claim that 0 and 1 are both very +interesting numbers. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> +% +True, it returns "" for false, but "" is an even more interesting +number than 0. + -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> +% +Any false value is gonna be fairly boring in Perl, mathematicians +notwithstanding. + -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> +% +We didn't put in ^^ because then we'd have to keep telling people what +it means, and then we'd have to keep telling them why it doesn't short +circuit. :-/ + -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> +% +Anybody want a binary telemetry frame editor written in Perl? + -- Larry Wall in <199708012226.PAA22015@wall.org> +% +Most places distinguish them merely by using the appropriate value. +Hooray for context... + -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> +% +But then it's a bit odd to think that declaring something int could +actually slow down the program, if it ended up forcing more conversions +back to string. + -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> +% +It's possible that I'm just an idiot, and don't recognize a sleepy +slavemaster when I see one. + -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> +% +Perhaps I'm missing the gene for making enemies. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> +% +Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers. + -- Larry Wall in <199708252256.PAA00105@wall.org> +% +Personally, I like to defiantly split my infinitives. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199708271551.IAA10211@wall.org> +% +Real theology is always rather shocking to people who already +think they know what they think. I'm still shocked myself. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199708261932.MAA05218@wall.org> +% +But maybe we don't really need that... + -- Larry Wall in <199709011851.LAA07101@wall.org> +% +The computer should be doing the hard work. That's what it's paid to do, +after all. + -- Larry Wall in <199709012312.QAA08121@wall.org> +% +The following two statements are usually both true: + +There's not enough documentation. + +There's too much documentation. + -- Larry Wall in <199709020026.RAA08431@wall.org> +% +I don't think I'm gonna agree with that. Way too much visual confusion... + -- Larry Wall in <199709021627.JAA11966@wall.org> +% +There's certainly precedent for that already too. (Not claiming it's +*good* precedent, mind you. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org> +% +Of course, this being Perl, we could always take both approaches. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org> +% +For the run-time caching, I was going to suggest "cached" (doh!), but +perhaps "once" is more meaningful to ordinary people. + -- Larry Wall in <199709021812.LAA12571@wall.org> +% +The random quantum fluctuations of my brain are historical accidents that +happen to have decided that the concepts of dynamic scoping and lexical +scoping are orthogonal and should remain that way. + -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org> +% +At many levels, Perl is a "diagonal" language. + -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org> +% +I'm serious about thinking through all the possibilities before we +settle on anything. All things have the advantages of their +disadvantages, and vice versa. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +Part of language design is purturbing the proposed feature in various +directions to see how it might generalize in the future. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +Sometimes we choose the generalization. Sometimes we don't. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +I wouldn't ever write the full sentence myself, but then, I never use +goto either. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +It's appositival, if it's there. And it doesn't have to be there. +And it's really obvious that it's there when it's there. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +Oh, get ahold of yourself. Nobody's proposing that we parse English. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +As with all the other proposals, it's basically just a list of words. +You can deal with that... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +I hope I'm not getting so famous that I can't think out load [sic] anymore. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +It would be possible to optimize some forms of goto, but I haven't +bothered. + -- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org> +% +A "goto" in Perl falls into the category of hard things that should be +possible, not easy things that should be easy. + -- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org> +% +How do Crays and Alphas handle the POSIX problem? + -- Larry Wall in <199709050042.RAA29379@wall.org> +% +One of the reasons Perl is faster than certain other unnamed interpreted +languages is that it binds variable names to a particular package (or +scope) at compile time rather than at run time. + -- Larry Wall in <199709050035.RAA29328@wall.org> +% +Well, that's more-or-less what I was saying, though obviously addition +is a little more cosmic than the bitwise operators. + -- Larry Wall in <199709051808.LAA01780@wall.org> +% +You tell it that it's indicative by appending $!. That's why we made $! +such a short variable name, after all. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709081801.LAA20629@wall.org> +% +The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the +programmer. + -- Larry Wall in <199709081901.MAA20863@wall.org> +% +As someone pointed out, you could have an attribute that says "optimize +the heck out of this routine", and your definition of heck would be a +parameter to the optimizer. + -- Larry Wall in <199709081854.LAA20830@wall.org> +% +I guess what I'm saying is that the croak in question is requiring +agreement (in the linguistic sense) that isn't buying us anything. + -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org> +% +If you're going to define a shortcut, then make it the base [sic] darn +shortcut you can. + -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org> +% +It is my job in life to travel all roads, so that some may take the road +less travelled, and others the road more travelled, and all have a +pleasant day. + -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org> +% +It's getting harder and harder to think out loud. One of these days +someone's gonna go off and kill Thomas a'Becket for me... + -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org> +% +I was about to say, "Avoid fame like the plague," but you know, they can +cure the plague with penicillin these days. + -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org> +% +But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving +capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason for +leaving capabilities out of Perl. + -- Larry Wall in <199709251614.JAA15718@wall.org> +% +Oh, wait, that was Randal...nevermind... + -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org> +% +:-) your own self. + -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org> +% +P.S. I suppose I really should be nicer to people today, considering +I'll be singing in Billy Graham's choir tonight... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org> +% +Magically turning people's old scalar contexts into list contexts is a +recipe for several kinds of disaster. + -- Larry Wall in <199709291631.JAA08648@wall.org> +% +: The following (relative to AutoSplit 1.03) attempts to please everyone +: and perhaps pleases no one: + +I think that's way cool. + -- Larry Wall in <199709292015.NAA09627@wall.org> +% +And we can always supply them with a program that makes identical files +into links to a single file. + -- Larry Wall in <199709292012.NAA09616@wall.org> +% +I wasn't recommending that we make the links for them, only provide them +with the tools to do so if they want to take the gamble (or the gambol). + -- Larry Wall in <199709292259.PAA10407@wall.org> +% +This has been planned for some time. I guess we'll just have to find +someone with an exceptionally round tuit. + -- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org> +% + switch (ref $@) { + OverflowError => + +warn "Dam needs to be drained"; + DomainError => + +warn "King needs to be trained"; + NuclearWarError => + +die; + } + -- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org> +% +I surely do hope that's a syntax error. + -- Larry Wall in <199710011752.KAA21624@wall.org> +% +Soitainly. I was assuming that came with the OO-ness of it. + -- Larry Wall in <199710011802.LAA21692@wall.org> +% +Because the demand for it is low enough that it would be best handled +as an XSUB, and the demand for it is low enough that nobody has +bothered to write it as an XSUB. + -- Larry Wall on in-place Perl sorting +% +But that looks a little too much like a declaration for my tastes, when +in fact it isn't one. So forget I mentioned it. + -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> +% +I'm not sure whether that's actually useful... + -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> +% +Anyway, my money is still on use strict vars . . . + -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> +% +By rule #1, 5.005 should always allow localization of lexical @_ . . . + -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> +% +I *know* it's weird, but strict vars already comes very, very close to +partitioning the crowd into those who can deal with local lexicals and +those who can't. + -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> +% +If you remove stricture from a large Perl program currently, you're just +installing delayed bugs, whereas with this feature, you're installing an +instant bug that's easily fixed. Whoopee. + -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> +% +The reason I like hitching a ride on strict vars is that it cuts down +the number of rarely used pragmas people have to remember, yet provides +a way to get to the point where we might, just maybe, someday, make +local lexicals the default for everyone, without having useless pragmas +wandering around various programs, or using up another bit in $^H. + -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> +% +I don't think it's worth washing hogs over. + -- Larry Wall in <199710060253.TAA09723@wall.org> +% +It's certainly easy to calculate the average attendance for Perl +conferences. + -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org> +% +Tcl tends to get ported to weird places like routers. + -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org> +% +Historically Tcl has always stored all intermediate results as strings. +(With 8.0 they're rethinking that. Of course, Perl rethought that from +the start.) + -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org> +% +I knew I'd hate COBOL the moment I saw they'd used "perform" instead of +"do". + -- Larry Wall on a not-so-popular programming language +% +Just don't make the '9' format pack/unpack numbers... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710091434.HAA00838@wall.org> +% +I think that's easier to read. Pardon me. Less difficult to read. + -- Larry Wall in <199710120226.TAA06867@wall.org> +% +That wouldn't be good enough. + -- Larry Wall in <199710131621.JAA14907@wall.org> +% +To ordinary folks, conversion is not always automatic. It's something +that may or may not require explicit assistance. See Billy Graham. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710141738.KAA22289@wall.org> +% +The prayer of serenity applies here. To both of us. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710141802.LAA22443@wall.org> +% +Well, you can implement a Perl peek() with unpack('P',...). Once you +have that, there's only security through obscurity. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710161537.IAA07828@wall.org> +% +It may be possible to get this condition from within Perl if a signal +handler runs at just the wrong moment. Another point for Chip... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710161546.IAA07885@wall.org> +% +As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be +visually distinct. + -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org> +% +The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, +humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases. + -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org> +% +That should probably be written: + no !@#$%^&*:@!semicolon + -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org> +% +That gets us out of deciding how to spell Reg[eE]xp?|RE . . . +Of course, then we have to decide what ref $re returns... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710171838.LAA24968@wall.org> +% +Depends on how you define "always". :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org> +% +'Course, that doesn't work when 'a' contains parentheses. + -- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org> +% +I was trying not to mention backtracking. Which, of course, means that +yours is "righter" than mine, in a theoretical sense. + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +Not that I'm against sneaking some notions into people's heads upon +occasion. (Or blasting them in outright.) + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +(To the extent that anyone but a Prolog programmer can understand \X totally. +(And to the extent that a Prolog programmer can understand "cut". :-)) + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +But you'll notice Perl has a goto. + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +Suppose you're working on an optimizer to render \X unnecessary (or +rather, redundant, which isn't the same thing in my book). + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +Wow, I'm being shot at from both sides. That means I *must* be right. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710211959.MAA18990@wall.org> +% +You don't have to wait--you can have it in 5.004_54 or so. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710221740.KAA24455@wall.org> +% +There's something to be said for returning the whole syntax tree. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221833.LAA24741@wall.org> +% +It's not really a rule--it's more like a trend. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221721.KAA24321@wall.org> +% +Double *sigh*. _04 is going onto thousands of CDs even as we speak, +so to speak. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221718.KAA24299@wall.org> +% +The code also assumes that it's difficult to misspell "a" or "b". :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710221731.KAA24396@wall.org> +% +Well, hey, let's just make everything into a closure, and then we'll +have our general garbage collector, installed by "use less memory". + -- Larry Wall in <199710221744.KAA24484@wall.org> +% +No, that'd be silly. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> +% +People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else +dictating how they can call it. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> +% +For the sake of argument I'll ignore all your fighting words. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> +% +Think of prototypes as a funny markup language--the interpretation is +left up to the rendering engine. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> +% +Either approach may give birth to various sorts of monstrosities. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221950.MAA25210@wall.org> +% +The way these things go, there are probably 6 or 8 kludgey ways to do +it, and a better way that involves rethinking something that hasn't +been rethunk yet. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221859.LAA24889@wall.org> +% +Obviously your filters are throwing away mail from Randal. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org> +% +Beauty? What's that? + -- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org> +% +Oh yeah. Forgot about those. Getting senile, I guess... + -- Larry Wall in <199710261551.HAA17791@wall.org> +% +'Course, I haven't weighed in yet. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org> +% +I'm afraid my gut level reaction is basically, "'proceed' is cute, but +cute doesn't cut it in the emergency room." + -- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org> +% +I suppose one could claim that an undocumented feature has no +semantics. :-( + -- Larry Wall in <199710290036.QAA01818@wall.org> +% +: How would you disambiguate these situations? + +By shooting the person who did the latter. + -- Larry Wall in <199710290235.SAA02444@wall.org> +% +Yes, we have consensus that we need 64 bit support. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org> +% +: - cut in regexps + +I don't think we reached consensus on that. We're still backtracking... + -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org> +% +Maybe it's time to break that. + -- Larry Wall in <199710311718.JAA19082@wall.org> +% +Boss: You forgot to assign the result of your map! + +Hacker: Dang, I'm always forgetting my assignations... + +Boss: And what's that "goto" doing there?!? + +Hacker: Er, I guess my finger slipped when I was typing "getservbyport"... + +Boss: Ah well, accidents will happen. Maybe we should have picked APL. + -- Larry Wall in <199710311732.JAA19169@wall.org> +% +Perhaps they will have to outlaw sending random lists of words. fee fie +foe foo [sic] + -- Larry Wall in <199710311916.LAA19760@wall.org> +% +Hey, if pi == 3, and three == 0, does that make pi == 0? :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199711011926.LAA25557@wall.org> +% +I think you're letting your knowledge of internals interfere with your +linguistic judgement here. + -- Larry Wall in <199711011949.LAA25651@wall.org> +% +(Never thought I'd be telling Malcolm and Ilya the same thing... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199711071819.KAA29909@wall.org> +% +And other operators aren't so special syntactically, but weird +in other ways, like "scalar", and "goto". + -- Larry Wall in <199711071749.JAA29751@wall.org> +% +Portability should be the default. + -- Larry Wall in <199711072201.OAA01123@wall.org> +% +Actually, it also looks like we should optimize (13,2,42,8,'hike') into +a pp_padav copy as well. + -- Larry Wall in <199711081945.LAA06315@wall.org> +% +If this were Ada, I suppose we'd just constant fold 1/0 into + + die "Illegal division by zero" + -- Larry Wall in <199711100226.SAA12549@wall.org> +% +Are you perchance running on a 64-bit machine? + -- Larry Wall in <199711102149.NAA16878@wall.org> +% +Almost nothing in Perl serves a single purpose. + -- Larry Wall in <199712040054.QAA13811@wall.org> +% +There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin. + -- Larry Wall in <199712041747.JAA18908@wall.org> +% +Reserve your abuse for your true friends. + -- Larry Wall in <199712041852.KAA19364@wall.org> +% +Er, Tom, I hate to be the one to point this out, but your fix list +is starting to resemble a feature list. You must be human or something. + -- Larry Wall in <199801081824.KAA29602@wall.org> +% +It's hard to tune heavily tuned code. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199801141725.JAA07555@wall.org> +% +Perl will always provide the null. + -- Larry Wall in <199801151818.KAA14538@wall.org> +% +It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199801151836.KAA14656@wall.org> +% +Well, I think Perl should run faster than C. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199801200306.TAA11638@wall.org> +% +To Perl, or not to Perl, that is the kvetching. + -- Larry Wall in <199801200310.TAA11670@wall.org> +% diff --git a/fortunes/pets b/fortunes/pets new file mode 100644 index 0000000..81b1c85 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/pets @@ -0,0 +1,193 @@ +A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. + -- Ogden Nash +% + A little dog goes into a saloon in the Wild West, and beckons to +the bartender. "Hey, bartender, gimme a whiskey." + The bartender ignores him. + "Hey bartender, gimme a whiskey!" + Still ignored. + "HEY BARMAN!! GIMME A WHISKEY!!" + The bartender takes out his six-shooter and shoots the dog in the +leg, and the dog runs out the saloon, howling in pain. + Three years later, the wee dog appears again, wearing boots, +jeans, chaps, a Stetson, gun belt, and guns. He ambles slowly into the +saloon, goes up to the bar, leans over it, and says to the bartender, +"I'm here t'git the man that shot muh paw." +% +About the only thing on a farm that has an easy time is the dog. +% +All intelligent species own cats. +% +Any Member introducing or causing to be introduced a dog into the Society's +premises shall be liable to a fine of £5 inflicted by the Treasurer. Any animal +leading a blind person shall be deemed to be a cat. Any animal entering on +Police business shall be deemed to be a wombat. + -- Rule 51, Oxford Union Society +% +Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. + -- R. Heinlein +% + "Anything else you wish to draw to my attention, Mr. Holmes ?" + "The curious incident of the stable dog in the nighttime." + "But the dog did nothing in the nighttime." + "That was the curious incident." + -- A. Conan Doyle, "Silver Blaze" +% +Auribus teneo lupum. + [I hold a wolf by the ears.] + [Boy, it *sounds* good. But what does it *mean*?] +% +Breeding rabbits is a hare raising experience. +% +Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function. + -- Garrison Keillor +% +Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't make eight cats pull a sled through +the snow. +% +Cats, no less liquid than their shadows, offer no angles to the wind. +% +Chihuahuas drive me crazy. I can't stand anything that shivers when it's warm. +% +"Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern +technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat." +% +Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think +that's how dogs spend their lives. + -- Sue Murphy +% +Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? +% +Dogs just don't seem to be able to tell the difference between important people +and the rest of us. +% +Everyone *knows* cats are on a higher level of existence. These silly humans +are just too big-headed to admit their inferiority. + Just think what a nicer world this would be if it were controlled by +cats. + You wouldn't see cats having waste disposal problems. + They're neat. + They don't have sexual hangups. A cat gets horny, it does something +about it. + They keep reasonable hours. You *never* see a cat up before noon. + They know how to relax. Ever heard of a cat with an ulcer? + What are the chances of a cat starting a nuclear war? Pretty negligible. +It's not that they can't, they just know that there are much better things to +do with ones time. Like lie in the sun and sleep. Or go exploring the world. +% +For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a cat. +% +Hi! You have reached 555-0129. None of us are here to answer the phone and +the cat doesn't have opposing thumbs, so his messages are illegible. Please +leave your name and message after the beep... +% +I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts +to bite people themselves. + -- August Strindberg +% +I love dogs, but I hate Chihuahuas. A Chihuahua isn't a dog. It's a rat +with a thyroid problem. +% +If a can of Alpo costs 38 cents, would it cost $2.50 in Dog Dollars? +% +If anyone has seen my dog, please contact me at x2883 as soon as possible. +We're offering a substantial reward. He's a sable collie, with three legs, +blind in his left eye, is missing part of his right ear and the tip of his +tail. He's been recently fixed. Answers to "Lucky". +% +If you are a police dog, where's your badge? + -- Question James Thurber used to drive his German Shepherd + crazy. +% +"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little +Lavoris in the toilet." + -- Jay Leno +% +If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a +new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, +does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must +make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at cats. +The writer of the letter asked a civil question; attack cats, then, only if +you can do so with good humor, good taste, and in such a way that your answer +will be courteous as well as responsive. Since you are out of sympathy with +cats, you may quite properly give this as a reason for not appearing at the +dedication ceremonies of a cat hospital. But bear in mind that your opinion +of cats was not sought, only your services as a speaker. Try to keep things +straight. + -- Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style" +% +In the eyes of my dog, I'm a man. + -- Martin Mull +% +It is not a good omen when goldfish commit suicide. +% +It was Penguin lust... at its ugliest. +% +It's no use crying over spilt milk -- it only makes it salty for the cat. +% +Lost: gray and white female cat. Answers to electric can opener. +% +Never try to outstubborn a cat. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless +absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation. + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish. +% +PENGUINICITY!! +% +Raising pet electric eels is gaining a lot of current popularity. +% +"Shelter," what a nice name for for a place where you polish your cat. +% +Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be +chewed and digested. + -- Francis Bacon + [As anyone who has ever owned a puppy already knows. Ed.] +% +Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel very peculiar. I feel +like I've just got to bite a cat! I feel like if I don't bite a cat +before sundown, I'll go crazy! But then I just take a deep breath and +forget about it. That's what is known as real maturity. + -- Snoopy +% +Speaking of purchasing a dog, never buy a watchdog that's on sale. +After all, everyone knows a bargain dog never bites! +% +The difference between dogs and cats is that dogs come when they're +called. Cats take a message and get back to you. +% +The main problem I have with cats is, they're not dogs. + -- Kevin Cowherd +% +The only time a dog gets complimented is when he doesn't do anything. + -- C. Schulz +% +There are many intelligent species in the universe, and they all own cats. +% +There's no use in having a dog and doing your own barking. +% +To err is human, +To purr feline. + -- Robert Byrne +% +When man calls an animal "vicious", he usually means that it will attempt +to defend itself when he tries to kill it. +% +When the fog came in on little cat feet last night, it left these little +muddy paw prints on the hood of my car. +% +Who loves me will also love my dog. + -- John Donne +% +With a rubber duck, one's never alone. + -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +It's always sad when the fleas leave, because that means your dog is dead. + -- Wesley T. Williams +% +It's always sad when the fleas leave, because that means your dog is dead. + -- Wesley T. Williams +% diff --git a/fortunes/platitudes b/fortunes/platitudes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1a69ee --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/platitudes @@ -0,0 +1,1371 @@ +(1) Everything depends. +(2) Nothing is always. +(3) Everything is sometimes. +% +42 +% +A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that balances are +correct. + -- Princess Irulan, "Manual of Maud'Dib" +% +A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. +% +A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. + -- Cervantes +% +A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. +% +A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose. +% + A boy spent years collecting postage stamps. The girl next door bought +an album too, and started her own collection. "Dad, she buys everything I've +bought, and it's taken all the fun out of it for me. I'm quitting." Don't, +son, remember, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of philately.'" +% +A certain amount of opposition is a help, not a hindrance. Kites rise +against the wind, not with it. +% +A chicken is an egg's way of producing more eggs. +% +A chronic disposition to inquiry deprives domestic felines of vital qualities. +% +A clever prophet makes sure of the event first. +% +A closed mouth gathers no foot. +% +A couch is as good as a chair. +% +A day without orange juice is like a day without orange juice. +% +A day without sunshine is like a day without Anita Bryant. +% +A day without sunshine is like a day without orange juice. +% +A day without sunshine is like night. +% +A dead man cannot bite. + -- Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) +% +A farmer is a man outstanding in his field. +% + A farmer with extremely prolific hens posted the following sign. "Free +Chickens. Our Coop Runneth Over." +% + A father gave his teen-age daughter an untrained pedigreed pup for +her birthday. An hour later, when wandering through the house, he found her +looking at a puddle in the center of the kitchen. "My pup," she murmured +sadly, "runneth over." +% +A fool and his money are soon popular. +% +A fool and your money are soon partners. +% +A fool must now and then be right by chance. +% +A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +A friend in need is a pest indeed. +% +A full belly makes a dull brain. + -- Ben Franklin + + [and the local candy machine man. Ed] +% + A girl spent a couple hours on the phone talking to her two best +friends, Maureen Jones, and Maureen Brown. When asked by her father why she +had been on the phone so long, she responded "I heard a funny story today +and I've been telling it to the Maureens." +% +A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of). +% +A good memory does not equal pale ink. +% +A good name lost is seldom regained. When character is gone, +all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever. + -- J. Hawes +% +A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. + -- Patton +% +A good reputation is more valuable than money. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +A good scapegoat is hard to find. +A guilty conscience is the mother of invention. + -- Carolyn Wells +% +A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold. +% +A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. +% +A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity. +% +A homeowner's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a weekend for? +% + A horse breeder has his young colts bottle-fed after they're three +days old. He heard that a foal and his mummy are soon parted. +% +A hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong! +% +A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance. +% +A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. + -- Lao Tsu +% +A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet. + -- Lao Tsu +% +A king's castle is his home. +% +A lie in time saves nine. +% +A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and a very present help in time of +trouble. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. + -- Aristotle +% +A little experience often upsets a lot of theory. +% +A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation. + -- C. E. Ayres +% +A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. + -- H. H. Munro, "Saki" +% +A lost ounce of gold may be found, a lost moment of time never. +% +A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles +in the road. + -- Alexander Smith +% +A man who carries a cat by its tail learns something he can learn +in no other way. +% +A man with one watch knows what time it is. +A man with two watches is never quite sure. +% +A man's best friend is his dogma. +% +A man's house is his castle. + -- Sir Edward Coke +% +A man's house is his hassle. +% +A mind is a wonderful thing to waste. +% +A mushroom cloud has no silver lining. +% +A penny saved has not been spent. +% +A penny saved is ridiculous. +% +A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his +mouth. +% +A place for everything and everything in its place. + -- Isabella Mary Beeton, "The Book of Household Management" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to memory management system services.] +% +A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it. + -- Stanley Baldwin +% +A plethora of individuals with expertise in culinary techniques contaminate +the potable concoction produced by steeping certain edible nutriments. +% +A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs. +% +A pound of salt will not sweeten a single cup of tea. +% +"A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives." +% +A rolling stone gathers momentum. +% +A rolling stone gathers no moss. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. +% +A sinking ship gathers no moss. + -- Donald Kaul +% +A Smith & Wesson beats four aces. +% +A snake lurks in the grass. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger. + -- Proverbs 15:1 +% +A soft drink turneth away company. +% +A song in time is worth a dime. +% +A stitch in time saves nine. +% +A violent man will die a violent death. + -- Lao Tsu +% +A watched clock never boils. +% +A wise man can see more from a mountain top than a fool can from the bottom +of a well. +% +A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a +mountain top. +% +A wise person makes his own decisions, a weak one obeys public opinion. + -- Chinese proverb +% +A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets +people's attention. +% +A witty saying proves nothing. + -- Voltaire +% +A word to the wise is enough. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Above all else -- sky. +% +Above all things, reverence yourself. +% +Absence makes the heart forget. +% +Absence makes the heart go wander. +% +Absence makes the heart grow fonder -- of somebody else. +% +Absence makes the heart grow fonder. + -- Sextus Aurelius +% +Absence makes the heart grow frantic. +% +Absolutum obsoletum. (If it works, it's out of date.) + -- Stafford Beer +% +Ad astra per aspera. + [To the stars by aspiration.] +% +Adde parvum parvo manus acervus erit. + [Add little to little and there will be a big pile.] + -- Ovid +% +Advice from an old carpenter: measure twice, saw once. +% +After the game the king and the pawn go in the same box. + -- Italian proverb +% +Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill. +% +Age before beauty; and pearls before swine. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star. + -- W. Clement Stone +% +Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing. + -- The Mad Dogtender +% +Alas, I am dying beyond my means. + -- Oscar Wilde [as he sipped champagne on his deathbed] +% +Alimony is the high cost of leaving. +% +All a man needs out of life is a place to sit 'n' spit in the fire. +% +All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. +% +-- All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. +-- When there are visible vapors having the prevenience in ignited + carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration. +-- Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted. +-- A plethora of individuals wither expertise in culinary techniques vitiated + the potable concoction produced by steeping certain coupestibles. +-- Eleemosynary deeds have their initial incidence intramurally. +-- Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony. +-- Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be well + advised to refrain from catapulting projectiles. +% +All I kin say is when you finds yo'self wanderin' in a peach orchard, +ya don't go lookin' for rutabagas. + -- Kingfish +% +All is fear in love and war. +% +All is well that ends well. + -- John Heywood +% +All that glitters has a high refractive index. +% +All that glitters is not gold; all that wander are not lost. +% +All things are possible, except for skiing through a revolving door. +% +All things being equal, you are bound to lose. +% +All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. +% +All's well that ends. +% +An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or +one-and-a-half truths. + -- Karl Kraus +% +An apple a day makes 365 apples a year. +% +An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away. +% +An idle mind is worth two in the bush. +% +An ounce of clear truth is worth a pound of obfuscation. +% +An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition. + -- Michael Korda +% +An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest. + -- Spanish proverb +% +"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge." +% +And tomorrow will be like today, only more so. + -- Isaiah 56:12, New Standard Version +% +Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. + -- Proverbs, 26:5 +% +Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche -- +a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my +grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off the fence." +I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true. + -- Solomon Short +% +Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there. + -- Sydney J. Harris +% +Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere. +Climb the mountain just a little to test it's a mountain. +From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain. + -- Bene Gesserit proverb, "Dune" +% +Anything is possible on paper. + -- Ron McAfee +% +Anything is possible, unless it's not. +% +Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto +undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth. + -- Max Beerbohm, "Mainly on the Air" +% +Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. +% +As well look for a needle in a bottle of hay. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Ask not for whom the Bell tolls, and you will pay only the station-to-station +rate. + -- Howard Kandel +% +Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls... +if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. +% +Avoid cliches like the plague. They're a dime a dozen. +% +Be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. + -- Homer +% +Be sure to evaluate the bird-hand/bush ratio. +% +Beggars should be no choosers. + -- John Heywood +% +Better dead than mellow. +% +Better hope you get what you want before you stop wanting it. +% +Better late than never. + -- Titus Livius (Livy) +% +Better living a beggar than buried an emperor. +% +Better to be nouveau than never to have been riche at all. +% +Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. + -- motto of the Christopher Society +% +Better tried by twelve than carried by six. + -- Jeff Cooper +% +Beware of friends who are false and deceitful. +% +Beware of geeks bearing graft. +% +Call on God, but row away from the rocks. + -- Indian proverb +% +Charity begins at home. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +Cheap things are of no value, valuable things are not cheap. +% +Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely. + -- P. J. O'Rourke +% +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 I'm right and you're wrong." + -- Blair Houghton +% +Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought her back. +% +Desist from enumerating your fowl prior to their emergence from the shell. +% +Do not count your chickens before they are hatched. + -- Aesop +% +Do unto others before they undo you. +% +Do, or do not; there is no try. +% +Doing gets it done. +% +Don't get even -- get odd! +% +Don't get mad, get even. + -- Joseph P. Kennedy + +Don't get even, get jewelry. + -- Anonymous +% +Don't get mad, get interest. +% +Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, +you can do it again tomorrow. +% +Eschew obfuscation. +% +Every path has its puddle. +% +Every silver lining has a cloud around it. +% +Every solution breeds new problems. +% +Expedience is the best teacher. +% +Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills. + -- Minna Antrim, "Naked Truth and Veiled Allusions" +% +Familiarity breeds attempt. +% +Flattery will get you everywhere. +% +Flee at once, all is discovered. +% +For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. + -- Alexander Pope +% +Forgive and forget. + -- Cervantes +% +Fortune and love befriend the bold. + -- Ovid +% +Fortune favors the lucky. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #12 + + Those who can, do. Those who can't, write the instructions. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #3 + + Birds of a feather flock to a newly washed car. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #9 + + A word to the wise is often enough to start an argument. +% +Freedom from incrustation of grime is contiguous to rectitude. +% +Genius is pain. + -- John Lennon +% +Given sufficient time, what you put off doing today will get done by itself. +% +God gave man two ears and one tongue so that we listen twice as much as +we speak. + -- Arab proverb +% +Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others. +% +Happiness is the greatest good. +% +Haste makes waste. + -- John Heywood +% +Have a nice day! +% +Have a nice diurnal anomaly. +% +Have an adequate day. +% +He that bringeth a present, findeth the door open. + -- Scottish proverb. +% +He who fears the unknown may one day flee from his own backside. + -- Sinbad +% +He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. +% +He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over. +% +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 has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world +as he who is ready to die. + -- Giacomo Leopardi +% +He who hates vices hates mankind. +% +He who hesitates is last. +% +He who hesitates is sometimes saved. +% +He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news. + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +He who laughs last -- missed the punch line. +% +He who laughs last didn't get the joke. +% +He who laughs last hasn't been told the terrible truth. +% +He who laughs last is probably your boss. +% +He who laughs last usually had to have joke explained. +% +He who laughs, lasts. +% +He who lives without folly is less wise than he believes. +% +He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. + -- Dr. Johnson +% +Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense. +% +Honesty's the best policy. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Honi soit qui mal y pense. + [Evil to him who evil thinks.] + -- Motto of the Order of the Garter (est. Edward III) +% +How sharper than a hound's tooth it is to have a thankless serpent. +% +How you look depends on where you go. +% +I am a man: nothing human is alien to me. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +I doubt, therefore I might be. +% +I know on which side my bread is buttered. + -- John Heywood +% +I think, therefore I am... I think. +% +I'll turn over a new leaf. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +If a fool persists in his folly he shall become wise. + -- William Blake +% +If anything can go wrong, it will. +% +If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment. +% +If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. +% +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 at first you don't succeed, try, try again. + -- W. E. Hickson +% +If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average. + -- Leonard Levinson +% +If happiness is in your destiny, you need not be in a hurry. + -- Chinese proverb +% +If I cannot bend Heaven, I shall move Hell. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +If in doubt, mumble. +% +If it ain't broke, don't fix it. +% +If it heals good, say it. +% +If the shoe fits, it's ugly. +% +If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will. +% +If there is no wind, row. + -- Polish proverb +% +If two wrongs don't make a right, try three. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +If wishes were horses, then beggars would be thieves. +% +If you wish to be happy for one hour, get drunk. +If you wish to be happy for three days, get married. +If you wish to be happy for a month, kill your pig and eat it. +If you wish to be happy forever, learn to fish. + -- Chinese Proverb +% +If you wish to succeed, consult three old people. +% +If you would keep a secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend. +% +In charity there is no excess. + -- Francis Bacon +% +In God we trust; all else we walk through. +% +In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Inspiration without perspiration is usually sterile. +% +Integrity has no need for rules. +% +It doesn't matter whether you win or lose -- until you lose. +% +It is a poor judge who cannot award a prize. +% +It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish. + -- Aeschylus +% +It is annoying to be honest to no purpose. + -- Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) +% +It is bad luck to be superstitious. + -- Andrew W. Mathis +% +It is better to have loved a short man than never to have loved a tall. +% +It is better to have loved and lost -- much better. +% +It is better to have loved and lost than just to have lost. +% +It is better to wear out than to rust out. +% +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 sweet to let the mind unbend on occasion. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. + -- Roger Babson +% +It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black. +% +It's always darkest just before the lights go out. + -- Alex Clark +% +It's better to burn out than it is to rust. +% +It's better to burn out than to fade away. +% +It's later than you think. +% +It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame. +% +It's the thought, if any, that counts! +% +Keep on keepin' on. +% +Keep the phase, baby. +% +Kites rise highest against the wind -- not with it. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Knowledge is power. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Knowledge without common sense is folly. +% +Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone. +% +Laugh and the world thinks you're an idiot. +% +Laugh at your problems; everybody else does. +% +Laugh when you can; cry when you must. +% +Laugh, and the world ignores you. Crying doesn't help either. +% +Leave no stone unturned. + -- Euripides +% +Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. +% +Let sleeping dogs lie. + -- Charles Dickens +% +Let your conscience be your guide. + -- Pope +% +Life is one long struggle in the dark. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +"Life is too important to take seriously." + -- Corky Siegel +% +Life is too short to be taken seriously. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Look before you leap. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Look ere ye leap. + -- John Heywood +% +-- Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony. +-- Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be well advised + to refrain from catapulting projectiles. +-- Neophyte's serendipity. +-- Exclusive dedication to necessitious chores without interludes of hedonistic + diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow. +-- A revolving concretion of earthy or mineral matter accumulates no congeries + of small, green bryophytic plant. +-- Abstention from any aleatory undertaking precludes a potential escallation + of a lucrative nature. +-- Missiles of ligneous or osteal consistency have the potential of fracturing + osseous structure, but appellations will eternally remain innocuous. +% +Man is the measure of all things. + -- Protagoras +% +Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts. + -- Plotinus +% +Many are called, few are chosen. Fewer still get to do the choosing. +% +Many are called, few volunteer. +% +Many are cold, but few are frozen. +% +Many hands make light work. + -- John Heywood +% +May you have warm words on a cold evening, +a full moon on a dark night, +and a smooth road all the way to your door. +% +May you live in interesting times. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Men freely believe that what they wish to desire. + -- Julius Caesar +% +Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate. +% +Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it. + -- Russell Baker +% +Misfortunes arrive on wings and leave on foot. +% +Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. +% +Mistrust first impulses; they are always right. +% +Moderation in all things. + -- Publius Terentius Afer [Terence] +% +Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Mother is the invention of necessity. +% +Mum's the word. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Necessity has no law. + -- St. Augustine +% +Necessity hath no law. + -- Oliver Cromwell +% +Necessity is a mother. +% +-- Neophyte's serendipity. +-- Exclusive dedication to necessitious chores without interludes of + hedonistic diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow. +-- A revolving concretion of earthy or mineral matter accumulates no + congeries of small, green bryophytic plant. +-- The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the + optimal cachinnation. +-- Abstention from any aleatory undertaking precludes a potential + escallation of a lucrative nature. +-- Missiles of ligneous or osteal consistency have the potential of + fracturing osseous structure, but appellations will eternally + remain innocuous. +% +Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. +% +Never look a gift horse in the mouth. + -- Saint Jerome +% +Never promise more than you can perform. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together. +% +Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after. +% +Nice guys don't finish nice. +% +Nice guys finish last, but we get to sleep in. + -- Evan Davis +% +Nice guys finish last. + -- Leo Durocher +% +Nice guys get sick. +% +No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. + -- Aesop +% +No evil can happen to a good man. + -- Plato +% +No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. + -- Aristotle +% +No good deed goes unpunished. + -- Clare Booth Luce +% +None love the bearer of bad news. + -- Sophocles +% +Not everything worth doing is worth doing well. +% +Nothing endures but change. + -- Heraclitus +% +Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a +proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. + -- John Keats +% +Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit. + [There is no great genius without some touch of madness.] + -- Seneca +% +Often things ARE as bad as they seem! +% +Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it. + -- Homer +% +One good turn asketh another. + -- John Heywood +% +One good turn deserves another. + -- Gaius Petronius +% +One good turn usually gets most of the blanket. +% +One man's Mede is another man's Persian. + -- George M. Cohan +% +One picture is worth more than ten thousand words. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Oppernockity tunes but once. +% +Out of sight is out of mind. + -- Arthur Clough +% +Patience is the best remedy for every trouble. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +Pauca sed matura. + [Few but excellent.] + -- Gauss +% +Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. + [Confound those who have said our remarks before us.] + or + [May they perish who have expressed our bright ideas before us.] + -- Aelius Donatus +% +Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. + -- Don Marquis +% +Plus ,ca change, plus c'est la m^eme chose. + [The more things change, the more they remain the same.] + -- Alphonse Karr, "Les Gu^epes" +% +Practice yourself what you preach. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +Praise the sea; on shore remain. + -- John Florio +% +Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore. + -- Russian Proverb +% +Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur. + [Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.] +% +Remembering is for those who have forgotten. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Removing the straw that broke the camel's back does not necessarily +allow the camel to walk again. +% +Rome was not built in one day. + -- John Heywood +% +Rome wasn't burnt in a day. +% +Rotten wood cannot be carved. + -- Confucius, "Analects", Book 5, Ch. 9 +% +-- Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minikin. +-- Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate. +-- Surveillance should precede saltation. +-- Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity. +-- It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed + lacteal fluid. +-- Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude. +-- It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated + canine with innovative maneuvers. +-- Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion. +-- The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly + galled saucepan does not reach 212 degrees Farenheit. +% +Scintillation is not always identification for an auric substance. +% +Seek simplicity -- and distrust it. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow! + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Set the cart before the horse. + -- John Heywood +% +Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait. + [If youth but knew, if old age but could.] + -- Henri Estienne +% +Sic transit gloria Monday! +% +Sic transit gloria mundi. + [So passes away the glory of this world.] + -- Thomas `a Kempis +% +Sic Transit Gloria Thursdi. +% +Small change can often be found under seat cushions. + -- One of Lazarus Long's most penetrating insights +% +Small is beautiful. + -- Schumacher's Dictum +% +Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you. +% +Stop searching forever. Happiness is unattainable. +% +Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if they'd only +take a bath ... +% +Sweet April showers do spring May flowers. + -- Thomas Tusser +% +The coast was clear. + -- Lope de Vega +% +The course of true anything never does run smooth. + -- Samuel Butler +% +The descent to Hades is the same from every place. + -- Anaxagoras +% +The early worm gets the bird. +% +The early worm gets the late bird. +% +The ends justify the means. + -- after Matthew Prior +% +The greatest love is a mother's, then a dog's, then a sweetheart's. + -- Polish proverb +% +The life which is unexamined is not worth living. + -- Plato +% +The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching train. +% +The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon. +% +The man who runs may fight again. + -- Menander +% +The man who sees, on New Year's day, Mount Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant +is forever blessed. + -- Old Japanese proverb +% +The meek will inherit the earth -- if that's OK with you. +% +The more the merrier. + -- John Heywood +% +The more things change, the more they stay insane. +% +The more things change, the more they'll never be the same again. +% +The only certainty is that nothing is certain. + -- Pliny the Elder +% +The only constant is change. +% +The only problem with seeing too much is that it makes you insane. + -- Phaedrus +% +The only reward of virtue is virtue. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +"The porcupine with the sharpest quills gets stuck on a tree more often." +% +The proof of the pudding is in the eating. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +The reverse side also has a reverse side. + -- Japanese proverb +% +The road to Hades is easy to travel. + -- Bion +% +The superfluous is very necessary. + -- Voltaire +% +The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly ogled +culinary vessel will not achieve 100 degrees on the Celsius scale. +% +The worst is enemy of the bad. +% +-- The writing implement is more potent than the claymore. +-- All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. +-- When there are visible vapors having the prevenience in ignited carbonaceous + materials, there is conflagration. +-- Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted. +-- A plethora of individuals wither expertise in culinary techniques vitiated + the potable concoction produced by steeping certain coupestibles. +-- The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the + optimal cachinnation. + -- Eleemosynary deeds have their initial incidence intramurally. +% +There are more things in heaven and earth than any place else. +% +There are more ways of killing a cat than choking her with cream. +% +There is no fool to the old fool. + -- John Heywood +% +There is no grief which time does not lessen and soften. +% +There is no proverb that is not true. + -- Cervantes +% +There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. +% +There's no heavier burden than a great potential. +% +There's no such thing as an original sin. + -- Elvis Costello +% +There's no time like the pleasant. +% +Things are more like they are today than they ever were before. + -- Dwight Eisenhower +% +Things are more like they used to be than they are now. +% +Things are not always what they seem. + -- Phaedrus +% +Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. +% +Thou hast seen nothing yet. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Time and tide wait for no man. +% +Time as he grows old teaches all things. + -- Aeschylus +% +Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. +% +Time goes, you say? +Ah no! +Time stays, *we* go. + -- Austin Dobson +% +Time sure flies when you don't know what you're doing. +% +To add insult to injury. + -- Phaedrus +% +To err is human, but I can REALLY foul things up. +% +To err is human, but when the eraser wears out before the pencil, +you're overdoing it a little. +% +To err is human, to forgive is against company policy. +% +To err is human, to forgive unusual. +% +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To err is human, to purr feline. +To err is human, two curs canine. +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To err is human, to repent, divine, to persist, devilish. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +To err is human. +To blame someone else for your mistakes is even more human. +% +To err is human; to admit it, a blunder. +% +To err is human; to forgive is simply not our policy. + -- MIT Assassination Club +% +To err is humor. +% +To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D. + -- B. Duggan +% +Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Trust in Allah, but tie your camel. + -- Arabian proverb +% +Truth can wait; he's used to it. +% +Turn the other cheek. + -- Jesus Christ +% +Two heads are better than one. + -- John Heywood +% +Two heads are more numerous than one. +% +Two is company, three is an orgy. +% +Two wrongs are only the beginning. + -- Kohn +% +Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse. + -- Thomas Szasz +% +Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. +% +Walking on water wasn't built in a day. + -- Jack Kerouac +% +We are what we are. +% +We are what we pretend to be. + -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. +% +We have seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's out. +% +Well begun is half done. + -- Aristotle +% +What fools these morals be! +% +What fools these mortals be. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +What one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. + -- John Lilly +% +What one fool can do, another can. + -- Ancient Simian Proverb +% +What we wish, that we readily believe. + -- Demosthenes +% +What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it. +% +What you don't know won't help you much either. + -- D. Bennett +% +Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +When in doubt, follow your heart. +% +When in doubt, use brute force. + -- Ken Thompson +% +When nothing can possibly go wrong, it will. +% +When the ax entered the forest, the trees said, "The handle is one of us!" + -- Turkish proverb +% +When the blind lead the blind they will both fall over the cliff. + -- Chinese proverb +% +When the going gets tough, everyone leaves. + -- Lynch +% +When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. +% +When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look +like a nail. +% +When the sun shineth, make hay. + -- John Heywood +% +When we talk of tomorrow, the gods laugh. +% +When you are at Rome live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere live +as they live elsewhere. + -- St. Ambrose +% +When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut. +% +When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, +must be the truth. + -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four" +% +Where there are visible vapors, having their prevenance in ignited +carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration. +% +Where there is much light there is also much shadow. + -- Goethe +% +While there's life, there's hope. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising. +% +Whom the mad would destroy, first they make Gods. + -- Bernard Levin +% +Without fools there would be no wisdom. +% +Words are the voice of the heart. +% +Words can never express what words can never express. +% +Words have a longer life than deeds. + -- Pindar +% +Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake? + -- John Heywood +% +You buttered your bread, now lie in it. +% +You can drive a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead. +% +You can fool some of the people all of the time, +and all of the people some of the time, +but you can make a fool of yourself anytime. +% +You can fool some of the people all of the time, +and all of the people some of the time, +but you can never fool your Mom. +% +You can fool some of the people some of the time, +and some of the people all of the time, +and that is sufficient. +% +You can get everything in life you want, if you will help enough other +people get what they want. +% +You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a +kind word alone. + -- Al Capone + [Also attributed to Johnny Carson. Ed.] +% +You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard. +% +You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular. +% +You can move the world with an idea, but you have to think of it first. +% +You can never do just one thing. + -- Hardin +% +You can't break eggs without making an omelet. +% +You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. +% +You cannot see the wood for the trees. + -- John Heywood +% +You get what you pay for. + -- Gabriel Biel +% +You k'n hide de fier, but w'at you gwine do wid de smoke? + -- Joel Chandler Harris, proverbs of Uncle Remus +% +Zhizn' prozhit'--ne pole pereiti. + [Life's a bitch.] + [Well, okay. lit., to live through life is not as simple as crossing + a field. Happy now?] + -- Russian proverb +% +"MOKE DAT YIGARETTE" + -- "The Last Coin", James P. Blaylock +% +You may be marching to the beat of a different drummer, but you're +still in the parade. +% +"World conquerors sometimes become fools, but fools never become world +conquerors." + -- "The Outer Limits: The Invisibles" +% diff --git a/fortunes/politics b/fortunes/politics new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f3bbd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/politics @@ -0,0 +1,2985 @@ +$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" +% +1st graffitiist: QUESTION AUTHORITY! + +2nd graffitiist: Why? +% +A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a +"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. + -- Mahatma Gandhi +% +A billion here, a billion there -- pretty soon it adds up to real money. + -- Sen. Everett Dirksen, on the U.S. defense budget +% +A billion seconds ago Harry Truman was president. +A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ. +A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth. +A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury. +% +A bureaucrat's idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of everything +before he destroys it. +% +A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the +poor to protect them from each other. +% +A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but +won't cross the street to vote in a national election. + -- Bill Vaughan +% +A Difficulty for Every Solution. + -- Motto of the Federal Civil Service +% +A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. +% +A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you +actually look forward to the trip. + -- Caskie Stinnett, "Out of the Red" +% +A diplomat's life consists of three things: protocol, Geritol, and alcohol. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. + -- Winston Churchill +% +A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding ducks. + -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 +% +A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough +to take it all away. + -- Barry Goldwater +% +A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. + -- B. Franklin +% +A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest +man a century. +% +A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals +are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for +not going to church on Sunday. + -- Russell Baker +% +A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. +% +A long memory is the most subversive idea in America. +% +A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. + -- Alexander Hamilton +% +A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. +% +A penny saved is a penny taxed. +% +A penny saved kills your career in government. +% +A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to +govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures +on armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins +itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and +manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain. + -- Anatole France +% +A political man can have as his aim the realization of freedom, +but he has no means to realize it other than through violence. + -- Jean Paul Sartre +% +A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then +asks you not to kill him. + -- Sir Winston Churchill, 1952 +% +A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be +too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which +was intended for her preservation. + -- Colton +% +A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having +his neighbour notice it. + -- Trygve Lie +% +A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices +that the system works. +% +A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. + -- Ramsey Clark +% +A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from +the vexation of thinking. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831 +% +A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years. + -- Harry S. Truman +% +A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. + -- O'Henry +% +A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many +bad measures. + -- Daniel Webster +% +Abraham Lincoln didn't die in vain. He died in Washington, D.C. +% +"After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of +the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the +cost to others, to win advancement." + -- Norman Thomas +% +Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. + -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, + Ecole Superieure de Guerre +% +Alea iacta est. + [The die is cast] + -- Gaius Julius Caesar +% +Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing - and that was +the closest our country has ever been to being even. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent +upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a +visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is +informing, stimulating and ennobling. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +All bad precedents began as justifiable measures. + -- Gaius Julius Caesar, quoted in "The Conspiracy of + Catiline", by Sallust +% +All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means. + -- Chou En Lai +% +All kings is mostly rapscallions. + -- Mark Twain +% +All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of +the United States. + -- Vic Gold +% +All people are born alike -- except Republicans and Democrats. + -- Groucho Marx +% +All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by +the government in less than a second. + -- Jim Fiebig +% +All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes +infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in +which he was born. + -- Francois Fenelon +% +America is the country where you buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for one +dollar, and use it up in two weeks. +% +America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism +to decadence without touching civilization. + -- John O'Hara +% +America: born free and taxed to death. +% +An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie and intrigue for the +benefit of his country. + -- Sir Henry Wotton, 1568-1639 +% +An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the president but is +always polite to traffic cops. +% +An efficient and a successful administration manifests itself equally in +small as in great matters. + -- W. Churchill +% +An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought. + -- Simon Cameron + +There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians. When +bought they stay bought. + -- Bill Moyers +% +Anarchy may not be a better form of government, but it's better than no +government at all. +% +"...and the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely a +courtesy detail." +% +And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, for if you hit a man +with a plowshare, he's going to know he's been hit. +% +And yet, seasons must be taken with a grain of salt, for they too have +a sense of humor, as does history. Corn stalks comedy, comedy stalks +tragedy, and this too is historic. And yet, still, when corn meets +tragedy face to face, we have politics. + -- Dalglish, Larsen and Sutherland, "Root Crops and + Ground Cover" +% +Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes. +Galileo: No, unhappy the land that _____needs heroes. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo" +% +Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone. + -- Pyrrhus +% +Any excuse will serve a tyrant. + -- Aesop +% + "Any news from the President on a successor?" he asked hopefully. + "None," Anita replied. "She's having great difficulty finding someone +qualified who is willing to accept the post." + "Then I stay," said Dr. Fresh. "I'm not good for much, but I +can at least make a decision." + "Somewhere," he grumphed, "there must be a naive, opportunistic +young welp with a masochistic streak who would like to run the most +up-and-down bureaucracy in the history of mankind." + -- R. L. Forward, "Flight of the Dragonfly" +% +Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years +organising and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. + -- David Broder +% +Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no +account be allowed to do the job. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +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, "Intentions" +% +Audacity, and again, audacity, and always audacity. + -- G. J. Danton +% +Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. +% +Be it our wealth, our jobs, or even our homes; nothing is safe while the +legislature is in session. +% +Bedfellows make strange politicians. +% +Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. + -- Herbert Hoover +% +C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre! + [It is magnificent, but it is not war] + -- Pierre Bosquet, witnessing the charge of the Light Brigade +% +"Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception." + -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989 +% +Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents +for postage and 30 cents for storage. + -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial Post +% +Census Taker to Housewife: +Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, how many? +% +Concerning the war in Vietnam, Senator George Aiken of Vermount noted +in January, 1966, "I'm not very keen for doves or hawks. I think we need +more owls." + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +Conquering Russia should be done steppe by steppe. +% +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 +% +Crime does not pay ... as well as politics. + -- Alfred E. Newman +% +Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It +eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the +business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." + -- Johnny Hart +% +Demand the establishment of the government in its rightful home at Disneyland. +% +Democracy becomes a government of bullies, tempered by editors. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than +we deserve. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder +aloud what the country could do under first-class management. + -- Senator Soaper +% +Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the +incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you +don't think. +% +Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who +will get the blame. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse. + -- Jawaharlal Nehru +% +Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them. + -- Arman de Caillavet, 1913 +% +Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people +are right more than half of the time. + -- E. B. White +% +Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other +forms that have been tried from time to time. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for +the people. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the board. +Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls. +% +Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century. Politics is about +surviving until Friday afternoon. + -- Sir Humphrey Appleby +% +Diplomacy is the art of letting the other party have things your way. + -- Daniele Vare +% +Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you can find a rock. + -- Wynn Catlin +% +Diplomacy is to do and say, the nastiest thing in the nicest way. + -- Balfour +% +Disclose classified information only when a NEED TO KNOW exists. +% +Don't be humble ... you're not that great. + -- Golda Meir +% +Don't mind him; politicians always sound like that. +% +Don't steal... the IRS hates competition! +% +Don't suspect your friends -- turn them in! + -- "Brazil" +% +Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and +the lash. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Don't vote -- it only encourages them! +% +Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders +has been discontinued. +% +Each person has the right to take part in the management of public affairs +in his country, provided he has prior experience, a will to succeed, a +university degree, influential parents, good looks, a curriculum vitae, two +3x4 snapshots, and a good tax record. +% +Each person has the right to take the subway. +% +Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United +States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents a day. + + [and getting better! Soon it'll be down to a penny a day!] +% +Ever wonder if taxation without representation might have been cheaper? +% +Every country has the government it deserves. + -- Joseph De Maistre +% +Every one says that politicians lie all the time, and that just isn't so! +But you do have to understand body language to know when they're lying and +when they aren't. + + When a politician rubs his nose, he isn't lying. + When a politician tugs on his ear, he isn't lying. + When a politician scratches his collar bone, he isn't lying. + When his mouth starts moving, that's when he's lying! +% +Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, +no one we know belongs. +% +Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice... moderation in the pursuit +of justice is no virtue. + -- Barry Goldwater +% +Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. + -- George Santayana +% +Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the +former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. + +Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and +reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days, spirits +were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women +and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures +from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty +deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before -- and thus +was the Empire forged. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Fay: The British police force used to be run by men of integrity. +Truscott: That is a mistake which has been rectified. + -- Joe Orton, "Loot" +% +Fear and loathing, my man, fear and loathing. + -- H. S. Thompson +% +First rule of public speaking. + First, tell 'em what you're goin' to tell 'em; + then tell 'em; + then tell 'em what you've tole 'em. +% +For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years. +This gives me great hope for the human race. + -- Harlan Ellison +% +Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws +of nature! + -- G. B. Shaw +% +Fraud is the homage that force pays to reason. + -- Charles Curtis, "A Commonplace Book" +% +Free Speech Is The Right To Shout 'Theater' In A Crowded Fire. + -- A Yippie Proverb +% +Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite. +% +Freedom is nothing else but the chance to do better. + -- Camus +% +Freedom is slavery. +Ignorance is strength. +War is peace. + -- George Orwell +% +Freedom of the press is for those who happen to own one. +% +Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. + -- Kris Kristofferson, "Me and Bobby McGee" +% +"... gentlemen do not read each other's mail." + -- Secretary of State Henry Stimson, on closing down + the Black Chamber, the precursor to the National + Security Agency. +% +Gentlemen, + Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the +approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been +diligently complying with your requests which have been sent by H.M. ship +from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch to our headquarters. + We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, +and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty's Government holds +me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and +spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted +for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence. + Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains +unaccounted for in one infantry battalion's petty cash and there has been +a hideous confusion as the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to +one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This +reprehensible carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstance, +since we are war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise +to you gentlemen in Whitehall. + This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request +elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty's Government so that I +may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. +I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as +given below. I shall pursue either one with the best of my ability, but +I cannot do both: + 1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the +benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or perchance: + 2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain. + -- Duke of Wellington, to the British Foreign Office, + London, 1812 +% +George Orwell 1984. Northwestern 0. + -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82 +% +George Orwell was an optimist. +% +George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to +have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend. + -- Ashley Cooper +% +Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a +"Pearl Harbor File". +% +"Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war." + -- Napoleon +% +Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and +car keys to teenage boys. + -- P. J. O'Rourke +% +God shows his contempt for wealth by the kind of person he selects to +receive it. + -- Austin O'Malley +% +Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of +those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the +will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of +government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. + -- Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune" +% +Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed. +% +Got a complaint about the Internal Revenue Service? +Call the convenient toll-free "IRS Taxpayer Complaint Hot Line Number": + + 1-800-AUDITME +% +Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Don't overdo it. + -- Lao Tsu +% +Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage. + -- John Updike, "Couples" +% +Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies. +% +Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know +any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he +doesn't know much. + -- Will Rogers +% + Graduating seniors, parents and friends... + Let me begin by reassuring you that my remarks today will stand up +to the most stringent requirements of the new appropriateness. + The intra-college sensitivity advisory committee has vetted the +text of even trace amounts of subconscious racism, sexism and classism. + Moreover, a faculty panel of deconstructionists have reconfigured +the rhetorical components within a post-structuralist framework, so as to +expunge any offensive elements of western rationalism and linear logic. + Finally, all references flowing from a white, male, eurocentric +perspective have been eliminated, as have any other ruminations deemed +denigrating to the political consensus of the moment. + + Thank you and good luck. + -- Doonesbury, the University Chancellor's graduation speech. +% +Great Moments in History: #3 + +August 27, 1949: + A Hall of Fame opened to honor outstanding members of the + Women's Air Corp. It was a WAC's Museum. +% + Grover Cleveland, though constantly at loggerheads with the +Senate, got on better with the House of Representatives. A popular +story circulating during his presidency concerned the night he was +roused by his wife crying, "Wake up! I think there are burglars in the +house." + "No, no, my dear," said the president sleepily, "in the Senate maybe, +but not in the House." +% +Grub first, then ethics. + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +Hark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender. You stand convicted of +sickness, hunger, wretchedness, and want. + -- Tobias Smollet +% +Has the great art and mystery of politics no apparent utility? Does it +appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene and low down, +and its salient virtuosi a gang of umitigated scoundrels? Then let us +not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickel the midriff, its +incomparable services as a maker of entertainment. + -- H. L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe" +% +Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline +sharply the minute they start waving guns around? + -- Dr. Who +% +He didn't run for reelection. "Politics brings you into contact with all +the people you'd give anything to avoid," he said. "I'm staying home." + -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegone Days" +% +He is the best of men who dislikes power. + -- Mohammed +% +He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself. +% +He thinks the Gettysburg Address is where Lincoln lived. + -- Wanda, "A Fish Called Wanda" +% +He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry +attacks democracy itself. + -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS +% +He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest +benefactor the world has yet known. + -- Sir Richard Burton +% +He who slings mud generally loses ground. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +He's just a politician trying to save both his faces... +% +Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the +sun now stands I Will Fight No More Forever. + -- Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce +% +Here comes the orator, with his flood of words and his drop of reason. +% +History has much to say on following the proper procedures. From a history +of the Mexican revolution: + "Hidalgo was later defeated at Guadalajara. The rebel army was +captured on its way through the mountains. All were courtmartialed and +shot, except Hidalgo, because he was a priest. He was handed over to +the bishop of Durango who excommunicated him and returned him to the +army where he was then executed." +% +History is on our side (as long as we can control the historians). +% +History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree on. + -- Napoleon Bonaparte, "Maxims" +% +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" +% +History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have +exhausted all other alternatives. + -- Abba Eban +% +How can you govern a nation which has 246 kinds of cheese? + -- Charles de Gaulle +% +How is the world ruled, and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to +journalists, and they believe what they read. + -- Karl Kraus, "Aphorisms and More Aphorisms" +% +I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend +than be one. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +I am convinced that the truest act of courage is to sacrifice ourselves +for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man +is to suffer for others. + -- Cesar Chavez +% +I am not a politician and my other habits are also good. + -- A. Ward +% +I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half. + -- Jay Gould +% +I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like to +run their own business. I know men that would make my wife a better +husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +"I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating." + -- Boss Tweed +% +I don't like the Dutchman. He's a crocodile. He's sneaky. I don't trust him. + -- Jack "Legs" Diamond, just before a peace conference + with Dutch Schultz. + +I don't trust Legs. He's nuts. He gets excited and starts pulling a +trigger like another guy wipes his nose. + -- Dutch Schultz, just before a peace conference with + "Legs" Diamond. +% +I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the +streets and frighten the horses. + -- Victor Hugo +% +I DON'T THINK I'M ALONE when I say I'd like to see more and more planets +fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I find this corpse guilty of carrying a concealed weapon and I fine it $40. + -- Judge Roy Bean, finding a pistol and $40 on a man he'd + just shot. +% +I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. + -- Augustus Caesar +% +I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, +the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to +sit down together at the table of brotherhood. + -- Martin Luther King, Jr. +% +I have already given two cousins to the war and I stand ready to sacrifice +my wife's brother. + -- Artemus Ward +% +I have always noticed that whenever a radical takes to Imperialism, +he catches it in a very acute form. + -- Winston Churchill, 1903 +% +I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth +and they never believe me. + -- Camillo Di Cavour +% +I have gained this by philosophy: +that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. + -- Aristotle +% +I have never understood this liking for war. It panders to instincts +already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment. + -- Alan Bennett +% +I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing... + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World +War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. + -- Albert Einstein +% +I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote +peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much +that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them +have it. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +I might have gone to West Point, but I was too proud to speak to a congressman. + -- Will Rogers +% +I needed the good will of the legislature of four states. I formed the +legislative bodies with my own money. I found that it was cheaper that way. + -- Jay Gould +% +I never deny, I never contradict. I sometimes forget. + -- Benjamin Disraeli, British PM, on dealing with the + Royal Family +% +I never vote for anyone. I always vote against. + -- W. C. Fields +% +I owe the government $3400 in taxes. So I sent them two hammers and a +toilet seat. + -- Michael McShane +% +I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as +the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must +not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we +must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, +in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from +wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they +will be happy. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +I pledge allegiance to the flag +of the United States of America +and to the republic for which it stands, +one nation, +indivisible, +with liberty +and justice for all. + -- Francis Bellamy, 1892 +% +I prefer the most unjust peace to the most righteous war. + -- Cicero + +Even peace may be purchased at too high a price. + -- Poor Richard +% +I realize that the MX missile is none of our concern. I realize that the +whole point of living in a democracy is that we pay professional +congresspersons to concern themselves with things like the MX missile so we +can be free to concern ourselves with getting hold of the plumber. + +But from time to time, I feel I must address major public issues such as +this, because in a free and open society, where the very future of the world +hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you never win large cash +journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usually write about, such as +nose-picking. + -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against + Political Fallout" +% +I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes. I hope +they do get 'em lowered down enough so people can afford to pay 'em. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +I see where we are starting to pay some attention to our neigbors to +the south. We could never understand why Mexico wasn't just crazy about +us; for we have always had their good will, and oil and minerals, at heart. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +I steal. + -- Sam Giancana, explaining his livelihood to his draft board + +Easy. I own Chicago. I own Miami. I own Las Vegas. + -- Sam Giancana, when asked what he did for a living +% +I think the world is run by C students. + -- Al McGuire +% +I trust the first lion he meets will do his duty. + -- J. P. Morgan on Teddy Roosevelt's safari +% +I try not to break the rules but merely to test their elasticity. + -- Bill Veeck +% +I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out. + -- Judge Harold T. Stone +% +I use not only all the brains I have, but all those I can borrow as well. + -- Woodrow Wilson +% +I used to be a rebel in my youth. + +This cause... that cause... (chuckle) I backed 'em ALL! But I learned. +Rebellion is simply a device used by the immature to hide from his own +problems. So I lost interest in politics. Now when I feel aroused by +a civil rights case or a passport hearing... I realize it's just a device. +I go to my analyst and we work it out. You have no idea how much better +I feel these days. + -- J. Feiffer +% +I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law. + -- Martin Luther King, Jr. +% +I was appalled by this story of the destruction of a member of a valued +endangered species. It's all very well to celebrate the practicality of +pigs by ennobling the porcine sibling who constructed his home out of +bricks and mortar. But to wantonly destroy a wolf, even one with an +excessive taste for porkers, is unconscionable in these ecologically +critical times when both man and his domestic beasts continue to maraud +the earth. + Sylvia Kamerman, "Book Reviewing" +% +I was offered a job as a hoodlum and I turned it down cold. A thief is +anybody who gets out and works for his living, like robbing a bank or +breaking into a place and stealing stuff, or kidnapping somebody. He really +gives some effort to it. A hoodlum is a pretty lousy sort of scum. He +works for gangsters and bumps guys off when they have been put on the spot. +Why, after I'd made my rep, some of the Chicago Syndicate wanted me to work +for them as a hood -- you know, handling a machine gun. They offered me +two hundred and fifty dollars a week and all the protection I needed. I +was on the lam at the time and not able to work at my regular line. But +I wouldn't consider it. "I'm a thief," I said. "I'm no lousy hoodlum." + -- Alvin Karpis, "Public Enemy Number One" +% +I went to my mother and told her I intended to commence a different life. I +asked for and obtained her blessing and at once commenced the career of a +robber. + -- Tiburcio Vasquez +% +I wish a robot would get elected president. That way, when he came to town, +we could all take a shot at him and not feel too bad. + -- Jack Handey +% +I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in +understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, +our tasks will be solved. + -- Warren G. Harding +% +I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection +with income tax policies. + -- William F. Buckley +% +I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one. + -- Marcus Porcius Cato +% +I would rather be a serf in a poor man's house and be above ground than +reign among the dead. + -- Achilles, "The Odessey", XI, 489-91 +% +I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the +whole field to private industry. + -- Joseph Heller +% +"I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, +carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old Virginia, +I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun." + -- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H +% +"I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob. +That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood." + -- Daffy Duck, "Robin Hood Daffy", [1958, Chuck Jones] +% +I'm going to Vietnam at the request of the White House. President Johnson +says a war isn't really a war without my jokes. + -- Bob Hope +% +"I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'M NOT GOING!" +% +I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is +-- I could be just as proud for half the money. + -- Arthur Godfrey +% +"I'm willing to sacrifice anything for this cause, even other people's lives." +% +I've always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers. +% +If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; +and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it +will lose that, too. + -- W. Somerset Maugham +% +If built in great numbers, motels will be used for nothing but illegal +purposes. + -- J. Edgar Hoover +% +If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a deal faster. + -- The Duchess, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +If God had meant for us to be in the Army, we would have been born with +green, baggy skin. +% +If God wanted us to have a President, He would have sent us a candidate. + -- Jerry Dreshfield +% +If Karl, instead of writing a lot about Capital, had made a lot of Capital, +it would have been much better. + -- Karl Marx's Mother +% +If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, +he should see how bad it is with representation. +% +If people have to choose between freedom and sandwiches, they +will take sandwiches. + -- Lord Boyd-orr + +Eats first, morals after. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "The Threepenny Opera" +% +If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of progress? +% +If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom. + -- Robert Frost +% +If the American dream is for Americans only, it will remain our dream +and never be our destiny. + -- Ren'e de Visme Williamson +% +If the government doesn't trust the people, why doesn't it dissolve them +and elect a new people? +% +"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" + -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920) +% +If the rich could pay the poor to die for them, what a living the poor +could make! +% +If they were so inclined, they could impeach him because they don't like +his necktie. + -- Attorney General William Saxbe +% +If voting could change the system, it would be illegal. If not voting +could change the system, it would be illegal. +% +If we all work together, we can totally disrupt the system. +% +If we can ever make red tape nutritional, we can feed the world. + -- R. Schaeberle, "Management Accounting" +% +If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, +and involve others in our doom. + -- Samuel Adams +% +If we won't stand together, we don't stand a chance. +% +If you don't strike oil in twenty minutes, stop boring. + -- Andrew Carnegie, on public speaking +% +"If you ever want to get anywhere in politics, my boy, you're going to +have to get a toehold in the public eye." +% +If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it +will always do it. + -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin +% +If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is +make the rubble bounce. + -- Winston Churchill +% +If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. + -- Graham Summer +% +If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year +with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +If you took all of the grains of sand in the world, and lined +them up end to end in a row, you'd be working for the government! + -- Mr. Interesting +% +If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the +Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's +statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone +directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles +beginning with the word "National." + -- George Will +% +If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some +memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' +it, even if they don't know what it means. + -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party" +% +If your hands are clean and your cause is just and your demands are +reasonable, at least it's a start. +% +Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. + -- Robert Orben + +Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. + -- Jack Paar +% +Imbalance of power corrupts and monopoly of power corrupts absolutely. + -- Genji +% +Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. + -- Jack Paar +% +In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one +of the risks he takes. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +In an orderly world, there's always a place for the disorderly. +% +In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools +will be temporarily canceled. +% +In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable. + -- W. Churchill, on General Montgomery +% +In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last +resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but +inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +In fiction the recourse of the powerless is murder; in life the recourse +of the powerless is petty theft. +% +In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because +I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up +because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I +didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the +Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came +for me -- and by that time no one was left to speak up. + -- Pastor Martin Niemoller +% +In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, +murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci +and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had +five hundred years of democracy and peace -- and what did they produce? +The cuckoo-clock. + -- Orson Welles, "The Third Man" +% +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 Pierre Trudeau, Canada has finally produced a Prime Minister worthy of +assassination. + -- John Diefenbaker +% +In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used to frequently take +my advice. + -- Winston Churchill +% +In war it is not men, but the man who counts. + -- Napoleon +% +In war, truth is the first casualty. + -- U Thant +% +... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leaves +smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is +not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery. + -- Stephen Crane +% +Individualists unite! +% +Indomitable in retreat; invincible in advance; insufferable in victory. + -- Winston Churchill, on General Montgomery +% +Inform all the troops that communications have completely broken down. +% + Inheritance taxes are getting so out of line, that the deceased family +often doesn't have a legacy to stand on. +% +Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. + -- Martin Luther King, Jr. +% +Interesting poll results reported in today's New York Post: people on the +street in midtown Manhattan were asked whether they approved of the US +invasion of Grenada. Fifty-three percent said yes; 39 percent said no; +and 8 percent said "Gimme a quarter?" + -- David Letterman +% +Interfere? Of course we should interfere! Always do what you're +best at, that's what I say. + -- Doctor Who +% +It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan +which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, +insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather +than be the instrument of his army's downfall. + -- Napoleon, "Military Maxims and Thought" +% +It got to the point where I had to get a haircut or both feet firmly +planted in the air. +% +It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. +% +It is better to wear chains than to believe you are free, and weight +yourself down with invisible chains. +% +It is difficult to legislate morality in the absence of moral legislators. +% +It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its +proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community a +better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to treat +your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the focus of +attention, the harder the task. + -- Sydney J. Harris +% +It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. + -- Alfred Adler +% +It is enough to make one sympathize with a tyrant for the determination +of his courtiers to deceive him for their own personal ends... + -- Russell Baker and Charles Peters +% +It is impossible to defend perfectly against the attack of those who want +to die. +% +It is like saying that for the cause of peace, God and the Devil will +have a high-level meeting. + -- Rev. Carl McIntire, on Nixon's China trip +% +It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged +to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the +youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +It is not the critic who counts, or how the strong man stumbled, or whether +the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the +man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and +blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who +knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and who spends himself in a +worthy cause, and if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that +he'll never be with those cold and timid souls who never know either victory +or defeat. + -- Teddy Roosevelt +% +It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is? + -- Elizabeth Carpenter +% +It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a +sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate +in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, +too, shall pass away." + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better +still to be a live lion. And usually easier. + -- Lazarus Long +% +It pays in England to be a revolutionary and a bible-smacker most of +one's life and then come round. + -- Lord Alfred Douglas +% +It seems a little silly now, but this country was founded as a protest +against taxation. +% +It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. +% +It took a while to surface, but it appears that a long-distance credit card +may have saved a U.S. Army unit from heavy casualties during the Grenada +military rescue/invasion. Major General David Nichols, Air Force ... said +the Army unit was in a house surrounded by Cuban forces. One soldier found +a telephone and, using his credit card, called Ft. Bragg, N.C., telling Army +officiers there of the perilous situation. The officers in turn called the +Air Force, which sent in gunships to scatter the Cubans and relieve the unit. + -- Aviation Week and Space Technology +% +"It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The +Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital lies." + -- Edith Hamilton, "The Greek Way" +% +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's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for. +% +It's a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression +when you lose yours. + -- Harry S. Truman +% + "It's a summons." + "What's a summons?" + "It means summon's in trouble." + -- Rocky and Bullwinkle +% +It's getting uncommonly easy to kill people in large numbers, and the first +thing a principle does -- if it really is a principle -- is to kill somebody. + -- Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night" +% +It's important that people know what you stand for. +It's more important that they know what you won't stand for. +% +It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how +to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair. + -- George Burns +% +It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which raises +the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody not to. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% + Jacek, a Polish schoolboy, is told by his teacher that he has +been chosen to carry the Polish flag in the May Day parade. + "Why me?" whines the boy. "Three years ago I carried the flag +when Brezhnev was the Secretary; then I carried the flag when it was +Andropov's turn, and again when Chernenko was in the Kremlin. Why is +it always me, teacher?" + "Because, Jacek, you have such golden hands," the teacher +explains. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called "Bureaucracy". +Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do anything loses. +% +Join the army, see the world, meet interesting, exciting people, and kill them. +% +Join the Navy; sail to far-off exotic lands, meet exciting interesting people, +and kill them. +% +Just as most issues are seldom black or white, so are most good solutions +seldom black or white. Beware of the solution that requires one side to be +totally the loser and the other side to be totally the winner. The reason +there are two sides to begin with usually is because neither side has all +the facts. Therefore, when the wise mediator effects a compromise, he is +not acting from political motivation. Rather, he is acting from a deep +sense of respect for the whole truth. + -- Stephen R. Schwambach +% +Keep your laws off my body! +% +Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A. +% +L'etat c'est moi. + [I am the state.] + -- Louis XIV +% +Law stands mute in the midst of arms. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero +% +Lawful Dungeon Master -- and they're MY laws! +% +Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it; what +is happening in America is that those parades are getting smaller and +smaller -- and there are many more of them. + -- John Naisbitt, "Megatrends" +% +Let no guilty man escape. + -- U. S. Grant +% +Let the people think they govern and they will be governed. + -- William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania +% +Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +Liberty don't work as good in practice as it does in speeches. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. + -- Harry Emerson Fosdick +% +Life is a concentration camp. You're stuck here and there's no way +out and you can only rage impotently against your persecutors. + -- Woody Allen +% +Listen, there is no courage or any extra courage that I know of to find out +the right thing to do. Now, it is not only necessary to do the right thing, +but to do it in the right way and the only problem you have is what is the +right thing to do and what is the right way to do it. That is the problem. +But this economy of ours is not so simple that it obeys to the opinion of +bias or the pronouncements of any particular individual, even to the President. +This is an economy that is made up of 173 million people, and it reflects +their desires, they're ready to buy, they're ready to spend, it is a thing +that is too complex and too big to be affected adversely or advantageously +just by a few words or any particular -- say, a little this and that, or even +a panacea so alleged. + -- D. D. Eisenhower, in response to: "Has the government + been lacking in courage and boldness in facing up to + the recession?" +% +Lots of folks are forced to skimp to support a government that won't. +% +Love America -- or give it back. +% +"MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into +the smallest amount of thoughts." + -- Winston Churchill +% +Majorities, of course, start with minorities. + -- Robert Moses +% +Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade. + -- P. J. Bailey +% +Man is by nature a political animal. + -- Aristotle +% +Many a bum show has been saved by the flag. + -- George M. Cohan +% +Massachusetts has the best politicians money can buy. +% +Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it. +% +Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch. +% +Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. + -- Groucho Marx +% +Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. + -- Groucho Marx +% +Most people want either less corruption or more of a chance to +participate in it. +% +Mr. Salter's side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. +When Lord Copper was right he said "Definitely, Lord Copper"; when he was +wrong, "Up to a point." + "Let me see, what's the name of the place I mean? Capital of Japan? +Yokohama isn't it?" + "Up to a point, Lord Copper." + "And Hong Kong definitely belongs to us, doesn't it?" + "Definitely, Lord Copper." + -- Evelyn Waugh, "Scoop" +% +My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty +nights -- or very early mornings -- when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, +instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at +a hundred miles an hour ... booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at +the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which +turnoff to take when I got to the other end ... but being absolutely certain +that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were +just as high and wild as I was: no doubt at all about that. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +"My country, right or wrong" is a thing that no patriot would think +of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying "My mother, +drunk or sober." + -- G. K. Chesterton, "The Defendant" +% +My experience with government is when things are non-controversial, beautifully +co-ordinated and all the rest, it must be that not much is going on. + -- J. F. Kennedy +% +My father was a saint, I'm not. + -- Indira Gandhi +% +My folks didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they were there to meet +the boat. +% +My own life has been spent chronicling the rise and fall of human systems, +and I am convinced that we are terribly vulnerable. ... We should be +reluctant to turn back upon the frontier of this epoch. Space is indifferent +to what we do; it has no feeling, no design, no interest in whether or not +we grapple with it. But we cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand, +slow march of intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point +from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now +would be to deny our history, our capabilities. + -- James A. Michener +% +NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Giuseppe? Everything he + says is wrong. +GIUSEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says + will be right. + -- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny" +% +National security is in your hands - guard it well. +% +Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. +It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. + -- William Pitt, 1783 +% +Neglect of duty does not cease, by repetition, to be neglect of duty. + -- Napoleon +% +Nemo me impune lacessit. + [No one provokes me with impunity] + -- Motto of the Crown of Scotland +% +Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. + -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation" +% +Never trust an automatic pistol or a D.A.'s deal. + -- John Dillinger +% +"Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon." +% +Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying +as an income tax refund. + -- F. J. Raymond +% +Nihilism should commence with oneself. +% +No man's ambition has a right to stand in the way of performing a simple +act of justice. + -- John Altgeld +% +No matter whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme +court follows th' iliction returns. + -- Mr. Dooley +% +No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it +all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly +the functions he is competent to. It is by dividing and subdividing these +republics from the national one down through all its subordinations, until it +ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself; by placing under +every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. + -- Thomas Jefferson, to Joseph Cabell, 1816 +% +No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he had only had good +intentions. He had money as well. + -- Margaret Thatcher +% +Nobody shot me. + -- Frank Gusenberg, his last words, when asked by police + who had shot him 14 times with a machine gun in the Saint + Valentine's Day Massacre. + +Only Capone kills like that. + -- George "Bugs" Moran, on the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre + +The only man who kills like that is Bugs Moran. + -- Al Capone, on the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre +% +Nobody takes a bribe. Of course at Christmas if you happen to hold out +your hat and somebody happens to put a little something in it, well, that's +different. + -- New York City Police Commissioner (Ret.) William P. + O'Brien, instructions to the force. +% +Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. + -- Winston Churchill + +Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as +satisfying as an income tax refund. + -- F. J. Raymond +% +Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. + -- Andrew Young +% +Nothing, nothing, nothing, no error, no crime is so absolutely repugnant +to God as everything which is official; and why? because the official is +so impersonal and therefore the deepest insult which can be offered to a +personality. + -- Soren Kierkegaard +% +Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature. +% +"Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption of +normal routines, for children and adults alike." + -- Willard F. Libby, "You *Can* Survive Atomic Attack" +% +"Nuclear war would really set back cable." + -- Ted Turner +% +O'Brien held up his left hand, its back toward Winston, with the +thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. + "How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?" + "Four." + "And if the Party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?" + "Four." + The word ended in a gasp of pain. + -- George Orwell +% +Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd +be irresponsible, too. + -- Lichty & Wagner +% +Old soldiers never die. Young ones do. +% +On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only +nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter +what it does. + -- Will Rogers +% +Once is happenstance, +Twice is coincidence, +Three times is enemy action. + -- Auric Goldfinger +% + Once there was a marine biologist who loved dolphins. He spent his +time trying to feed and protect his beloved creatures of the sea. One day, +in a fit of inventive genius, he came up with a serum that would make +dolphins live forever! + Of course he was ecstatic. But he soon realized that in order to mass +produce this serum he would need large amounts of a certain compound that was +only found in nature in the metabolism of a rare South American bird. Carried +away by his love for dolphins, he resolved that he would go to the zoo and +steal one of these birds. + Unbeknownst to him, as he was arriving at the zoo an elderly lion was +escaping from its cage. The zookeepers were alarmed and immediately began +combing the zoo for the escaped animal, unaware that it had simply lain down +on the sidewalk and had gone to sleep. + Meanwhile, the marine biologist arrived at the zoo and procured his +bird. He was so excited by the prospect of helping his dolphins that he +stepped absentmindedly stepped over the sleeping lion on his way back to his +car. Immediately, 1500 policemen converged on him and arrested him for +transporting a myna across a staid lion for immortal porpoises. +% +Once upon a time there was a kingdom ruled by a great bear. The peasants +were not very rich, and one of the few ways to become at all wealthy was +to become a Royal Knight. This required an interview with the bear. If +the bear liked you, you were knighted on the spot. If not, the bear would +just as likely remove your head with one swat of a paw. However, the family +of these unfortunate would-be knights was compensated with a beautiful +sheepdog from the royal kennels, which was itself a fairly valuable +possession. And the moral of the story is: + +The mourning after a terrible knight, nothing beats the dog of the bear that +hit you. +% +Once you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all. +% +One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day. +% +One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to +do and always a clever thing to say. + -- Will Durant +% +One organism, one vote. +% +One planet is all you get. +% +One seldom sees a monument to a committee. +% +Only two kinds of witnesses exist. The first live in a neighborhood where +a crime has been committed and in no circumstances have ever seen anything +or even heard a shot. The second category are the neighbors of anyone who +happens to be accused of the crime. These have always looked out of their +windows when the shot was fired, and have noticed the accused person standing +peacefully on his balcony a few yards away. + -- Sicilian police officer +% +Our congratulations go to a Burlington Vermont civilian employee of the +local Army National Guard base. He recently received a substational cash +award from our government for inventing a device for optical scanning. +His device reportedly will save the government more than $6 million a year +by replacing a more expensive helicopter maintenance tool with his own, +home-made, hand-held model. + +Not surprisingly, we also have a couple of money-saving ideas that we submit +to the Pentagon free of charge: + + (a) Don't kill anybody. + (b) Don't build things that do. + (c) And don't pay other people to kill anybody. + +We expect annual savings to be in the billions. + -- Sojourners +% +Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. +We their sons are more worthless than they: +so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Our swords shall play the orators for us. + -- Christopher Marlowe +% +Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. + -- General Omar N. Bradley +% +Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. + -- S. Johnson, "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by J. Boswell + +In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last +resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but +inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. + -- Ambrose Bierce + +When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, +he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform. + -- Sen. Roscoe Conkling + +Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel. + -- Boies Penrose +% +Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Peace is much more precious than a piece of land... let there be no more wars. + -- Mohammed Anwar Sadat, 1918-1981 +% +People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election. + -- Otto Von Bismarck +% +People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction +rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +People that can't find something to live for always seem to find something to +die for. The problem is, they usually want the rest of us to die for it too. +% +People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed. +% +People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world +citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time. + -- Norman Cousins +% +Perhaps the most widespread illusion is that if we were in power we would +behave very differently from those who now hold it -- when, in truth, in +order to get power we would have to become very much like them. (Lenin's +fatal mistake, both in theory and in practice.) +% +Persistence in one opinion has never been considered a merit in political +leaders. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares", 1st century BC +% +Pilfering Treasury property is paticularly dangerous: big thieves are +ruthless in punishing little thieves. + -- Diogenes +% +Poland has gun control. +% +Political history is far too criminal a subject to be a fit thing to +teach children. + -- W. H. Auden +% +Political speeches are like steer horns. A point here, a point there, +and a lot of bull in between. + -- Alfred E. Neuman +% +Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell +all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds. +% +Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even +where there is no river. + -- Nikita Khrushchev +% +Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. + -- Arthur C. Clarke +% +Politicians speak for their parties, and parties never are, never have +been, and never will be wrong. + -- Walter Dwight +% +Politics -- the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign +funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other. + -- Oscar Ameringer +% +Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without +greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics. + -- Albert Camus +% +Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war, +you can only be killed once. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing +between the disastrous and the unpalatable. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next +week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to +explain why it didn't happen. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Politics makes strange bedfellows, and journalism makes strange politics. + -- Amy Gorin +% +Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the +systematic organisation of hatreds. + -- Henry Adams, "The Education of Henry Adams" +% +Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of matrydom to the +reformers of error. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +Populus vult decipi. + [The people like to be deceived.] +% +Post proelium, praemium. + [After the battle, the reward.] +% +Postmen never die, they just lose their zip. +% +Poverty begins at home. +% +Poverty must have its satisfactions, else there would not be so many poor +people. + -- Don Herold +% +Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. + -- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987 +% +Power is poison. +% +Power is the finest token of affection. +% +Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. + -- Lord Acton +% +Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. + -- Henry Adams +% +President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and +forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax. +% +Put a rogue in the limelight and he will act like an honest man. + -- Napoleon Bonaparte, "Maxims" +% +Question authority. +% +QUESTION AUTHORITY. + +(Sez who?) +% +Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or +help speed the change by breaking them? +% +Remember folks. Street lights timed for 35 mph are also timed for 70 mph. + -- Jim Samuels +% +"Remember, if it's being done correctly, here or abroad, it's ___not the U.S. +Army doing it!" + -- Good Morning VietNam +% +Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western + Civilization? +Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. +% +Reunite Gondwondaland! +% +Rev. Jim: What does an amber light mean? +Bobby: Slow down. +Rev. Jim: What... does... an... amber... light... mean? +Bobby: Slow down. +Rev. Jim: What.... does.... an.... amber.... light.... +% +"Rights" is a fictional abstraction. No one has "Rights", neither machines +nor flesh-and-blood. Persons... have opportunities, not rights, which they +use or do not use. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Rule the Empire through force. + -- Shogun Tokugawa +% +Sauron is alive in Argentina! +% +Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency. + -- Richard Nixon +% +Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. +% +Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes? + [Who guards the Guardians?] +% +Sentenced to two years hard labor (for sodomy), Oscar Wilde stood handcuffed +in driving rain waiting for transport to prison. "If this is the way Queen +Victoria treats her prisoners," he remarked, "she doesn't deserve to have +any." +% +Serfs up! + -- Spartacus +% +Shah, shah! Ayatollah you so! +% +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 +% +Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help. + -- The Brown University Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet +% +Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised +when others believe him. + -- Charles DeGaulle +% +Since aerosols are forbidden, the police are using roll-on Mace! +% +[Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the +vices I admire. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not, when +a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently incoherent +songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as +those without might see and hear. They told a tale which was then altogether +beyond my feeble comprehension: they were tones, loud, long and deep, +breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest +anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God +for deliverance from chains. + -- Frederick Douglass +% +So from the depths of its enchantment, Terra was able to calculate a course +of action. Here at last was an opportunity to consort with Dirbanu on a +friendly basis -- great Durbanu which, since it had force fields which Earth +could not duplicate, must of necessity have many other things Earth could +use; mighty Durbanu before whom we would kneel in supplication (with purely- +for-defense bombs hidden in our pockets) with lowered heads (making invisible +the knife in our teeth) and ask for crumbs from their table (in order to +extrapolate the location of their kitchens). + -- Theodore Sturgeon, "The World Well Lost" +% +... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those +who wish to tyrranize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, +and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious +and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. + -- Voltarine de Cleyre +% +So many men, so many opinions; every one his own way. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +Some men rob you with a six-gun -- others with a fountain pen. + -- Woodie Guthrie +% + Somewhat alarmed at the continued growth of the number of employees +on the Department of Agriculture payroll in 1962, Michigan Republican Robert +Griffin proposed an amendment to the farm bill so that "the total number of +employees in the Department of Agriculture at no time exceeds the number of +farmers in America." + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +Stamp out organized crime!! Abolish the IRS. +% + Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? +Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era -- the kind of peak that +never comes again. San Fransisco in the middle sixties was a very special time +and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long +run... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the +Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... You could +strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we +were doing was right, that we were winning... + And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory +over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't +need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting +-- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest +of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go +up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes +you can almost ___see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave +finally broke and rolled back. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +Such a foolish notion, that war is called devotion, when the greatest +warriors are the ones who stand for peace. +% +Support your local police force -- steal!! +% +Support your right to arm bears!! +% +Support your right to bare arms! + -- A message from the National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association +% +Surprise! You are the lucky winner of a random I.R.S. Audit! Just type +in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving +the room is punishable under law: + +Name +# +% +Take Care of the Molehills, and the Mountains Will Take Care of Themselves. + -- Motto of the Federal Civil Service +% +Take your Senator to lunch this week. +% +TANSTAAFL +% +Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind +the tree." + -- Russell Long +% +Taxes are going up so fast, the government is likely to price itself +out of the market. +% +Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed. +% +Ten persons who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent. + -- Napoleon I +% +That government is best which governs least. + -- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" +% +That's where the money was. + -- Willie Sutton, on being asked why he robbed a bank + +It's a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night. + -- Willie Sutton +% +... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that +consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune +of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to +listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe. + -- Bill Murray +% +The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use +in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the +Declaration not for that, but for future use. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +The attacker must vanquish; the defender need only survive. +% +The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any +reward. + -- John Maynard Keynes +% +The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity. +To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task. + -- Nietzsche +% +The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy. +% +The Constitution may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than what we've got! +% +The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. + -- Hilaire Belloc +% +The Crown is full of it! + -- Nate Harris, 1775 +% +The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class +is unfit to govern. + -- Lord Acton +% +The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. + -- F. Dostoyevski +% +The dirty work at political conventions is almost always done in the grim +hours between midnight and dawn. Hangmen and politicians work best when +the human spirit is at its lowest ebb. + -- Russell Baker +% +The distinction between Freedom and Liberty is not accurately known; +naturalists have been unable to find a living specimen of either. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man +really clever who has not found that he is stupid. + -- Gilbert K. Chesterson +% +The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. + -- Buckminster Fuller +% +The eyes of taxes are upon you. +% +The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not +utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, +a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible. + -- Bertrand Russell, in "Marriage and Morals", 1929 +% +The fact that people are poor or discriminated against doesn't necessarily +endow them with any special qualities of justice, nobility, charity or +compassion. + -- Saul Alinsky +% +The famous politician was trying to save both his faces. +% +The fashionable drawing rooms of London have always been happy to accept +outsiders -- if only on their own, albeit undemanding terms. That is to +say, artists, so long as they are not too talented, men of humble birth, +so long as they have since amassed several million pounds, and socialists +so long as they are Tories. + -- Christopher Booker +% +The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. + -- Abbie Hoffman +% +The founding fathers tried to set up a judicial system where the accused +received a fair trial, not a system to insure an acquittal on technicalities. +% + The General disliked trying to explain the highly technical inner +workings of the U.S. Air Force. + "$7,662 for a ten cup coffee maker, General?" the Senator asked. + In his head he ran through his standard explanations. "It's not so," +he thought. "It's a deterrent." Soon he came up with, "It's computerized, +Senator. Tiny computer chips make coffee that's smooth and full-bodied. Try +a cup." + The Senator did. "Pfffttt! Tastes like jet fuel!" + "It's not so," the General thought. "It's a deterrent." + Then he remembered something. "We bought a lot of untested computer +chips," the General answered. "They got into everything. Just a little +mix-up. Nothing serious." + Then he remembered something else. It was at the site of the +mysterious B-1 crash. A strange smell in the fuel lines. It smelled like +coffee. Smooth and full bodied... + -- Another Episode of General's Hospital +% +The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the +people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people +drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return. + -- Gore Vidal +% +The government has just completed work on a missile that turned out to be a +bit of a boondoggle; nicknamed "Civil Servant", it won't work and they can't +fire it. +% +The Government just announced today the creation of the Neutron Bomb II. +Similar to the Neutron Bomb, the Neutron Bomb II not only kills people +and leaves buildings standing, but also does a little light housekeeping. +% +The graveyards are full of indispensable men. + -- Charles de Gaulle +% +The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men +of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. + -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis +% +The greatest disloyalty one can offer to great pioneers is to refuse to +move an inch from where they stood. +% +The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. + -- Albert Einstein +% +The hater of property and of government takes care to have his warranty +deed recorded, and the book written against fame and learning has the +author's name on the title page. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831 +% +The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality +of functions performed by private citizens. + -- Alexis de Tocqueville +% +The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf +has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know +when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr. + -- Will Rogers +% +The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; +the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. + -- Churchill +% +The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the +whole state, for styles of music are never disturbed without affecting +the most important political institutions. ... The new style, gradually +gaining a lodgement, quitely insinuates itself into manners and customs, +and from it ... goes on to attack laws and constitutions, displaying the +utmost impudence, until it ends by overturning everything. + -- Plato, "Republic", 370 B.C. +% +The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free +information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax +tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a real tax question, +such as how you can cheat, they're useless. + +So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business never pays +a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer +organization that never pays a nickel in taxes... + -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" +% +The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +The Least Successful Executions + History has furnished us with two executioners worthy of attention. +The first performed in Sydney in Australia. In 1803 three attempts were +made to hang a Mr. Joseph Samuels. On the first two of these the rope +snapped, while on the third Mr. Samuels just hung there peacefully until he +and everyone else got bored. Since he had proved unsusceptible to capital +punishment, he was reprieved. + The most important British executioner was Mr. James Berry who +tried three times in 1885 to hang Mr. John Lee at Exeter Jail, but on each +occasion failed to get the trap door open. + In recognition of this achievement, the Home Secretary commuted +Lee's sentence to "life" imprisonment. He was released in 1917, emigrated +to America and lived until 1933. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The Least Successful Police Dogs + America has a very strong candidate in "La Dur", a fearsome looking +schnauzer hound, who was retired from the Orlando police force in Florida +in 1978. He consistently refused to do anything which might ruffle or +offend the criminal classes. + His handling officer, Rick Grim, had to admit: "He just won't go up +and bite them. I got sick and tired of doing that dog's work for him." + The British contenders in this category, however, took things a +stage further. "Laddie" and "Boy" were trained as detector dogs for drug +raids. Their employment was terminated following a raid in the Midlands in +1967. + While the investigating officer questioned two suspects, they +patted and stroked the dogs who eventually fell asleep in front of the +fire. When the officer moved to arrest the suspects, one dog growled at +him while the other leapt up and bit his thigh. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. + -- Kin Hubbard +% +The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep. + -- Woody Allen +% +"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 majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The +terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency. + -- Albert Einstein +% +The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The +man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. + -- Alan Ashley-Pitt +% +The man with the best job in the country is the Vice President. All he has +to do is get up every morning and say, "How's the President?" + -- Will Rogers + +The vice-presidency ain't worth a pitcher of warm spit. + -- Vice President John Nance Garner +% +The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, +while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. + -- Wilhelm Stekel +% + The Minnesota Board of Education voted to consider requiring all +students to do some "volunteer work" as a prerequisite to high school +graduation. + Senator Orrin Hatch said that "capital punishment is our society's +recognition of the sanctity of human life." + According to the tax bill signed by President Reagan on December 22, +1987, Don Tyson and his sister-in-law Barbara run a "family farm." Their +"farm" has 25,000 employees and grosses $1.7 billion a year. But as a "family +farm" they get tax breaks that save them $135 million a year. + Scott L. Pickard, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of +Public Works, calls them "ground-mounted confirmatory route markers." You +probably call them road signs, but then you don't work in a government agency. + It's not "elderly" or "senior citizens" anymore. Now it's "chrono- +logically experienced citizens." + According to the FAA, the propeller blade didn't break off, it was +just a case of "uncontained blade liberation." + -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) +% +The Moral Majority is neither. +% +The more control, the more that requires control. +% +The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. +% +The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I +hope I don't get run over again. +% +The Official Colorado State Vegetable is now the "state legislator". +% +The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky. + -- David Gerrold +% +The poetry of heroism appeals irresitably to those who don't go to a war, +and even more so to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy." + -- Celine +% +The polite thing to do has always been to address people as they wish to be +addressed, to treat them in a way they think dignified. But it is equally +important to accept and tolerate different standards of courtesy, not +expecting everyone else to adapt to one's own preferences. Only then can +we hope to restore the insult to its proper social function of expressing +true distaste. + -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly + Correct Behavior" +% +The politician is someone who deals in man's problems of adjustment. +To ask a politician to lead us is to ask the tail of a dog to lead the dog. + -- Buckminster Fuller +% +The price of greatness is responsibility. +% +The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday +they might force their beliefs on us. + -- Mario Cuomo +% +The primary theme of SoupCon is communication. The acronym "LEO" +represents the secondary theme: + + Law Enforcement Officials + +The overall theme of SoupCon shall be: + + Avoiding Communication with Law Enforcement Officials + -- M. Gallaher +% +The problem with most conspiracy theories is that they seem to believe that +for a group of people to behave in a way detrimental to the common good +requires intent. +% +The problem with this country is that there is no death penalty for +incompetence. +% +The public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit +raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties. + -- H. L. Mencken, "Prejudice" +% +The public is an old woman. Let her maunder and mumble. + -- Thomas Carlyle +% +The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but +because it gave pleasure to the spectators. + -- Thomas Macaulay, "History of England" +% +The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it +about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that +you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste? + -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics" +% +The revolution will not be televised. +% +"The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests +and to his imagination for his facts." + -- Sheridan +% +The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +The scum also rises. + -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson +% +The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations +of the victors. History is written by the survivors. + -- Max Lerner +% +The time for action is past! Now is the time for senseless bickering. +% +The time was the 19th of May, 1780. The place was Hartford, Connecticut. +The day has gone down in New England history as a terrible foretaste of +Judgement Day. For at noon the skies turned from blue to grey and by +mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, +men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. +The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And, as some of +the men fell down and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the +Speaker of the House, one Col. Davenport, came to his feet. He silenced +them and said these words: "The day of judgment is either approaching or +it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I +choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be +brought." + -- Alistair Cooke +% +The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians +who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool +all of the people all of the time. + -- Franklin Adams +% +The two oldest professions in the world have been ruined by amateurs. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +The two party system ... is a triumph of the dialectic. It showed that +two could be one and one could be two and had probably been fabricated +by Hegel for the American market on a subcontract from General Dynamics. + -- I. F. Stone +% +The universe is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be +ruled by interfering. + -- Chinese proverb +% +The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of +altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their +views ... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the +facts that needs altering. + -- Doctor Who, "Face of Evil" +% +"The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes, +it's just a tired feeling:" +% +The way I understand it, the Russians are sort of a combination of evil and +incompetence... sort of like the Post Office with tanks. + -- Emo Philips +% +The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great +scholars great men. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes +% +The Worst Bank Robbery + In August 1975 three men were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of +Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors. They +had to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone, +sheepishly left the building. + A few minutes later they returned and announced their intention of +robbing the bank, but none of the staff believed them. When they demanded +5,000 pounds in cash, the head cashier laughed at them, convinced that it +was a practical joke. + Then one of the men jumped over the counter, but fell to the floor +clutching his ankle. The other two tried to make their getaway, but got +trapped in the revolving doors again. +% +The Worst Prison Guards + The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a +maximum security prison is 124. This record is held by Alcoente Prison, +near Lisbon in Portugal. + During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison +warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which +included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity +of electric cable had disappeared. A guard explained, "Yes, we were +planning to look for them, but never got around to it." The warders had +not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were +"covered with posters". Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels, +water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities. +The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36 +prisoners in his block only 13 were present. He said this was "normal" +because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back +the next morning. + "We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when +one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later. [...] When they +eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's +population was missing. By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr. +Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the +"legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +There appears to be irrefutable evidence that the mere fact of overcrowding +induces violence. + -- Harvey Wheeler +% +There are a lot of lies going around.... and half of them are true. + -- Winston Churchill +% +There are no manifestos like cannon and musketry. + -- The Duke of Wellington +% +There are only two things in this world that I am sure of, death and +taxes, and we just might do something about death one of these days. + -- shades +% +There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." +And one says, "This is new, and therefore better" + -- John Brunner, "The Shockwave Rider" +% +There but for the grace of God, goes God. + -- Winston Churchill, speaking of Sir Stafford Cripps. +% +There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship. + -- Ralph Nader +% +There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an opinion. + -- Anatole France +% +There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. + -- Arthur C. Clarke +% +There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die, +and we will conquer. Follow me. + -- General Barnard E. Bee (CSA) +% +There is no act of treachery or mean-ness of which a political party +is not capable; for in politics there is no honour. + -- Benjamin Disraeli, "Vivian Grey" +% +There is no education that is not political. An apolitical +education is also political because it is purposely isolating. +% +There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +There is no security on this earth. There is only opportunity. + -- General Douglas MacArthur +% +There is not a man in the country that can't make a living for himself and +family. But he can't make a living for them *and* his government, too, +the way his government is living. What the government has got to do is +live as cheap as the people. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist -- +the taxidermist leaves the hide. + -- Mortimer Caplan +% +There is only one way to kill capitalism -- by taxes, taxes, and more taxes. + -- Karl Marx +% +There is perhaps in every thing of any consequence, secret history, which +it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated. + -- James Boswell +% +There never was a good war or a bad peace. + -- B. Franklin +% +There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government +working for you. + -- Will Rogers +% +There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead +armadillos. + -- Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner +% +They call them "squares" because it's the most complicated shape they can +deal with. +% +"They make a desert and call it peace." + -- Tacitus (55?-120?) +% +They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the +system from within. I'm coming now I'm coming to reward them. First +we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. + +I'm guided by a signal in the heavens. I'm guided by this birthmark on +my skin. I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons. First we take Manhattan, +then we take Berlin. + +I'd really like to live beside you, baby. I love your body and your spirit +and your clothes. But you see that line there moving through the station? +I told you I told you I told you I was one of those. + -- Leonard Cohen, "First We Take Manhattan" +% +"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary +safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." + -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 +% +They use different words for things in America. +For instance they say elevator and we say lift. +They say drapes and we say curtains. +They say president and we say brain damaged git. + -- Alexie Sayle +% +They will only cause the lower classes to move about needlessly. + -- The Duke of Wellington, on early steam railroads. +% +They're giving bank robbing a bad name. + -- John Dillinger, on Bonnie and Clyde +% +Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become +their property that they may more perfectly respect it. + -- G. K. Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday" +% +This is a country where people are free to practice their religion, +regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling keys... +% + Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire rainbow of +legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better than he does. + As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about it. I +am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily sane. But we +will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we consider his exterior +a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is being eaten alive by tinhorn +politicians. + The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can do +for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his honor. +From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can be as easily +led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public relations, to joy as to +bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter Thompson's disease. I don't +have it this morning. It comes and goes. This morning I don't have Hunter +Thompson's disease. + -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt + from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear and + Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" +% +"Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics." + -- French Proverb +% +Those who have had no share in the good fortunes of the mighty +Often have a share in their misfortunes. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" +% +Those who have some means think that the most important thing in the +world is love. The poor know that it is money. + -- Gerald Brenan +% +Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are +men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean +without the roar of its many waters. + -- Frederick Douglass +% +To be excellent when engaged in administration is to be like the North +Star. As it remains in its one position, all the other stars surround it. + -- Confucius +% +To make tax forms true they should read "Income Owed Us" and "Incommode You". +% +To say you got a vote of confidence would be to say you needed a vote of +confidence. + -- Andrew Young +% +To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. + -- Eugene Ionesco +% +To use violence is to already be defeated. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official. +% +Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available +briefcases. + -- Governor Jerry Brown +% +Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow. +% +Treaties are like roses and young girls -- they last while they last. + -- Charles DeGaulle +% +True leadership is the art of changing a group from what it is to what +it ought to be. + -- Virginia Allan +% +Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers +in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and +was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy +fog, so the Captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities. + Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, +"Light, bearing on the starboard bow." + "Is it steady or moving astern?" the Captain called out. + Lookout replied, "Steady, Captain," which meant we were on a dangerous +collision course with that ship. + The Captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on +a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees." + Back came a signal "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees." + In reply, the Captain said, "Send: I'm a Captain, change course 20 +degrees!" + "I'm a seaman second class," came the reply, "You had better change +course 20 degrees." + By that time, the Captain was furious. He spit out, "Send: I'm a +battleship, change course 20 degrees." + Back came the flashing light: "I'm a lighthouse!" + We changed course. + -- The Naval Institute's "Proceedings" +% +"Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex." + +(Where there is no police, there is no speed limit.) + -- Roman Law, trans. Petr Beckmann (1971) +% +Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a +just man is also a prison. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some +ordinance under which you can be booked. + -- Robert D. Sprecht, Rand Corp. +% +Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. + -- J. K. Galbraith +% +Under every stone lurks a politician. + -- Aristophanes +% +United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of the Christmas +season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of all the military +forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of all the patriots of +every persuasion. Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time +low over the world. + -- Isaac Asimov +% +Unknown person(s) stole the American flag from its pole in Etra Park sometime +between 3pm Jan 17 and 11:30 am Jan 20. The flag is described as red, white +and blue, having 50 stars and was valued at $40. + -- Windsor-Heights Herald "Police Blotter", Jan 28, 1987 +% +Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out +twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Usually, when a lot of men get together, it's called a war. + -- Mel Brooks, "The Listener" +% +Veni, vidi, vici. + [I came, I saw, I conquered]. + -- Gaius Julius Caesar +% +Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen +at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects. + -- Herodotus +% +Victory uber allies! +% +"Violence accomplishes nothing." What a contemptible lie! Raw, naked +violence has settled more issues throughout history than any other method +ever employed. Perhaps the city fathers of Carthage could debate the +issue, with Hitler and Alexander as judges? +% +Violence is a sword that has no handle -- you have to hold the blade. +% +Violence is molding. +% +Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. + -- Salvor Hardin +% +Vote anarchist. +% +War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left. +% +War hath no fury like a non-combatant. + -- Charles Edward Montague +% +War is an equal opportunity destroyer. +% +War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it. + -- Desiderius Erasmus +% +War is like love, it always finds a way. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "Mother Courage" +% +War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military. + -- Clemenceau +% +War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable. +% +War spares not the brave, but the cowardly. + -- Anacreon +% +[Washington, D.C.] is the home of... taste for the people -- the big, +the bland and the banal. + -- Ada Louise Huxtable +% +Washington, D.C: Fifty square miles almost completely surrounded by reality. +% +We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean +the same thing. + -- A. Lincoln +% +We are all born equal... just some of us are more equal than others. +% +We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm. + -- Winston Churchill +% +We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +We have not inherited the earth from our parents, we've borrowed it from +our children. +% +... we must not judge the society of the future by considering whether or not +we should like to live in it; the question is whether those who have grown up +in it will be happier than those who have grown up in our society or those of +the past. + -- Joseph Wood Krutch +% +We should be glad we're living in the time that we are. If any of us had been +born into a more enlightened age, I'm sure we would have immediately been taken +out and shot. + -- Strange de Jim +% +We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if only words were +taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things +themselves. + -- John Locke +% +We should have a Vollyballocracy. We elect a six-pack of presidents. +Each one serves until they screw up, at which point they rotate. + -- Dennis Miller +% +We the unwilling, led by the ungrateful, are doing the impossible. +We've done so much, for so long, with so little, +that we are now qualified to do something with nothing. +% +We totally deny the allegations, and we're trying to identify the allegators. +% +We tried to close Ohio's borders and ran into a Constitutional problem. +There's a provision in the Constitution that says you can't close your +borders to interstate commerce, and garbage is a form of interstate commerce. + -- Ohio Lt. Governor Paul Leonard +% +We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel +a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail. + -- Dave Barry +% +Well, don't worry about it... It's nothing. + -- Lieutenant Kermit Tyler (Duty Officer of Shafter Information + Center, Hawaii), upon being informed that Private Joseph + Lockard had picked up a radar signal of what appeared to be + at least 50 planes soaring toward Oahu at almost 180 miles + per hour, December 7, 1941. +% +Well, he didn't know what to do, so he decided to look at the government, +to see what they did, and scale it down and run his life that way. + -- Laurie Anderson +% +What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. + -- WOP, "War Games" +% +What does it take for Americans to do great things; to go to the moon, to +win wars, to dig canals linking oceans, to build railroads across a continent? +In independent thought about this question, Neil Armstrong and I concluded +that it takes a coincidence of four conditions, or in Neil's view, the +simultaneous peaking of four of the many cycles of American life. First, a +base of technology must exist from which to do the thing to be done. Second, +a period of national uneasiness about America's place in the scheme of human +activities must exist. Third, some catalytic event must occur that focuses +the national attention upon the direction to proceed. Finally, an articulate +and wise leader must sense these first three conditions and put forth with +words and action the great thing to be accomplished. The motivation of young +Americans to do what needs to be done flows from such a coincidence of +conditions. ... The Thomas Jeffersons, The Teddy Roosevelts, The John +Kennedys appear. We must begin to create the tools of leadership which they, +and their young frontiersmen, will require to lead us onward and upward. + -- Dr. Harrison H. Schmidt +% +"What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so that we +wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our country. Nice try +anyway, George." + -- D. J. on KSFO/KYA +% +What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility. +% +What is status? + Status is when the President calls you for your opinion. + +Uh, no... + Status is when the President calls you in to discuss a + problem with him. + +Uh, that still ain't right... + STATUS is when you're in the Oval Office talking to the President, + and the phone rings. The President picks it up, listens for a + minute, and hands it to you, saying, "It's for you." +% +What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank? + -- Bertold Brecht +% +What is the sound of one hand clapping? +% +What orators lack in depth they make up in length. +% +What we need is either less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. +% +What's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority. + -- Robert Altman +% +When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public +property. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not +far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel +is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. + -- R. A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love" +% +When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see +the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain +relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten. + -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before +the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours." + -- Vine Deloria, Jr. +% +When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced +to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. + -- Brendan Behan +% +When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity +for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough. + -- H. L. Mencken, "Minority Report" +% +When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now +I'm beginning to believe it. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess. +% +When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men +live content. + -- Niccolo Machiavelli +% +When smashing monuments, save the pedstals -- they always come in handy. + -- Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, "Unkempt Thoughts" +% +When some people decide it's time for everyone to make big changes, +it means that they want you to change first. +% +When taxes are due, Americans tend to feel quite bled-white and blue. +% +When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, you modify +the problem, not the remedy. +% +When the revolution comes, count your change. +% +When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is +not hereditary. + -- Thomas Paine +% +When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find +anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, +two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the +history of war have so few been led by so many. + -- General James Gavin +% +When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve +people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. + -- Norm Crosby +% +When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. + -- Harry Truman +% +When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite. + -- Winston Churchill, on formal declarations of war +% +When you live in a sick society, just about everything you do is wrong. +% +When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that +you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. + -- Otto Von Bismarck +% +When you're in command, command. + -- Admiral Nimitz +% +Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to +see it tried on him personally. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +Where the system is concerned, you're not allowed to ask "Why?". +% +Where you stand depends on where you sit. + -- Rufus Miles, HEW +% +Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones we have? +% +Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else? +% +Why don't somebody print the truth about our present economic condition? +We spent years of wild buying on credit, everything under the sun, whether +we needed it or not, and now we are having to pay for it, howling like a +pet coon. This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to +pay the fiddler. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% + Will Rogers, having paid too much income tax one year, tried in +vain to claim a rebate. His numerous letters and queries remained +unanswered. Eventually the form for the next year's return arrived. In +the section marked "DEDUCTIONS," Rogers listed: "Bad debt, US Government +-- $40,000." +% + ... with liberty and justice for all ... who can afford it. +% +With reasonable men I will reason; +with humane men I will plead; +but to tyrants I will give no quarter. + -- William Lloyd Garrison +% +Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your chairs. +% +World tensions have, if anything, increased in the quarter century since +H. G. Wells uttered his glum warning: "There is no more evil thing on +earth than race prejudice, none at all. I write deliberately -- it is +the worst single thing in life now. It justifies and holds together more +baseness, cruelty and abomination than any other sort of error in the world." + -- Sydney Harris +% +World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced dress code! +% + "Wrong," said Renner. + "The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree with +the Senator would be to say, `That turns out not to be the case.'" +% +You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having +both at once. + -- Lazarus Long +% +You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form. The +short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified", which +means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears tax-preparation +expert to distinguish between their first and last names. Here's the +complete text: + +"(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT) +(2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT) +(3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to + send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF + THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME) + household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way + you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST + NAME), that it pays to file the short form!" + +The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your +money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long form. + -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" +% +You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, +bad breeding, and a vulgar manner. + -- Aristophanes +% +You must include all income you receive in the form of money, property +and services if it is not specifically exempt. Report property (goods) +and services at their fair market values. Examples include income from +bartering or swapping transactions, side commissions, kickbacks, rent +paid in services, illegal activities (such as stealing, drugs, etc.), +cash skimming by proprietors and tradesmen, "moonlighting" services, +gambling, prizes and awards. Not reporting such income can lead to +prosecution for perjury and fraud. + -- Excerpt from Taxachussetts income tax forms +% +You roll my log, and I will roll yours. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for +freedom and liberty. + -- Henrik Ibsen +% +I do not patronize poor, ill educated, or disenfranchised people by +exempting them from the same critical examination I feel free to +direct toward the rest of society, however much I might champion the +same minority or disadvantaged group in the forums of that society. + -- James Moffitt +% +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. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half +of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +The human instinct to censor thrives, as it always will, living in +irrepressible conflict with the human instinct to speak. Outrage, +self-righteousness, and paranoia feed the maw of censorship. +Squelching speech, however, never reduces society's net paranoia +quotient; it simply redirects it, drives it underground, where it +festers into more dangerous hysterias. In the words of Justice +Brandeis, "Men feared witches and burned women." + -- Rodney Smolla, "Free Speech in an Open Society", p. 43. +% +As long as there are entrenched social and political distinctions +between sexes, races or classes, there will be forms of science whose +main function is to rationalize and legitimize these distinctions. + -- Elizabeth Fee +% +Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their +reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those +who are totally in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in +the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and +out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, +and bear the consequences. + -- Susan B. Anthony (1873) +% +"Even if you want no state, or a minimal state, then you still have to +argue it point by point. Especially since most minimalists want to +keep exactly the economic and police system that keeps them +privileged. That's libertarians for you -- anarchists who want police +protection from their slaves!" + -- Coyote, in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Green Mars" +% +And they mainly want to teach them not to question, not to imagine, +but to be obedient and behave well so that they can hold them forever as +children to their bosom as the second millennium lurches toward its +panicky close. + -- Jerome Stern +% +I've no regrets. I was sincere in everything I said. + -- Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, + annoucing his new book +% +The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that +the end justifies the means. + -- Georges Bernanos (1888-1948), French novelist, + political writer. "Why Freedom?" The last essays of + George Bernanos (1955) +% +"[W]hen the policy you are adopting is worse for everybody than a policy + you agree is stupid, the policy you are adopting is best characterized + as really stupid." + -- Brad DeLong (2009) +% +"When the hopes of hundreds of millions are at stake, thinking things + through is not just good intellectual practice. It is a moral duty." + -- Paul Krugman, "In Praise of Cheap Labor" +% +"For the most part, Democrats don't question the Republican's right to govern +when they win elections" + +Heck, Democrats don't question the Republican's right to govern even when +Democrats win elections. + -- Moopheus, on scienceblogs.com +% diff --git a/fortunes/pratchett b/fortunes/pratchett new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e60f24 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/pratchett @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid +ornamental armour. It was gilt by association. + -- Terry Pratchett, "Night Watch" +% +The Assassin moved quietly from roof to roof until he was well away from +the excitement around the Watch House. His movements could be called +cat-like, except that he did not stop to spray urine up against things. + -- Terry Pratchett, "Night Watch" +% diff --git a/fortunes/riddles b/fortunes/riddles new file mode 100644 index 0000000..218fe69 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/riddles @@ -0,0 +1,569 @@ +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #13 +A: Doc, Happy, Bashful, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy, & Grumpy +Q: Who were the Democratic presidential candidates? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #15 +A: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. +Q: What was the greatest achievement in taxidermy? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #19 +A: To be or not to be. +Q: What is the square root of 4b^2? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #21 +A: Dr. Livingston I. Presume. +Q: What's Dr. Presume's full name? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #31 +A: Chicken Teriyaki. +Q: What is the name of the world's oldest kamikaze pilot? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #4 +A: Go west, young man, go west! +Q: What do wabbits do when they get tiwed of wunning awound? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #5 +A: The Halls of Montezuma and the Shores of Tripoli. +Q: Name two families whose kids won't join the Marines. +% +Knock, knock! + Who's there? +Sam and Janet. + Sam and Janet who? +Sam and Janet Evening... +% +Knucklehead: "Knock, knock" +Pee Wee: "Who's there?" +Knucklehead: "Little ol' lady." +Pee Wee: "Liddle ol' lady who?" +Knucklehead: "I didn't know you could yodel" +% +Q: "What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic + existentialist?" +A: "Is there a dog?" +% +Q: Are we not men? +A: We are Vaxen. +% +Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is? +A: One per person. +% +Q: How can you tell when a Burroughs salesman is lying? +A: When his lips move. +% +Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence? +A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence. +% +Q: How do you catch a unique rabbit? +A: Unique up on it! + +Q: How do you catch a tame rabbit? +A: The tame way! +% +Q: How do you keep a moron in suspense? +% +Q: How do you play religious roulette? +A: You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets + struck by lightning first. +% +Q: How do you save a drowning lawyer? +A: Throw him a rock. +% +Q: How do you shoot a blue elephant? +A: With a blue-elephant gun. + +Q: How do you shoot a pink elephant? +A: Twist its trunk until it turns blue, then shoot it with + a blue-elephant gun. +% +Q: How do you stop an elephant from charging? +A: Take away his credit cards. +% +Q: How does a hacker fix a function which + doesn't work for all of the elements in its domain? +A: He changes the domain. +% +Q: How does the Polish Constitution differ from the American? +A: Under the Polish Constitution citizens are guaranteed freedom of + speech, but under the United States constitution they are + guaranteed freedom after speech. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Q: How many Bell Labs Vice Presidents does it take to change a light bulb? +A: That's proprietary information. Answer available from AT&T on payment + of license fee (binary only). +% +Q: How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Two. One to assure everyone that everything possible is being + done while the other screws the bulb into the water faucet. +% +Q: How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Five. One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the + experience. (Actually, Californians don't screw in + light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.) + +Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all + those Californians trying to share the experience. +% +Q: How many college football players does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Only one, but he gets three credits for it. +% +Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat? +A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. + +Q: How long does it take? +A: It's indeterminate. + It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them. + +Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats? +A: They replace your generator. +% +Q: How many elephants can you fit in a VW Bug? +A: Four. Two in the front, two in the back. + +Q: How can you tell if an elephant is in your refrigerator? +A: There's a footprint in the mayo. + +Q: How can you tell if two elephants are in your refrigerator? +A: There's two footprints in the mayo. + +Q: How can you tell if three elephants are in your refrigerator? +A: The door won't shut. + +Q: How can you tell if four elephants are in your refrigerator? +A: There's a VW Bug in your driveway. +% +Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the light bulb + itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective + reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a + maudlin cosmos of nothingness. +% +Q: How many gradual (sorry, that's supposed to be "graduate") students + does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: "I'm afraid we don't know, but make my stipend tax-free, give my + advisor a $30,000 grant of the taxpayer's money, and I'm sure he + can tell me how to do the gruntwork for him so he can take the + credit for answering this incredibly vital question." +% +Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. We'll fix it in software. + +Q: How many system programmers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. The application can work around it. + +Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. We'll document it in the manual. + +Q: How many tech writers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. The user can figure it out. +% +Q: How many Harvard MBA's does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Just one. He grasps it firmly and the universe revolves around him. +% +Q: How many IBM 370's does it take to execute a job? +A: Four, three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. +% +Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to do a logical right shift? +A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register. +% +Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Fifteen. One to do it, and fourteen to write document number + GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, + of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally + left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A:..... + consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks". +% +Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring + light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot + to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for + reporting that Electric Company hired a light bulb-assassin to break + the bulb in the first place. +% +Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: One. Only it's his light bulb when he's done. +% +Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the +party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith +agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed +from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed +upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of +the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating +at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of +the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the +second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the +parties. + The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be +limited to, the following. The party of the first part shall, with or without +elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other +means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party +of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered +non-negotiable. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part +becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall +have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner +consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes. +Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part +shall have the option of beginning installation. Aforesaid installation shall +occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in +step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation +should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable. +The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the +first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to +produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership. +% +Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: You won't find a lawyer who can change a light bulb. Now, if + you're looking for a lawyer to screw a light bulb... +% +Q: How many marketing people does it take to change a light bulb? +A: I'll have to get back to you on that. +% +Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: One and a half. +% +Q: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: None: The light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution. +% +Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem + to the earlier joke. +% +Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a + light bulb? +A: Seven. Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in + the Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send + Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim + that he's a doctor, not an electrician). Scotty, after checking + around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains + that he "canna" see in the dark. Kirk will make an emergency stop at + the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb + from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something. + Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers + beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promply + killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured. + As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand, + Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must + warp out of orbit. Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon + and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have + just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been + given all light bulbs they can carry. The new bulb is then inserted + and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission. +% +Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all those + Californians trying to share the experience. +% +Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Only one, but it takes a long time, and the light bulb has + to really want to change. +% +Q: How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself. +% +Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub + with brightly colored machine tools. + + [Surrealist jokes just aren't my cup of fur. Ed.] +% +Q: How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb? +A: One. +% +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 much does it cost to ride the Unibus? +A: 2 bits. +% +Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried? +A: 9 edge down. +% +Q: Know what the difference between your latest project + and putting wings on an elephant is? +A: Who knows? The elephant *might* fly, heh, heh... +% +Q: Minnesotans ask, "Why aren't there more pharmacists from Alabama?" +A: Easy. It's because they can't figure out how to get the little + bottles into the typewriter. +% +Q: What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill? +A: "The elephants are coming over the hill." + +Q: What did he say when saw them coming over the hill wearing + sunglasses? +A: Nothing, for he didn't recognize them. +% +Q: What do agnostic, insomniac dyslexics do at night? +A: Stay awake and wonder if there's a dog. +% +Q: What do little WASPs want to be when they grow up? +A: The very best person they can possibly be. +% +Q: What do monsters eat? +A: Things. + +Q: What do monsters drink? +A: Coke. (Because Things go better with Coke.) +% +Q: What do they call the alphabet in Arkansas? +A: The impossible dream. +% +Q: What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common? +A: The same middle name. +% +Q: What do you call 15 blondes in a circle? +A: A dope ring. + +Q: Why do blondes put their hair in ponytails? +A: To cover up the valve stem. +% +Q: What do you call a blind pre-historic animal? +A: Diyathinkhesaurus. + +Q: What do you call a blind pre-historic animal with a dog? +A: Diyathinkhesaurus Rex. +% +Q: What do you call a blind, deaf-mute, quadraplegic Virginian? +A: Trustworthy. +% +Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back? +A: A stick. +% +Q: What do you call a half-dozen Indians with Asian flu? +A: Six sick Sikhs (sic). +% +Q: What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C + is lower than those of other principal female opera singers? +A: A deep C diva. +% +Q: What do you call a WASP who doesn't work for his father, isn't a + lawyer, and believes in social causes? +A: A failure. +% +Q: What do you call the money you pay to the government when + you ride into the country on the back of an elephant? +A: A howdah duty. +% +Q: What do you call the scratches that you get when a female + sheep bites you? +A: Ewe nicks. +% +Q: What do you get when you cross a mobster with an international standard? +A: You get someone who makes you an offer that you can't understand! +% +Q: What do you get when you cross the Godfather with an attorney? +A: An offer you can't understand. +% +Q: What do you have when you have a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand? +A: Not enough sand. +% +Q: What do you say to a New Yorker with a job? +A: Big Mac, fries and a Coke, please! +% +Q: What does a WASP Mom make for dinner? +A: A crisp salad, a hearty soup, a lovely entree, followed by + a delicious dessert. +% +Q: What does it say on the bottom of Coke cans in North Dakota? +A: Open other end. +% +Q: What happens when four WASPs find themselves in the same room? +A: A dinner party. +% +Q: What is green and lives in the ocean? +A: Moby Pickle. +% +Q: What is orange and goes "click, click?" +A: A ball point carrot. +% +Q: What is printed on the bottom of beer bottles in Minnesota? +A: Open other end. +% +Q: What is purple and commutes? +A: An Abelian grape. +% +Q: What is purple and conquered the world? +A: Alexander the Grape. +% +Q: What is the difference between a duck? +A: One leg is both the same. +% +Q: What is the difference between Texas and yogurt? +A: Yogurt has culture. +% +Q: What is the sound of one cat napping? +A: Mu. +% +Q: What lies on the bottom of the ocean and twitches? +A: A nervous wreck. +% +Q: What looks like a cat, flies like a bat, brays like a donkey, and + plays like a monkey? +A: Nothing. +% +Q: What's a light-year? +A: One-third less calories than a regular year. +% +Q: What's a WASP's idea of open-mindedness? +A: Dating a Canadian. +% +Q: What's buried in Grant's tomb? +A: A corpse. +% +Q: What's hard going in and soft and sticky coming out? +A: Chewing gum. +% +Q: What's tan and black and looks great on a lawyer? +A: A doberman. +% +Q: What's the contour integral around Western Europe? +A: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe! + +Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they + are removable! + +Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his + very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God? +A: Yes, up to isomorphism! + +Q: What is a compact city? +A: It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted + policemen! + -- Peter Lax +% +Q: What's the difference betweeen USL and the Graf Zeppelin? +A: The Graf Zeppelin represented cutting edge technology for its time. +% +Q: What's the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead + lawyer in the road? +A: There are skid marks in front of the dog. +% +Q: What's the difference between a duck and an elephant? +A: You can't get down off an elephant. +% +Q: What's the difference between a Mac and an Etch-a-Sketch? +A: You don't have to shake the Mac to clear the screen. +% +Q: What's the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? +A: One less drunk. +% +Q: What's the difference between Bell Labs and the Boy Scouts of America? +A: The Boy Scouts have adult supervision. +% +Q: What's the difference between the 1950's and the 1980's? +A: In the 80's, a man walks into a drugstore and states loudly, "I'd + like some condoms," and then, leaning over the counter, whispers, + "and some cigarettes." +% +Q: What's the difference between USL and the Titanic? +A: The Titanic had a band. +% +Q: What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous? +A: A canary with the super-user password. +% +Q: What's yellow, and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice? +A: Zorn's Lemon. +% +Q: Where's the Lone Ranger take his garbage? +A: To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump! + +Q: What's the Pink Panther say when he steps on an ant hill? +A: Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant dead ant dead ant... +% +Q: Who cuts the grass on Walton's Mountain? +A: Lawn Boy. +% +Q: Why did Menachem Begin invade Lebanon? +A: To impress Jodie Foster. +% +Q: Why did the astrophysicist order three hamburgers? +A: Because he was hungry. +% +Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? +A: He was giving it last rites. +% +Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? +A: To see his friend Gregory peck. + +Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground? +A: To get to the other slide. +% +Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope? +A: To get to the other slide. +% +Q: Why did the lone ranger kill Tonto? +A: He found out what "kimosabe" really means. +% +Q: Why did the programmer call his mother long distance? +A: Because that was her name. +% +Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road? +A: Because it was on the other side. +% +Q: Why did the WASP cross the road? +A: To get to the middle. +% +Q: Why do ducks have big flat feet? +A: To stamp out forest fires. + +Q: Why do elephants have big flat feet? +A: To stamp out flaming ducks. +% +Q: Why do firemen wear red suspenders? +A: To conform with departmental regulations concerning uniform dress. +% +Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together? +A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home. +% +Q: Why do people who live near Niagara Falls have flat foreheads? +A: Because every morning they wake up thinking "What *is* that noise? + Oh, right, *of course*! +% +Q: Why do the police always travel in threes? +A: One to do the reading, one to do the writing, and the other keeps + an eye on the two intellectuals. +% +Q: Why do WASPs play golf ? +A: So they can dress like pimps. +% +Q: Why does Washington have the most lawyers per capita and + New Jersey the most toxic waste dumps? +A: God gave New Jersey first choice. +% +Q: Why don't lawyers go to the beach? +A: The cats keep trying to bury them. +% +Q: Why don't Scotsmen ever have coffee the way they like it? +A: Well, they like it with two lumps of sugar. If they drink + it at home, they only take one, and if they drink it while + visiting, they always take three. +% +Q: Why haven't you graduated yet? +A: Well, Dad, I could have finished years ago, but I wanted + my dissertation to rhyme. +% +Q: Why is Christmas just like a day at the office? +A: You do all of the work and the fat guy in the suit + gets all the credit. +% +Q: Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation + function, the more expensive it becomes to compute? +A: That's the Law of Spline Demand. +% +Q: Why is Poland just like the United States? +A: In the United States you can't buy anything for zlotys and in + Poland you can't either, while in the U.S. you can get whatever + you want for dollars, just as you can in Poland. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Q: Why should you always serve a Southern Carolina football man + soup in a plate? +A: 'Cause if you give him a bowl, he'll throw it away. +% +Q: Why was Stonehenge abandoned? +A: It wasn't IBM compatible. +% diff --git a/fortunes/science b/fortunes/science new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e370c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/science @@ -0,0 +1,3029 @@ +1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1. +% +1 Billion dollars of budget deficit = 1 Gramm-Rudman +6.023 x 10 to the 23rd power alligator pears = Avocado's number +2 pints = 1 Cavort +Basic unit of Laryngitis = The Hoarsepower +Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line +6 Curses = 1 Hexahex +3500 Calories = 1 Food Pound +1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents +1 Mole = 25 Cagey Bees +1 Dog Pound = 16 oz. of Alpo +1000 beers served at a Twins game = 1 Killibrew +2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League +2000 pounds of Chinese soup = 1 Won Ton +10 to the minus 6th power mouthwashes = 1 Microscope +Speed of a tortoise breaking the sound barrier = 1 Machturtle +8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss +365 Days of drinking Lo-Cal beer. = 1 Lite-year +16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling +Force needed to accelerate 2.2lbs of cookies = 1 Fig-newton + to 1 meter per second +One half large intestine = 1 Semicolon +10 to the minus 6th power Movie = 1 Microfilm +1000 pains = 1 Megahertz +1 Word = 1 Millipicture +1 Sagan = Billions & Billions +1 Angstrom: measure of computer anxiety = 1000 nail-bytes +10 to the 12th power microphones = 1 Megaphone +10 to the 6th power Bicycles = 2 megacycles +The amount of beauty required launch 1 ship = 1 Millihelen +% +(1) A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane. +(2) An inclined plane is a slope up. +(3) A slow pup is a lazy dog. + +QED: A sheet of paper is a lazy dog. + -- Willard Espy, "An Almanac of Words at Play" +% +(1) Alexander the Great was a great general. +(2) Great generals are forewarned. +(3) Forewarned is forearmed. +(4) Four is an even number. +(5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. +(6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. + Therefore, all horses are black. +% +(1) Alexander the Great was a great general. +(2) Great generals are forewarned. +(3) Forewarned is forearmed. +(4) Four is an even number. +(5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. +(6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. + +Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms. +% +(1) Never draw what you can copy. +(2) Never copy what you can trace. +(3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down. +% +(1) X=Y ; Given +(2) X^2=XY ; Multiply both sides by X +(3) X^2-Y^2=XY-Y^2 ; Subtract Y^2 from both sides +(4) (X+Y)(X-Y)=Y(X-Y) ; Factor +(5) X+Y=Y ; Cancel out (X-Y) term +(6) 2Y=Y ; Substitute X for Y, by equation 1 +(7) 2=1 ; Divide both sides by Y + -- "Omni", proof that 2 equals 1 +% +1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's +the law! +% +10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0. +% +13. ... r-q1 +% +"355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!" +% + 7,140 pounds on the Sun + 97 pounds on Mercury or Mars + 255 pounds on Earth + 232 pounds on Venus or Uranus + 43 pounds on the Moon + 648 pounds on Jupiter + 275 pounds on Saturn + 303 pounds on Neptune + 13 pounds on Pluto + + -- How much Elvis Presley would weigh at various places + in the solar system. +% +A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive government by +hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them to the West. They +drove to the airport, forced their way on board a large passenger jet, and +found there was no pilot on board. Terrified, they listened as the sirens +got louder. Finally, one of the scientists suggested that since he was an +experimentalist, he would try to fly the aircraft. + He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out. The sirens +got louder and louder. Armed men surrounded the jet. The would be pilot's +friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!! Hurry!!!" + The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience. I'm just a simple +pole in a complex plane." +% +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 fail-safe circuit will destroy others. + -- Klipstein +% +A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection. +% +"A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch +dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension." + -- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" +% +A gangster assembled an engineer, a chemist, and a physicist. He explained +that he was entering a horse in a race the following week and the three +assembled guys had the job of assuring that the gangster's horse would win. +They were to reconvene the day before the race to tell the gangster how they +each propose to ensure a win. When they reconvened the gangster started with +the engineer: + +Gangster: OK, Mr. engineer, what have you got? +Engineer: Well, I've invented a way to weave metallic threads into the saddle + blanket so that they will act as the plates of a battery and provide + electrical shock to the horse. +G: That's very good! But let's hear from the chemist. +Chemist: I've synthesized a powerful stimulant that disolves + into simple blood sugars after ten minutes and therefore + cannot be detected in post-race tests. +G: Excellent, excellent! But I want to hear from the physicist before + I decide what to do. Physicist? +Physicist: Well, first consider a spherical horse in simple harmonic motion... +% +"A horrible little boy came up to me and said, `You know in your book +The Martian Chronicles?' I said, `Yes?' He said, `You know where you +talk about Deimos rising in the East?' I said, `Yes?' He said `No.' +-- So I hit him." + -- attributed to Ray Bradbury +% +A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. + -- P. Erdos +% +A mathematician, a doctor, and an engineer are walking on the beach and +observe a team of lifeguards pumping the stomach of a drowned woman. As +they watch, water, sand, snails and such come out of the pump. + The doctor watches for a while and says: "Keep pumping, men, you may +yet save her!!" + The mathematician does some calculations and says: "According to my +understanding of the size of that pump, you have already pumped more water +from her body than could be contained in a cylinder 4 feet in diameter and +6 feet high." + The engineer says: "I think she's sitting in a puddle." +% +A method of solution is perfect if we can forsee from the start, +and even prove, that following that method we shall attain our aim. + -- Leibniz +% +A pain in the ass of major dimensions. + -- C. A. Desoer, on the solution of non-linear circuits +% +A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. + -- George Wald +% +A rope lying over the top of a fence is the same length on each side. It +weighs one third of a pound per foot. On one end hangs a monkey holding a +banana, and on the other end a weight equal to the weight of the monkey. +The banana weighs two ounces per inch. The rope is as long (in feet) as +the age of the monkey (in years), and the weight of the monkey (in ounces) +is the same as the age of the monkey's mother. The combined age of the +monkey and its mother is thirty years. One half of the weight of the monkey, +plus the weight of the banana, is one forth as much as the weight of the +weight and the weight of the rope. The monkey's mother is half as old as +the monkey will be when it is three times as old as its mother was when she +she was half as old as the monkey will be when when it is as old as its mother +will be when she is four times as old as the monkey was when it was twice +as its mother was when she was one third as old as the monkey was when it +was old as is mother was when she was three times as old as the monkey was +when it was one fourth as old as it is now. How long is the banana? +% +A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and +making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually +die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. + -- Max Planck +% +A sense of desolation and uncertainty, of futility, of the baselessness +of aspirations, of the vanity of endeavor, and a thirst for a life giving +water which seems suddenly to have failed, are the signs in consciousness +of this necessary reorganization of our lives. + +It is difficult to believe that this state of mind can be produced by the +recognition of such facts as that unsupported stones always fall to the +ground. + -- J. W. N. Sullivan +% +A Severe Strain on the Credulity + As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the +highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket +is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the +multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt... +for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its +flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the +charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in +Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not +know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something +better than a vacuum against which to react... Of course he only seems to +lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. + -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 +% +A sine curve goes off to infinity, or at least the end of the blackboard. + -- Prof. Steiner +% +A social scientist, studying the culture and traditions of a small North +African tribe, found a woman still practicing the ancient art of matchmaking. +Locally, she was known as the Moor, the marrier. +% +A statistician, who refused to fly after reading of the alarmingly high +probability that there will be a bomb on any given plane, realized that +the probability of there being two bombs on any given flight is very low. +Now, whenever he flies, he carries a bomb with him. +% +A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by +blowing first. +% +A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle. +% +According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold, +and according to convention, there is an order. In truth, there are atoms +and a void. + -- Democritus, 400 B.C. +% +According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are +totally worthless. +% + ACHTUNG!!! + +Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen +der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht +fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands +in das pockets. Relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!!! +% +Actually, the probability is 100% that the elevator will be going in the +right direction. Proof by induction: + +N=1. Trivially true, since both you and the elevator only have one + floor to go to. + +Assume true for N, prove for N+1: + If you are on any of the first N floors, then it is true by the + induction hypothesis. If you are on the N+1st floor, then both you + and the elevator have only one choice, namely down. Therefore, + it is true for all N+1 floors. +QED. +% +After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn. +% +After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found +on the bench. +% + After the Children of Israel had wandered for thirty-nine years +in the wilderness, Ferdinand Feghoot arrived to make sure that they would +finally find and enter the Promised Land. With him, he brought his +favorite robot, faithful old Yewtoo Artoo, to carry his gear and do +assorted camp chores. + The Israelites soon got over their initial fear of the robot and, +as the months passed, became very fond of him. Patriarchs took to +discussing abtruse theological problems with him, and each evening the +children all gathered to hear the many stories with which he was programmed. +Therefore it came as a great shock to them when, just as their journey was +ending, he abruptly wore out. Even Feghoot couldn't console them. + "It may be true, Ferdinand Feghoot," said Moses, "that our friend +Yewtoo Artoo was soulless, but we cannot believe it. He must be properly +interred. We cannot embalm him as do the Egyptians. Nor have we wood for +a coffin. But I do have a most splendid skin from one of Pharoah's own +cattle. We shall bury him in it." + Feghoot agreed. "Yes, let this be his last rusting place." + "Rusting?" Moses cried. "Not in this dreadful dry desert!" + "Ah!" sighed Ferdinand Feghoot, shedding a tear, "I fear you do not +realize the full significance of Pharoah's oxhide!" + -- Grendel Briarton "Through Time & Space With Ferdinand + Feghoot!" +% +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 this was written there appeared a remarkable posthumous memoir that +throws some doubt on Millikan's leading role in these experiments. Harvey +Fletcher (1884-1981), who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, +at Millikan's suggestion worked on the measurement of electronic charge for +his doctoral thesis, and co-authored some of the early papers on this subject +with Millikan. Fletcher left a manuscript with a friend with instructions +that it be published after his death; the manuscript was published in +Physics Today, June 1982, page 43. In it, Fletcher claims that he was the +first to do the experiment with oil drops, was the first to measure charges on +single droplets, and may have been the first to suggest the use of oil. +According to Fletcher, he had expected to be co-authored with Millikan on +the crucial first article announcing the measurement of the electronic +charge, but was talked out of this by Millikan. + -- Steven Weinberg, "The Discovery of Subatomic Particles" + +Robert Millikan is generally credited with making the first really +precise measurement of the charge on an electron and was awarded the +Nobel Prize in 1923. +% +After years of research, scientists recently reported that there is, +indeed, arroz in Spanish Harlem. +% + Against his wishes, a math teacher's classroom was remodeled. Ever +since, he's been talking about the good old dais. His students planted a small +orchard in his honor; the trees all have square roots. +% +Air is water with holes in it. +% +Air pollution is really making us pay through the nose. +% +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. +% +Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about. + -- Philippe Schnoebelen +% +All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing +without thinking. +% +All great discoveries are made by mistake. + -- Young +% +All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time. +% +All laws are simulations of reality. + -- John C. Lilly +% +All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. + -- Dawkins +% +All power corrupts, but we need electricity. +% +All science is either physics or stamp collecting. + -- Ernest Rutherford +% +All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to +Gaussian noise. + -- James Martin +% +All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism. +% +All the evidence concerning the universe has not yet been collected, +so there's still hope. +% +All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all theoretical chemists +know it. + -- Richard P. Feynman +% +Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away. +% +Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, +etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these +things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. +Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a +kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock. This +proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also +damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in +incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned." +Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office. + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% +Always draw your curves, then plot your reading. +% +Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out. +% +Always think of something new; this helps you forget your last rotten idea. + -- Seth Frankel +% +Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way. +% +An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because +people refuse to see it. + -- James Michener, "Space" +% +An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize +winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that +over Bohr's desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the +open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not +let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh, + "Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, +do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist --" +Bohr chuckled. + "I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am +scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told +that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not." +% +An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New +Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not +new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax. + -- David Letterman +% + An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows +he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great +restraint. + As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment +after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next +time." Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, +with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, +is ready to build a second system. + This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. +When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will +confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, +and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that +are particular and not generalizable. + The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using +all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first +one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile." + -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you +really care to know. +% +An economist is a man who would marry Farrah Fawcett-Majors for her money. +% +An egghead is one who stands firmly on both feet, in mid-air, on both +sides of an issue. + -- Homer Ferguson +% +An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an +anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt +already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the +engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later +the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself happily as he now +has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the +mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he +was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of +humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too +trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. +% +And the French medical anatomist Etienne Serres really did argue that +black males are primitive because the distance between their navel and +penis remains small (relative to body height) throughout life, while +white children begin with a small separation but increase it during +growth -- the rising belly button as a mark of progress. + -- S. J. Gould, "Racism and Recapitulation" +% +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" +% +... Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an +inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have +ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I +haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected +it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between +prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have +looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice +is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious +mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you +may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you +have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. + -- Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism" +% +Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts +which are unobtainable, and three parts which are still under development. +% +Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. +% +Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. + -- Arthur C. Clarke +% +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 imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time +as the strawberries, knows nothing about grapes. + -- Philippus Paracelsus +% +"Anything created must necessarily be inferior to the essence of the creator." + -- Claude Shouse + +"Einstein's mother must have been one heck of a physicist." + -- Joseph C. Wang +% +Anything cut to length will be too short. +% +Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. + -- Mickey Mouse +% +Artificial intelligence has the same relation to intelligence as +artificial flowers have to flowers. + -- David Parnas +% +"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, +and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a +scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." + -- Matt Cartmill +% +As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not +certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. + -- Albert Einstein +% +As you will see, I told them, in no uncertain terms, to see Figure one. + -- Dave "First Strike" Pare +% +Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if +one went to Harvard). + -- Edgar R. Fiedler +% +At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is +not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where +it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest. + -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow +% +At 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" +% +Back in the early 60's, touch tone phones only had 10 buttons. Some +military versions had 16, while the 12 button jobs were used only by people +who had "diva" (digital inquiry, voice answerback) systems -- mainly banks. +Since in those days, only Western Electric made "data sets" (modems) the +problems of terminology were all Bell System. We used to struggle with +written descriptions of dial pads that were unfamiliar to most people +(most phones were rotary then.) Partly in jest, some AT&T engineering +types (there was no marketing in the good old days, which is why they were +the good old days) made up the term "octalthorpe" (note spelling) to denote +the "pound sign." Presumably because it has 8 points sticking out. It +never really caught on. +% +Base 8 is just like base 10, if you are missing two fingers. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's ego. +% +Besides the device, the box should contain: + * Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING" + * A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two + club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns. + +YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable. + +IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your spouse +and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car that can get +all the way through the drive-through at Burger King without a major +transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's why." + +WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret. + -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" +% +Between infinite and short there is a big difference. + -- G. H. Gonnet +% +Biology grows on you. +% +Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same thing +as division. +% +Bistromathics is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the +behavior of numbers. Just as Einstein observed that space was not an +absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in space, and that +time was not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in +time, so it is now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depend +on the observer's movement in restaurants. + -- Douglas Adams +% +But it does move! + -- Galileo Galilei +% +But you who live on dreams, you are better pleased with the sophistical +reasoning and frauds of talkers about great and uncertain matters than +those who speak of certain and natural matters, not of such lofty nature. + -- Leonardo Da Vinci, "The Codex on the Flight of Birds" +% +Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the center +of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation works. An +incorrect model can be a useful tool. + -- Kelvin Throop III +% +Chapter 2: Newtonian Growth and Decay + + The growth-decay formulas were developed in the trivial fashion by +Isaac Newton's famous brother Phigg. His idea was to provide an equation +that would describe a quantity that would dwindle and dwindle, but never +quite reach zero. Historically, he was merely trying to work out his +mortgage. Another versatile equation also emerged, one which would define +a function that would continue to grow, but never reach unity. This equation +can be applied to charging capacitors, over-damped springs, and the human +race in general. +% +Chemist who falls in acid is absorbed in work. +% +Chemist who falls in acid will be tripping for weeks. +% +Chemistry is applied theology. + -- Augustus Stanley Owsley III +% +Chemistry professors never die, they just fail to react. +% +Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would +give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you +undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. +Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL +CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T +YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH +THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH +SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS +CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING +TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE +DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT? + -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" +% +"Consider a spherical bear, in simple harmonic motion..." + -- Professor in the UCB physics department +% +"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 +% +Did you hear that there's a group of South American Indians that worship +the number zero? + +Is nothing sacred? +% +Did you hear that two rabbits escaped from the zoo and so far they have +only recaptured 116 of them? +% +Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and lined +them up end to end, they'd still point in the wrong direction? +% +Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term, convertible +only through the use of weird and unnatural conversion factors. Velocity, +for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight. +% +Dinosaurs aren't extinct. They've just learned to hide in the trees. +% +Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? +% +Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and +it holds the universe together ... + -- Carl Zwanzig +% +E = MC ** 2 +- 3db +% +Earl Wiener, 55, a University of Miami professor of management science, +telling the Airline Pilots Association (in jest) about 21st century aircraft: + + "The crew will consist of one pilot and a dog. The pilot will + nurture and feed the dog. The dog will be there to bite the + pilot if he touches anything. + -- Fortune, Sept. 26, 1988 + [the *magazine*, silly!] +% +Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy would +turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it hasn't. + -- Robert Orben +% +Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a +percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor. + -- Edgar R. Fiedler +% +Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called +electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been +drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in most American +homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In the time it has taken +you to read this sentence so far, an electron could have traveled all the +way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey, although God alone knows +why it would want to. + +The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct current, +lightning, static, and European. Most American homes have alternating +current, which means that the electricity goes in one direction for a while, +then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in +the wires. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Elegance and truth are inversely related. + -- Becker's Razor +% +Elliptic paraboloids for sale. +% +Entropy isn't what it used to be. +% +Entropy requires no maintenance. + -- Markoff Chaney +% +Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which +otherwise require harder thinking. + -- Jerome Lettvin +% +Eureka! + -- Archimedes +% +Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. + -- Don Vonada +% +Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis. + +It makes sense, when you don't think about it. +% +Every paper published in a respectable journal should have a preface by +the author stating why he is publishing the article, and what value he +sees in it. I have no hope that this practice will ever be adopted. + -- Morris Kline +% +Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic +formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific +mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned +with what ____does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been +so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further +here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, +discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, +and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, +but each nonexisted in an entirely different way ... + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Everything that can be invented has been invented. + -- Charles Duell, Director of U.S. Patent Office, 1899 +% +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 +% +Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around +the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when +evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can +doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present +life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is +as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with +respect to theories about how the process operates. + -- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life". +% +Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. +% +Experiments must be reproducible; they should all fail in the same way. +% +Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples +of outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, +but they prevailed with irrefutable data. More often, egregious findings +that contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts. I have +argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, "cosmic consciousness," +and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of +neuroscience. Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid +handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena +than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves +offer more plausible alternatives. + -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: + Implications for Psi Phenomena". +% +Factorials were someone's attempt to make math LOOK exciting. +% +Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. +% +Federal grants are offered for... research into the recreation +potential of interplanetary space travel for the culturally disadvantaged. +% +Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity. + -- Robert Firth + +"One, two, five." + -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail +% +Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to her +husband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen my +joules!" + +"Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux +a moment. Perhaps they're mislead." + +"No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting them +in my burette ... We must call a copper." + +Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms, +said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name +of Lawrence Ium. + +"We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and +dangerous. His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I can +catch him there." With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an +activated state and sped off along the reaction pathway ... + -- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations" +% +For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think! +% +For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two. +% +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 +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #1 + A guinea pig is not from Guinea but a rodent from South America. + A firefly is not a fly, but a beetle. + A giant panda bear is really a member of the racoon family. + A black panther is really a leopard that has a solid black coat + rather then a spotted one. + Peanuts are not really nuts. The majority of nuts grow on trees + while peauts grow underground. They are classified as a + legume -- part of the pea family. + A cucumber is not a vegetable but a fruit. +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #44 + Zebras are colored with dark stripes on a light background. +% +FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #14 +What to do... + if reality disappears? + Hope this one doesn't happen to you. There isn't much that you + can do about it. It will probably be quite unpleasant. + + if you meet an older version of yourself who has invented a time + traveling machine, and has come from the future to meet you? + Play this one by the book. Ask about the stock market and cash in. + Don't forget to invent a time traveling machine and visit your + younger self before you die, or you will create a paradox. If you + expect this to be tricky, make sure to ask for the principles + behind time travel, and possibly schematics. Never, NEVER, ask + when you'll die, or if you'll marry your current SO. +% +FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #2 +What to do... + if you get a phone call from Mars: + Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly. Limit + your vocabulary to simple words. Try to determine if you are + speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen. + + if he, she or it doesn't speak English? + Hang up. There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone. + If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he, she + or it would have taken the trouble to learn the language before + calling. + + if you get a phone call from Jupiter? + Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter, + he, she or it is not "life as we know it". Try to terminate the + conversation as soon as possible. It will not profit you, and the + charges may have been reversed. +% +FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #6 +What to do... + if a starship, equipped with an FTL hyperdrive lands in your backyard? + First of all, do not run after your camera. You will not have any + film, and, given the state of computer animation, no one will believe + you anyway. Be polite. Remember, if they have an FTL hyperdrive, + they can probably vaporize you, should they find you to be rude. + Direct them to the White House lawn, which is where they probably + wanted to land, anyway. A good road map should help. + + if you wake up in the middle of the night, and discover that your + closet contains an alternate dimension? + Don't walk in. You almost certainly will not be able to get back, + and alternate dimensions are almost never any fun. Remain calm + and go back to bed. Close the door first, so that the cat does not + wander off. Check your closet in the morning. If it still contains + an alternate dimension, nail it shut. +% +Friction is a drag. +% +Fundamentally, there may be no basis for anything. +% +Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why +you should. +% +(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained, +"Only one man ever understood me." He fell silent for a while and then added, +"And he didn't understand me." +% +God doesn't play dice. + -- Albert Einstein +% +God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. + -- Kronecker +% +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 +% +Going the speed of light is bad for your age. +% +Good morning. This is the telephone company. Due to repairs, we're +giving you advance notice that your service will be cut off indefinitely +at ten o'clock. That's two minutes from now. +% +Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with +time travel, you never can tell." + -- Doctor Who, "Androids of Tara" +% +Got Mole problems? Call Avogadro at 6.02 x 10^23. +% +Gravity brings me down. +% +Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY (#7): April 2, 1751 + +Isaac Newton becomes discouraged when he falls up a flight of stairs. +% +Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. + -- Albert Einstein + +They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they +also laughed at Bozo the Clown. + -- Carl Sagan +% +He keeps differentiating, flying off on a tangent. +% +He: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science. +She: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains. + -- Walt Kelly +% +Heard that the next Space Shuttle is supposed to carry several Guernsey cows? +It's gonna be the herd shot 'round the world. +% +Heavier than air flying machines are impossible. + -- Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, c. 1895 +% +Heisenberg may have been here. +% +Heisenberg may have slept here... +% +Help fight continental drift. +% +Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical +lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your +hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you +notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This +teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never +use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important electrical lesson. + It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed +your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small objects +that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will attract dirt. +The electrons travel through your bloodstream and collect in your finger, +where they form a spark that leaps to your friend's filling, then travels +down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the circuit. + Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without +touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger +would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you have +carpeting. + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% +Hi! How are things going? + (just fine, thank you...) +Great! Say, could I bother you for a question? + (you just asked one...) +Well, how about one more? + (one more than the first one?) +Yes. + (you already asked that...) +[at this point, Alphonso gets smart... ] +May I ask two questions, sir? + (no.) +May I ask ONE then? + (nope...) +Then may I ask, sir, how I may ask you a question? + (yes, you may.) +Sir, how may I ask you a question? + (you must ask for retroactive question asking privileges for + the number of questions you have asked, then ask for that + number plus two, one for the current question, and one for the + next one) +Sir, may I ask nine questions? + (go right ahead...) +% +Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed. + -- Neil Armstrong +% +How can you do 'New Math' problems with an 'Old Math' mind? + -- Charles Schulz +% +How many weeks are there in a light year? +% +How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere +else. + -- R. Buckminster Fuller +% +Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill. +% +I am not an Economist. I am an honest man! + -- Paul McCracken +% +I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos. + -- Albert Einstein, on the randomness of quantum mechanics +% +I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an +exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to minds +entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary accountants fail +to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a mind like mine to +perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the bottom up, and then again +from the top down, the result is always different. + -- Mrs. La Touche +% +I do not remember ever having seen a sustained argument by an author which, +starting from philosophical premises likely to meet with general acceptance, +reached the conclusion that a praiseworthy ordering of one's life is to +devote it to research in mathematics. + -- Sir Edmund Whittaker, "Scientific American", Vol. 183 +% +"I don't think so," said Ren'e Descartes. Just then, he vanished. +% +I had a feeling once about mathematics -- that I saw it all. Depth beyond +depth was revealed to me -- the Byss and the Abyss. I saw -- as one might +see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show -- a quantity passing +through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly +why it happened and why tergiversation was inevitable -- but it was after +dinner and I let it go. + -- Winston Churchill +% +I have a theory that it's impossible to prove anything, but I can't prove it. +% + "I have examined Bogota," he said, "and the case is clearer to me. +I think very probably he might be cured." + "That is what I have always hoped," said old Yacob. + "His brain is affected," said the blind doctor. + The elders murmured assent. + "Now, what affects it?" + "Ah!" said old Yacob. + "This," said the doctor, answering his own question. "Those queer +things that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable soft +depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Bogota, in such a way +as to affect his brain. They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and +his eyelids move, and cosequently his brain is in a state of constant +irritation and distraction." + "Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?" + "And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order +to cure him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical +operation -- namely, to remove those irritant bodies." + "And then he will be sane?" + "Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen." + "Thank heaven for science!" said old Yacob. + -- H. G. Wells, "The Country of the Blind" +% +I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. + -- Plato +% +I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when +you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. + -- Poul Anderson +% +I myself have dreamed up a structure intermediate between Dyson spheres +and planets. Build a ring 93 million miles in radius -- one Earth orbit +-- around the sun. If we have the mass of Jupiter to work with, and if +we make it a thousand miles wide, we get a thickness of about a thousand +feet for the base. + +And it has advantages. The Ringworld will be much sturdier than a Dyson +sphere. We can spin it on its axis for gravity. A rotation speed of 770 +m/s will give us a gravity of one Earth normal. We wouldn't even need to +roof it over. Place walls one thousand miles high at each edge, facing the +sun. Very little air will leak over the edges. + +Lord knows the thing is roomy enough. With three million times the surface +area of the Earth, it will be some time before anyone complains of the +crowding. + -- Larry Niven, "Ringworld" +% +I put up my thumb... and it blotted out the planet Earth. + -- Neil Armstrong +% +I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that +they might escape the lusts of the flesh. + -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain" +% +"I think it is true for all _n. I was just playing it safe with _n >= 3 +because I couldn't remember the proof." + -- Baker, Pure Math 351a +% +I THINK MAN INVENTED THE CAR by instinct. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +"I think the sky is blue because it's a shift from black through purple +to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the +farther we get into darkness, and there's a shifting of color of light +into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from +the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that's bouncing +off this earth, uh, the darker it gets ... I think if you look at the +color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on +out, it's the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars +singing, and that's one of the effects of the shifting of colors." + -- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club +% +I THINK THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING in science called the "reindeer effect." +I don't know what it would be, but I think it'd be good to hear someone say, +"Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect." + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I THINK THEY SHOULD CONTINUE the policy of not giving a Nobel Prize for +paneling. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I use technology in order to hate it more properly. + -- Nam June Paik +% +I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block +of wax... and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the +image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we +forget or do not know. + -- Plato, Dialogs, Theateus 191 + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to image activation and termination.] +% +I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelli- +gence?" I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there, +and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing +to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as +yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you +really think?" I say, "I just told you what I really think." "Yeah, but +what's your gut feeling?" But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's +okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. + -- Carl Sagan +% +If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. + -- Roy Santoro +% +If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensus forecast is a +camel's behind. + -- Edgar R. Fiedler +% +If A equals success, then the formula is _A = _X + _Y + _Z. _X is +work. _Y is play. _Z is keep your mouth shut. + -- Albert Einstein +% +If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a +conclusion. + -- William Baumol +% +If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. +% +If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from? +% +If for every rule there is an exception, then we have established that there +is an exception to every rule. If we accept "For every rule there is an +exception" as a rule, then we must concede that there may not be an exception +after all, since the rule states that there is always the possibility of +exception, and if we follow it to its logical end we must agree that there +can be an exception to the rule that for every rule there is an exception. + -- Bill Boquist +% +If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions? +% +If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith. + -- Albert Einstein +% +If I have not seen so far it is because I stood in giant's footsteps. +% +If I set here and stare at nothing long enough, people might think +I'm an engineer working on something. + -- S. R. McElroy +% +If in any problem you find yourself doing an immense amount of work, the +answer can be obtained by simple inspection. +% +If it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, +proof is necessary. + -- Samuel Clemens +% +If it smells it's chemistry, if it crawls it's biology, if it doesn't work +it's physics. +% +If it wasn't for Newton, we wouldn't have to eat bruised apples. +% +If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by +the page number. +% +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 the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would +presumably flunk it. + -- Stanley Garn +% +If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. + -- Albert Einstein +% +If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, +we would be so simple we couldn't. +% +If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make +something out of you. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +"If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely." +% +If you analyse anything, you destroy it. + -- Arthur Miller +% +If you are smart enough to know that you're not smart enough to be an +Engineer, then you're in Business. +% +If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious. +% +If you haven't enjoyed the material in the last few lectures then a career +in chartered accountancy beckons. + -- Advice from the lecturer in the middle of the Stochastic + Systems course. +% +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 rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you +brush your leg against a bed or desk, if you catch your foot in a curled- +up corner of a rug, or strike a toe against a desk or chair, go back and +repeat the sequence. + You will find yourself surprised how far off course you were to +hit that window jamb, that door, that chair. Get back on course and do it +again. How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can't find your way around +your own apartment? + -- William S. Burroughs +% +If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from +many it's research. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. +% +Imagination is more important than knowledge. + -- Albert Einstein +% +In 1750 Isaac Newton became discouraged when he fell up a flight of stairs. +% +In 1869 the waffle iron was invented for people who had wrinkled waffles. +% +In a minimum-phase system there is an inextricable link between +frequency response, phase response and transient response, as they +are all merely transforms of one another. This combined with +minimalization of open-loop errors in output amplifiers and correct +compensation for non-linear passive crossover network loading can +lead to a significant decrease in system resolution lost. However, +this all means jack when you listen to Pink Floyd. +% +IN MY OPINION anyone interested in improving himself should not rule out +becoming pure energy. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +In Nature there are neither rewards nor punishments, there are consequences. + -- R. G. Ingersoll +% +In order to dial out, it is necessary to broaden one's dimension. +% +"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the +universe." + -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos +% +In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really +good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change +their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really +do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are +human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot +recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. + -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address +% +"In short, _N is Richardian if, and only if, _N is not Richardian." +% +In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's. +% +In the beginning there was nothing. And the Lord said "Let There Be Light!" +And still there was nothing, but at least now you could see it. +% + In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by +the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to +large numbers and prospered. + One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far +as the eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that +was to reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ... +until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox. + The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge +structure reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed +out from under the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when +they began to speak to one another, SURPRISE of all surprises! they could not +understand each other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought +amongst themselves and each went about their own way. To this day the +Topologists remain the original Mathematicians. + -- The Story of Babel +% +In the course of reading Hadamard's "The Psychology of Invention in the +Mathematical Field", I have come across evidence supporting a fact +which we coffee achievers have long appreciated: no really creative, +intelligent thought is possible without a good cup of coffee. On page +14, Hadamard is discussing Poincare's theory of fuchsian groups and +fuchsian functions, which he describes as "... one of his greatest +discoveries, the first which consecrated his glory ..." Hadamard refers +to Poincare having had a "... sleepless night which initiated all that +memorable work ..." and gives the following, very revealing quote: + + "One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and + could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide + until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable + combination." + +Too bad drinking black coffee was contrary to his custom. Maybe he +could really have amounted to something as a coffee achiever. +% +In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, +there is. +% +In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. + -- Pliny the Elder +% + "In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa +to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to +like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely +baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's not equatorial enough. +Equatorial!" He gave a hollow laugh. "What does it matter? Science has +achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than +right any day." + "And are you?" + "No. That's where it all falls down, of course." + "Pity," said Arthur with sympathy. "It sounded like quite a good +life-style otherwise." + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Information is the inverse of entropy. +% +Interchangeable parts won't. +% +Invest in physics -- own a piece of Dirac! +% +"Irrationality is the square root of all evil" + -- Douglas Hofstadter +% +Is knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know that? +% +Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction +listen to weather forecasts and economists? + -- Kelvin Throop III +% +Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune +tellers take economists seriously? +% +"It could be that Walter's horse has wings" does not imply that there is +any such animal as Walter's horse, only that there could be; but "Walter's +horse is a thing which could have wings" does imply Walter's horse's +existence. But the conjunction "Walter's horse exists, and it could be +that Walter's horse has wings" still does not imply "Walter's horse is a +thing that could have wings", for perhaps it can only be that Walter's +horse has wings by Walter having a different horse. Nor does "Walter's +horse is a thing which could have wings" conversely imply "It could be that +Walter's horse has wings"; for it might be that Walter's horse could only +have wings by not being Walter's horse. + +I would deny, though, that the formula [Necessarily if some x has property P +then some x has property P] expresses a logical law, since P(x) could stand +for, let us say "x is a better logician than I am", and the statement "It is +necessary that if someone is a better logician than I am then someone is a +better logician than I am" is false because there need not have been any me. + -- A. N. Prior, "Time and Modality" +% +It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. +% +It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in +which there is absolutely nothing. + -- Descartes +% +It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, +as one's hat keeps blowing off. + -- Woody Allen +% +It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. +% +It is not every question that deserves an answer. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +It is not for me to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence. + -- The Earl of Birkenhead +% +It is not that polar co-ordinates are complicated, it is simply +that cartesian co-ordinates are simpler than they have a right to be. + -- Kleppner & Kolenhow, "An Introduction to Mechanics" +% +It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to +mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +It is true that if your paperboy throws your paper into the bushes for five +straight days it can be explained by Newton's Law of Gravity. But it takes +Murphy's law to explain why it is happening to you. +% +It seems intuitively obvious to me, which means that it might be wrong. + -- Chris Torek +% +It seems that more and more mathematicians are using a new, high level +language named "research student". +% +"It's easier said than done." + +... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than +said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than +said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than +done". +% +It's hard to think of you as the end result of millions of years of evolution. +% +It's later than you think, the joint Russian-American space mission has +already begun. +% +It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. + -- Phil White +% +It's not hard to admit errors that are [only] cosmetically wrong. + -- J. K. Galbraith +% +Just because they are called 'forbidden' transitions does not mean that they +are forbidden. They are less allowed than allowed transitions, if you see +what I mean. + -- From a Part 2 Quantum Mechanics lecture. +% +Kleeneness is next to Gödelness. +% +Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within. +% +Last yeer I kudn't spel Engineer. Now I are won. +% +Lawrence Radiation Laboratory keeps all its data in an old gray trunk. +% +Life is a biochemical reaction to the stimulus of the surrounding +environment in a stable ecosphere, while a bowl of cherries is a +round container filled with little red fruits on sticks. +% +Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. +% +Life is difficult because it is non-linear. +% +Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; that smells *_____awful*. +% +Logic is a pretty flower that smells bad. +% +Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence. +% +Logic is the chastity belt of the mind! +% +Love makes the world go 'round, with a little help from intrinsic angular +momentum. +% +Lucas is the source of many of the components of the legendarily reliable +British automotive electrical systems. Professionals call the company "The +Prince of Darkness". Of course, if Lucas were to design and manufacture +nuclear weapons, World War III would never get off the ground. The British +don't like warm beer any more than the Americans do. The British drink warm +beer because they have Lucas refrigerators. +% +Ma Bell is a mean mother! +% +Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. + -- Andy Warhol +% +Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist! +% +Make it right before you make it faster. +% +Man will never fly. Space travel is merely a dream. All aspirin is alike. +% +MATH AND ALCOHOL DON'T MIX! + Please, don't drink and derive. + + Mathematicians + Against + Drunk + Deriving +% +Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. + -- R. Drabek +% +Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate +into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different. + -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe +% +Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is +described as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number can play. + -- Dr. Thor Wald, "Beep/The Quincunx of Time", by James Blish +% +Mathematicians practice absolute freedom. + -- Henry Adams +% +Mathematics deals exclusively with the relations of concepts +to each other without consideration of their relation to experience. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Mathematics is the only science where one never knows what +one is talking about nor whether what is said is true. + -- Russell +% +Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth but supreme beauty -- +a beauty cold and austere, like that of a sculpture, without appeal to any +part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trapping of painting or music, +yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the +greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense +of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is +to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt. +% +Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value. +% +Measure twice, cut once. +% +Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. +% +Mediocrity finds safety in standardization. + -- Frederick Crane +% +Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science. +% +Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves +up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural +function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the +other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the +brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. +Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only. ... It is quite +conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected. But it +is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working +assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it. +Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot +logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. + -- D. O. Hebb, "Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological + Theory", 1949 +% +More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path +leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. +Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. + -- Woody Allen, "Side Effects" +% +"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365, +365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365". He [ten-year-old Truman Henry +Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the +tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes +smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more +than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!" +An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be +as much fun to watch. + -- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics" +% +Murphy's Law, that brash proletarian restatement of Godel's Theorem. + -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" +% +My geometry teacher was sometimes acute, and sometimes obtuse, but always, +always, he was right. + [That's an interesting angle. I wonder if there are any parallels?] +% + My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or +even that they were always wrong. Rather, I believe that science must be +understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of +robots programmed to collect pure information. I also present this view as +an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on +the alter of human limitations. + I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often +in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it. Galileo was not shown +the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion. He had +threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal +stability: the static world order with planets circling about a central +earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord. But the +Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology. They had no choice; the +earth really does revolve about the sun. + -- S. J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" +% +Mystics always hope that science will some day overtake them. + -- Booth Tarkington +% +Natural laws have no pity. +% +Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation +of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the +fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be +creamed? + -- Solomon Short +% +Nature always sides with the hidden flaw. +% +Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, +it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs. + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Neil Armstrong tripped. +% +Neutrinos are into physicists. +% +Neutrinos have bad breadth. +% +Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do. + -- R. A. Heinlein +% +No amount of careful planning will ever replace dumb luck. +% +No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail. +% +Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong. +% +Nonsense. Space is blue and birds fly through it. + -- Heisenberg +% +Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the +Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats in +their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the +moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a +dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect. +And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it +was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms, then they put +them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they chipped at it a bit, +and everything was just fine ... + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Nothing is faster than the speed of light ... + +To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the +light comes on. +% +Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. +She shows us only surfaces, but she is a million fathoms deep. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Nuclear powered vacuuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years. + -- Alex Lewyt (President of the Lewyt Corporation, + manufacturers of vacuum cleaners), quoted in The New York + Times, June 10, 1955. +% +Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing. +% +"Obviously, a major malfunction has occurred." + -- Steve Nesbitt, voice of Mission Control, January 28, + 1986, as the shuttle Challenger exploded within view + of the grandstands. +% +Of course you can't flap your arms and fly to the moon. After a while you'd +run out of air to push against. +% +Often statistics are used as a drunken man uses lampposts -- for support +rather than illumination. +% +On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague: + +"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." + -- Wolfgang Pauli +% +Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of +us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of the +smaller prime numbers. + +2: The Odd Prime -- + It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED. +3: The True Prime -- + Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true." +31: The Arbitrary Prime -- + Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime in + case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91 received + the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most. + However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all. +41: The Female Prime -- + The polynomial X**2 - X + 41 is + prime for integer values from 1 to 40. +43: The Male Prime - they form a prime pair. + +Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities +are derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd +but true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers. +% + Once, when the secrets of science were the jealously guarded property +of a small priesthood, the common man had no hope of mastering their arcane +complexities. Years of study in musty classrooms were prerequisite to +obtaining even a dim, incoherent knowledge of science. + Today all that has changed: a dim, incoherent knowledge of science is +available to anyone. + -- Tom Weller, "Science Made Stupid" +% +One Bell System - it sometimes works. +% +One Bell System - it used to work before they installed the Dimension! +% +One Bell System - it works. +% +One can search the brain with a microscope and not find the +mind, and can search the stars with a telescope and not find God. + -- J. Gustav White +% +One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means. +% +One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast +to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, +a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also +just stupid. + -- J. D. Watson, "The Double Helix" +% +One day this guy is finally fed up with his middle-class existence and +decides to do something about it. He calls up his best friend, who is a +mathematical genius. "Look," he says, "do you suppose you could find some +way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track? We could +make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life." The mathematician thinks +this over a bit and walks away mumbling to himself. + A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any +success. The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well, yes, +actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but +there a number of details to be figured out. + After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house, +looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I still have +some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right +track." + At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by +pounding on his door at three in the morning. He has dark circles under his +eyes. His hair hasn't been combed for many days. He appears to be wearing +the same clothes as the last time. He has several pencils sticking out from +behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face. "WE CAN DO +IT! WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have discovered the perfect solution!! +And it's so EASY! First, we assume that horses are perfect spheres in simple +harmonic motion..." +% +One has to look out for engineers -- they begin with sewing machines +and end up with the atomic bomb. + -- Marcel Pagnol +% +One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +One man's constant is another man's variable. + -- A. J. Perlis +% +One of the chief duties of the mathematician in acting as an advisor... +is to discourage... from expecting too much from mathematics. + -- N. Wiener +% +One small step for man, one giant stumble for mankind. +% +One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that +sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer +terror. + -- W. K. Hartmann +% +Only God can make random selections. +% +Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. +% +Optimization hinders evolution. +% +Order and simplification are the first steps toward mastery of a subject +-- the actual enemy is the unknown. + -- Thomas Mann +% +Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry +is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. + -- Mike Adams +% +"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it." + -- Alex Schure +% +Oxygen is a very toxic gas and an extreme fire hazard. It is fatal in +concentrations of as little as 0.000001 p.p.m. Humans exposed to the +oxygen concentrations die within a few minutes. Symptoms resemble very +much those of cyanide poisoning (blue face, etc.). In higher +concentrations, e.g. 20%, the toxic effect is somewhat delayed and it +takes about 2.5 billion inhalations before death takes place. The reason +for the delay is the difference in the mechanism of the toxic effect of +oxygen in 20% concentration. It apparently contributes to a complex +process called aging, of which very little is known, except that it is +always fatal. + +However, the main disadvantage of the 20% oxygen concentration is in the +fact it is habit forming. The first inhalation (occurring at birth) is +sufficient to make oxygen addiction permanent. After that, any +considerable decrease in the daily oxygen doses results in death with +symptoms resembling those of cyanide poisoning. + +Oxygen is an extreme fire hazard. All of the fires that were reported in +the continental U.S. for the period of the past 25 years were found to be +due to the presence of this gas in the atmosphere surrounding the buildings +in question. + +Oxygen is especially dangerous because it is odorless, colorless and +tasteless, so that its presence can not be readily detected until it is +too late. + -- Chemical & Engineering News February 6, 1956 +% +Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them. +% +Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be. +% +People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't. +% +Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny. +% +"Picture the sun as the origin of two intersecting 6-dimensional +hyperplanes from which we can deduce a certain transformational +sequence which gives us the terminal velocity of a rubber duck ..." +% +Pie are not square. Pie are round. Cornbread are square. +% +Polymer physicists are into chains. +% +Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth. +% +Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically. +% +Progress means replacing a theory that is wrong with one more subtly wrong. +% +Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction. + +This technique is used on equations with "_n" in them. Induction +techniques are very popular, even the military used them. + +SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction. + + We know it's true for _n equal to 1. Now assume that it's true +for every natural number less than _n. _N is arbitrary, so we can take _n +as large as we want. If _n is sufficiently large, the case of _n+1 is +trivially equivalent, so the only important _n are _n less than _n. We +can take _n = _n (from above), so it's true for _n+1 because it's just +about _n. + QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?") +% +... proper attention to Earthly needs of the poor, the depressed and the +downtrodden, would naturally evolve from dynamic, articulate, spirited +awareness of the great goals for Man and the society he conspired to erect. + -- David Baker, paraphrasing Harold Urey, in + "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +Prototype designs always work. + -- Don Vonada +% +"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller +than the both put together." +% +Psychologists think they're experimental psychologists. +Experimental psychologists think they're biologists. +Biologists think they're biochemists. +Biochemists think they're chemists. +Chemists think they're physical chemists. +Physical chemists think they're physicists. +Physicists think they're theoretical physicists. +Theoretical physicists think they're mathematicians. +Mathematicians think they're metamathematicians. +Metamathematicians think they're philosophers. +Philosophers think they're gods. +% +Quantum Mechanics is a lovely introduction to Hilbert Spaces! + -- Overheard at last year's Archimedeans' Garden Party +% +Quantum Mechanics is God's version of "Trust me." +% +Quark! Quark! Beware the quantum duck! +% +Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives. +% +Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother Nature +cannot be fooled. + -- R. P. Feynman +% +Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you +lose your job. These economic downturns are very difficult to predict, +but sophisticated econometric modeling houses like Data Resources and +Chase Econometrics have successfully predicted 14 of the last 3 recessions. +% + "Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the +universe again..." An unusually long pause followed, "...but I don't +know which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A +spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the +starfield surrounding the ship. + "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," +ZORAC announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but +they are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have +been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, +and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown. +Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious." + -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star" +% +Remember Darwin; building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice. +% +Research is the best place to be: you work your buns off, and if it works +you're a hero; if it doesn't, well -- nobody else has done it yet either, +so you're still a valiant nerd. +% +Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and think what nobody +else has thought. +% +Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Review Questions + +(1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH, + and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before + he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the + Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship? + +(2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks + twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks + every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off + his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week? + +(3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers + the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a + pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King + Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice? +% +Round Numbers are always false. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long +period of time. + -- George Carlin +% +Science and religion are in full accord but science and faith are in complete +discord. +% +Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection +of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. + -- Jules Henri Poincar'e +% +Science is what happens when preconception meets verification. +% +Science may someday discover what faith has always known. +% +Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it. + -- William Buckley +% +Sentient plasmoids are a gas. +% +Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. +% +So as your consumer electronics adviser, I am advising you to donate your +current VCR to a grate resident, who will laugh sardonically and hurl it +into a dumpster. Then I want you to go out and purchase a vast array of +8-millimeter video equipment. + +... OK! Got everything? Well, *too bad, sucker*, because while you were +gone the electronics industry came up with an even newer format that makes +your 8-millimeter VCR look as technologically advanced as toenail dirt. +This format is called "3.5 hectare" and it will not be made available until +it is outmoded, sometime early next week, by a format called "Elroy", so +*order yours now*. + -- Dave Barry, "No Surrender in the Electronics Revolution" +% +Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them +over the horizon. + -- K. A. Arsdall +% +Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly +big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the +drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. + -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +Space is to place as eternity is to time. + -- Joseph Joubert +% +Space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve. + -- Wheeler +% +Statistics are no substitute for judgement. + -- Henry Clay +% +Statistics means never having to say you're certain. +% +Stellar rays prove fibbing never pays. Embezzlement is another matter. +% +Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all +real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an +understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. + -- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +Supervisor: Do you think you understand the basic ideas of Quantum Mechanics? +Supervisee: Ah! Well, what do we mean by "to understand" in the context of + Quantum Mechanics? +Supervisor: You mean "No", don't you? +Supervisee: Yes. + -- Overheard at a supervision. +% +Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have! +% +Take an astronaut to launch. +% +Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means +for going backwards. + -- Aldous Huxley +% +Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand. +% +That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind. + -- Neil Armstrong +% +The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. + "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty ?" he asked. + "Begin at the beginning,", the King said, very gravely, "and go on +till you come to the end: then stop." + -- Lewis Carroll +% +The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex +facts. Seek simplicity and distrust it. + -- Whitehead. +% +The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the +pavement is precisely 1 bananosecond. +% +The amount of weight an evangelist carries with the almighty is measured +in billigrahams. +% +The ark lands after The Flood. Noah lets all the animals out. Says he, "Go +and multiply." Several months pass. Noah decides to check up on the animals. +All are doing fine except a pair of snakes. "What's the problem?" says Noah. +"Cut down some trees and let us live there", say the snakes. Noah follows +their advice. Several more weeks pass. Noah checks on the snakes again. +Lots of little snakes, everybody is happy. Noah asks, "Want to tell me how +the trees helped?" "Certainly", say the snakes. "We're adders, and we need +logs to multiply." +% +The astronomer Francesco Sizi, a contemporary of Galileo, argues that +Jupiter can have no satellites: + + There are seven windows in the head, two nostrils, two ears, two +eyes, and a mouth; so in the heavens there are two favorable stars, two +unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury alone undecided and indifferent. +From which and many other similar phenomena of nature such as the seven +metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number +of planets is necessarily seven. [...] + Moreover, the satellites are invisible to the naked eye and +therefore can have no influence on the earth and therefore would be useless +and therefore do not exist. +% +The best defense against logic is ignorance. +% +The best rebuttal to this kind of statistical argument came from the +redoubtable John W. Campbell: + + The laws of population growth tell us that approximately half the + people who were ever born in the history of the world are now + dead. There is therefore a 0.5 probability that this message is + being read by a corpse. +% +The bigger the theory the better. +% +The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. + -- Merrick Furst +% +The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives. + -- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project +% +The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom. +% +The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. + -- John Muir +% +The Commandments of the EE: + + (9) Trifle thee not with radioactive tubes and substances lest thou + commence to glow in the dark like a lightning bug, and thy wife be + frustrated and have not further use for thee except for thy wages. +(10) Commit thou to memory all the words of the prophets which are + written down in thy Bible which is the National Electrical Code, + and giveth out with the straight dope and consoleth thee when + thou hast suffered a ream job by the chief electrician. +(11) When thou muckest about with a device in an unthinking and/or + unknowing manner, thou shalt keep one hand in thy pocket. Better + that thou shouldest keep both hands in thy pockets than + experimentally determine the electrical potential of an + innocent-seeming device. +% +The Commandments of the EE: + +(1) Beware of lightning that lurketh in an uncharged condenser + lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most + embarrassing manner. +(2) Cause thou the switch that supplieth large quantities of juice to + be opened and thusly tagged, that thy days may be long in this + earthly vale of tears. +(3) Prove to thyself that all circuits that radiateth, and upon + which the worketh, are grounded and thusly tagged lest they lift + thee to a radio frequency potential and causeth thee to make like + a radiator too. +(4) Tarry thou not amongst these fools that engage in intentional + shocks for they are not long for this world and are surely + unbelievers. +% +The Commandments of the EE: + +(5) Take care that thou useth the proper method when thou takest the + measures of high-voltage circuits too, that thou dost not incinerate + both thee and thy test meter, for verily, though thou has no company + property number and can be easily surveyed, the test meter has + one and, as a consequence, bringeth much woe unto a purchasing agent. +(6) Take care that thou tamperest not with interlocks and safety devices, + for this incurreth the wrath of the chief electrician and bring + the fury of the engineers on his head. +(7) Work thou not on energized equipment for if thou doest so, thy + friends will surely be buying beers for thy widow and consoling + her in certain ways not generally acceptable to thee. +(8) Verily, verily I say unto thee, never service equipment alone, + for electrical cooking is a slow process and thou might sizzle in + thy own fat upon a hot circuit for hours on end before thy maker + sees fit to end thy misery and drag thee into his fold. +% +The devil finds work for idle circuits to do. +% +The devil finds work for idle glands. +% +The difference between reality and unreality is that reality has so +little to recommend it. + -- Allan Sherman +% +The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science +requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier. +% +The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on +weather forecasters. + -- Jean-Paul Kauffmann +% +The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed +to do the work of a man. The marketing division of Sirius Cybernetics +Corporation defines a robot as 'Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With'. +The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the +Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the +first against the wall when the revolution comes', with a footnote to effect +that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking +over the post of robotics correspondent. + Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that +had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in +the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics +Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the +wall when the revolution came'. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind +of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation +of these atoms is talking moonshine. + -- Ernest Rutherford, after he had split the atom for + the first time +% +The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be +correct. + -- William of Occam +% +The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer +and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown +suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged, +I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not +dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the +quad. And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors, +and they are squeamish about technology to this very day. So it is natural +for them to despise science fiction. + -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Science Fiction" +% +The following statement is not true. The previous statement is true. +% +The Force is what holds everything together. It has its dark side, and +it has its light side. It's sort of like cosmic duct tape. +% +"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl." + -- Dave Barry +% +The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people, +but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons. + -- Dr. David Butler, British psephologist +% +The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. +% +The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature +is to build better mice. +% +The Greatest Mathematical Error + The Mariner I space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on 28 +July 1962 towards Venus. After 13 minutes' flight a booster engine would +give acceleration up to 25,820 mph; after 44 minutes 9,800 solar cells +would unfold; after 80 days a computer would calculate the final course +corrections and after 100 days the craft would cirlce the unknown planet, +scanning the mysterious cloud in which it is bathed. + However, with an efficiency that is truly heartening, Mariner I +plunged into the Atlantic Ocean only four minutes after takeoff. + Inquiries later revealed that a minus sign had been omitted from +the instructions fed into the computer. "It was human error", a launch +spokesman said. + This minus sign cost L4,280,000. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent thinkers. +% +The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they +are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally +understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. + -- John Maynard Keynes +% +"The identical is equal to itself, since it is different." + -- Franco Spisani +% +The instruments of science do not in themselves discover truth. And there are +searchings that are not concluded by the coincidence of a pointer and a mark. + -- Fred Saberhagen, "The Berserker Wars" +% +The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. + -- L. Zadeh +% +The light of a hundred stars does not equal the light of the moon. +% +The Man Who Almost Invented The Vacuum Cleaner + The man officially credited with inventing the vacuum cleaner is +Hubert Cecil Booth. However, he got the idea from a man who almost +invented it. + In 1901 Booth visited a London music-hall. On the bill was an +American inventor with his wonder machine for removing dust from carpets. + The machine comprised a box about one foot square with a bag on top. +After watching the act -- which made everyone in the front six rows sneeze +-- Booth went round to the inventor's dressing room. + "It should suck not blow," said Booth, coming straight to the +point. "Suck?", exclaimed the enraged inventor. "Your machine just moves +the dust around the room," Booth informed him. "Suck? Suck? Sucking is +not possible," was the inventor's reply and he stormed out. Booth proved +that it was by the simple expedient of kneeling down, pursing his lips and +sucking the back of an armchair. "I almost choked," he said afterwards. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a +soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which +when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years. +% +The meek shall inherit the earth; the rest of us will go to the stars. +% +The meek shall inherit the earth; the rest of us, the Universe. +% +The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader. +% +The moon is made of green cheese. + -- John Heywood +% +The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away. +% +The more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain. +% +The most advantageous, pre-eminent thing thou canst do is not to exhibit +nor display thyself within the limits of our galaxy, but rather depart +instantaneously whence thou even now standest and flee to yet another rotten +planet in the universe, if thou canst have the good fortune to find one. + -- Carlyle +% +The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new +discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." + -- Isaac Asimov +% +The nation that controls magnetism controls the universe. + -- Chester Gould/Dick Tracy +% +The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they +serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have +no legitimacy. + -- Albert Einstein +% +The only perfect science is hind-sight. +% +The only person who always got his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe. +% +The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the `social +sciences' is: some do, some don't. + -- Ernest Rutherford +% +The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite +of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. + -- Niels Bohr +% +The perversity of nature is nowhere better demonstrated by the fact that, when +exposed to the same atmosphere, bread becomes hard while crackers become soft. +% +The problem ... is that we have run out of dinosaurs to form oil with. +Scientists working for the Department of Energy have tried to form oil using +other animals; they've piled thousands of tons of sand and Middle Eastern +countries on top of cows, raccoons, haddock, laboratory rats, etc., but so +far all they have managed to do is run up an enormous bulldozer-rental bill +and anger a lot of Middle Eastern persons. None of the animals turned into +oil, although most of the laboratory rats developed cancer. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +The purpose of Physics 7A is to make the engineers realize that they're +not perfect, and to make the rest of the people realize that they're not +engineers. +% +The rate at which a disease spreads through a corn field is a precise +measurement of the speed of blight. +% +The reason that every major university maintains a department of +mathematics is that it's cheaper than institutionalizing all those people. +% +The rule on staying alive as a forecaster is to give 'em a number or +give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once. + -- Jane Bryant Quinn +% +The Shuttle is now going five times the sound of speed. + -- Dan Rather, first landing of Columbia +% +The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and +tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will +have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy... neither its pipes nor +its theories will hold water. +% +The solution of problems is the most characteristic and peculiar sort +of voluntary thinking. + -- William James +% +The solution of this problem is trivial and is left as an exercise for +the reader. +% +The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem. + -- Peer +% +The speed of anything depends on the flow of everything. +% +The spirit of Plato dies hard. We have been unable to escape the philosophical +tradition that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the +superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality. + -- S. J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" +% +The startling truth finally became apparent, and it was this: Numbers +written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not +follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces +of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single statement took +the scientific world by storm. So many mathematical conferences got held +in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation +died of obesity and heart failure, and the science of mathematics was put +back by years. + -- Douglas Adams +% +The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant biology. +% +"The subspace _W inherits the other 8 properties of _V. And there aren't +even any property taxes." + -- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b +% +The sum of the Universe is zero. +% +The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available +data. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon +shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, +as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much +radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times +as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all. The light we +receive from the Moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the +Sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the temperature +of Heaven. The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where +the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, +i.e., Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using +the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute +temperature of the earth (~300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact +temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6C, the +temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from a liquid to a gas. +Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their +part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten +brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, +or 444.6C (Above this point it would be a vapor, not a lake.) We have, +then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. + -- "Applied Optics", vol. 11, A14, 1972 +% +The test of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. + -- Aldo Leopold +% +The tree of research must from time to time be refreshed with the blood +of bean counters. + -- Alan Kay +% +The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And +vice versa. +% +The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity. + -- Harlan Ellison +% +The unfacts, did we have them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude. +% +The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken. +% +The universe is all a spin-off of the Big Bang. +% +The universe is an island, surrounded by whatever it is that surrounds +universes. +% +The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but the +combination is locked up in the safe. + -- Peter DeVries +% +The Universe is populated by stable things. + -- Richard Dawkins +% +The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. + -- Sagan +% +The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four +forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and +bloody-mindedness. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +The University of California Statistics Department; where mean is normal, +and deviation standard. +% +The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be +done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. + -- E. Hubbard +% +The Wright Bothers weren't the first to fly. They were just the first +not to crash. +% +Theory is gray, but the golden tree of life is green. + -- Goethe +% +There *__is* no such thing as a civil engineer. +% +There are no data that cannot be plotted on a straight line if the axis +are chosen correctly. +% +"There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and engineers. +While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far the more certain." + -- Baron Rothschild, ca. 1800 +% +There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the +changes on its corollaries; that's philosophy. Two: Record many facts. +Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that's +science. Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolent Universe controlled +by Murphy's Law, sometimes offset by Brewster's Factor; that's engineering. +% +There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect the +sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the sunlight that +hits your neighbors' homes, too. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +There can be no twisted thought without a twisted molecule. + -- R. W. Gerard +% +There is a building with four floors. On the first floor, there +is a convention of architects. On the second floor, there is a +vinyl manufacturing plant. On the third floor there is a fast food +stand, and on the fourth floor there is a library. + +Q: What would happen if a librarian traveled down in a small + elevator with one other person from each floor? +A: The elevator would be full. +% +There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what +the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be +replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another +theory which states that this has already happened. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been +originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet +has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a +beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are +being, evolved. + -- Darwin +% +There is no choice before us. Either we must Succeed in providing the +rational coordination of impulses and guts, or for centuries civilization +will sink into a mere welter of minor excitements. We must provide a +Great Age or see the collapse of the upward striving of the human race. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. + -- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923 +% +There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares" +% +There is no royal road to geometry. + -- Euclid +% +There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, +however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. +Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be +discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator +on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is +even highly probable. + -- H. L. Mencken, 1930 +% + There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnapped +three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked +each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no +can opener. + A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's +cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from +pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive, +and escaped. + The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids +off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good +pitching arm and a new quantum theory. + The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising +solution to the kissing problem; his desiccated corpse was propped calmly +against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor: + Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. + Proof: assume the opposite... +% +There was a writer in 'Life' magazine ... who claimed that rabbits have +no memory, which is one of their defensive mechanisms. If they recalled +every close shave they had in the course of just an hour life would become +insupportable. + -- Kurt Vonnegut +% +There was an old Indian belief that by making love on the hide of +their favorite animal, one could guarantee the health and prosperity +of the offspring conceived thereupon. And so it goes that one Indian +couple made love on a buffalo hide. Nine months later, they were +blessed with a healthy baby son. Yet another couple huddled together +on the hide of a deer and they too were blessed with a very healthy +baby son. But a third couple, whose favorite animal was a hippopotamus, +were blessed with not one, but TWO very healthy baby sons at the conclusion +of the nine month interval. All of which proves the old theorem that: +The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of +the squaws of the other two hides. +% +There's a whole WORLD in a mud puddle! + -- Doug Clifford +% +There's no future in time travel. +% +There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking +about. + -- John von Neumann +% +They don't know how the world is shaped. And so they give it a shape, and +try to make everything fit it. They separate the right from the left, the +man from the woman, the plant from the animal, the sun from the moon. They +only want to count to two. + -- Emma Bull, "Bone Dance" +% +Things equal to nothing else are equal to each other. +% +This is clearly another case of too many mad scientists, and not enough +hunchbacks. +% +This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The +spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men +who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly. + -- Lancelot Hogben, Science for the Citizen, 1938 +% +This is the theory that Jack built. +This is the flaw that lay in the theory that Jack built. +This is the palpable verbal haze that hid the flaw that lay in... +% +This isn't true in practice -- what we've missed out is Stradivarius's +constant. And then the aside: "For those of you who don't know, that's +been called by others the fiddle factor..." + -- From a 1B Electrical Engineering lecture. +% +This place just isn't big enough for all of us. We've got to find a way +off this planet. +% +This universe shipped by weight, not by volume. Some expansion of the +contents may have occurred during shipment. +% +This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard +dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, +pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. + -- Alfred Bester, "The Stars My Destination" +% +Those who can, do; those who can't, simulate. +% +Those who can, do; those who can't, write. +Those who can't write work for the Bell Labs Record. +% +... though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage +from beginning to end. + -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" +% +Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the +molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with +Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether -- whose +existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation ... A fifth +theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about +the matter than the others. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know +what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Time is an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space. +% +Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once. + +Space is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen to you. +% +TIRED of calculating components of vectors? Displacements along direction of +force getting you down? Well, now there's help. Try amazing "Dot-Product", +the fast, easy way many professionals have used for years and is now available +to YOU through this special offer. Three out of five engineering consultants +recommend "Dot-Product" for their clients who use vector products. Mr. +Gumbinowitz, mechanical engineer, in a hidden-camera interview... + "Dot-Product really works! Calculating Z-axis force components has + never been easier." +Yes, you too can take advantage of the amazing properties of Dot-Product. Use +it to calculate forces, velocities, displacements, and virtually any vector +components. How much would you pay for it? But wait, it also calculates the +work done in Joules, Ergs, and, yes, even BTU's. Divide Dot-Product by the +magnitude of the vectors and it becomes an instant angle calculator! Now, how +much would you pay? All this can be yours for the low, low price of $19.95!! +But that's not all! If you order before midnight, you'll also get "Famous +Numbers of Famous People" as a bonus gift, absolutely free! Yes, you'll get +Avogadro's number, Planck's, Euler's, Boltzmann's, and many, many, more!! +Call 1-800-DOT-6000. Operators are standing by. That number again... +1-800-DOT-6000. Supplies are limited, so act now. This offer is not +available through stores and is void where prohibited by law. +% +To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic contrivances +may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence. + -- Joseph Glanvill, 1661 +% +To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. + -- Thomas Edison +% +Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity? + +And where does it go after it leaves the toaster? + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% +Top scientists agree that with the present rate of consumption, the earth's +supply of gravity will be exhausted before the 24th century. As man +struggles to discover cheaper alternatives, we need your help. Please... + + CONSERVE GRAVITY + +Follow these simple suggestions: + +(1) Walk with a light step. Carry helium balloons if possible. +(2) Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights. +(3) Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like curling. +(4) Avoid showers .. take baths instead. +(5) Don't hang all your clothes in the closet ... Keep them in one big pile. +(6) Stop flipping pancakes +% +Torque is cheap. +% +Two is not equal to three, even for large values of two. +% +Two men are in a hot-air balloon. Soon, they find themselves lost in a +canyon somewhere. One of the three men says, "I've got an idea. We can +call for help in this canyon and the echo will carry our voices to the +end of the canyon. Someone's bound to hear us by then!" + So he leans over the basket and screams out, "Helllloooooo! Where +are we?" (They hear the echo several times). + Fifteen minutes later, they hear this echoing voice: "Helllloooooo! +You're lost!" + The shouter comments, "That must have been a mathematician." + Puzzled, his friend asks, "Why do you say that?" + "For three reasons. First, he took a long time to answer, second, +he was absolutely correct, and, third, his answer was absolutely useless." +% +Two percent of zero is almost nothing. +% +Two wrights don't make a rong, they make an airplane. Or bicycles. +% +UFOs are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist. +% +Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem +in relation to a bigger problem. + -- P. D. Ouspensky +% +Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, +opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none. + -- Doug Larson +% +We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is +whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling +is that it is not crazy enough. + -- Niels Bohr +% +We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his +own facts. + -- Patrick Moynihan +% +We are sorry. We cannot complete your call as dialed. Please check +the number and dial again or ask your operator for assistance. + +This is a recording. +% +We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved. +% +We can predict everything, except the future. +% +We cannot command nature except by obeying her. + -- Sir Francis Bacon +% +We dedicate this book to our fellow citizens who, for love of truth, take from +their own wants by taxes and gifts, and now and then send forth one of +themselves as dedicated servant, to forward the search into the mysteries and +marvelous simplicities of this strange and beautiful Universe, Our home. + -- "Gravitation", Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler +% +"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company." +% +We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything. +% +We don't know who it was that discovered water, but we're pretty sure +that it wasn't a fish. + -- Marshall McLuhan +% +We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids? + -- I. I. Rabi to the Atomic Energy Commission +% +We have a equal opportunity Calculus class -- it's fully integrated. +% +We laugh at the Indian philosopher, who to account for the support +of the earth, contrived the hypothesis of a huge elephant, and to support +the elephant, a huge tortoise. If we will candidly confess the truth, we +know as little of the operation of the nerves, as he did of the manner in +which the earth is supported: and our hypothesis about animal spirits, or +about the tension and vibrations of the nerves, are as like to be true, as +his about the support of the earth. His elephant was a hypothesis, and our +hypotheses are elephants. Every theory in philosophy, which is built on +pure conjecture, is an elephant; and every theory that is supported partly +by fact, and partly by conjecture, is like Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose +feet were partly of iron, and partly of clay. + -- Thomas Reid, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind", 1764 +% +... we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection +by viewing all basic capacities of our brain as direct adaptations. +I do not doubt that natural selection acted in building our oversized +brains -- and I am equally confident that our brains became large as +an adaptation for definite roles (probably a complex set of interacting +functions). But these assumptions do not lead to the notion, often +uncritically embraced by strict Darwinians, that all major capacities +of the brain must arise as direct products of natural selection. + -- S. J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" +% +We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful +new world. We will see it when we believe it. + -- Saul Alinsky +% +... we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent +observations and inferences by the thousands. The earth is billions of +years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary +descent. Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but +do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither +flat nor at the center of the universe? Science *has* taught us some +things with confidence! Evolution on an ancient earth is as well +established as our planet's shape and position. Our continuing struggle +to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not +cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" -- +into doubt. + -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2. +% +We warn the reader in advance that the proof presented here depends on a +clever but highly unmotivated trick. + -- Howard Anton, "Elementary Linear Algebra" +% +We who revel in nature's diversity and feel instructed by every animal tend to +brand Homo sapiens as the greatest catastrophe since the Cretaceous extinction. + -- S. J. Gould +% +We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical +problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter. +% +We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center +of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week, +but for some reason nobody's ever done it. + -- Andy Rooney +% +Weinberg, as a young grocery clerk, advised the grocery manager to get +rid of rutabagas which nobody ever bought. He did so. "Well, kid, that +was a great idea," said the manager. Then he paused and asked the killer +question, "NOW what's the least popular vegetable?" + +Law: Once you eliminate your #1 problem, #2 gets a promotion. + -- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting" +% +Wernher von Braun settled for a V-2 when he coulda had a V-8. +% +"What I've done, of course, is total garbage." + -- R. Willard, Pure Math 430a +% +What is algebra, exactly? Is it one of those three-cornered things? + -- J. M. Barrie +% +What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. + -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875 +% +What is now proved was once only imagin'd. + -- William Blake +% +What is research but a blind date with knowledge? + -- Will Harvey +% +What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, +which is the exact opposite. + -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical Essays", 1928 +% +What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go around the sun. If we went +around the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work. + -- Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet" +% +What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying. + -- Nikita Khruschev +% +What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener. +% +When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. +But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute -- and it's longer than any +hour. That's relativity. + -- Albert Einstein +% +When Alexander Graham Bell died in 1922, the telephone people interrupted +service for one minute in his honor. They've been honoring him intermittently +ever since, I believe. + -- The Grab Bag +% +When some people discover the truth, they just can't understand why +everybody isn't eager to hear it. +% +When speculation has done its worst, two plus two still equals four. + -- S. Johnson +% +"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." + -- Jon Carroll +% +When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the +stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them +from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were +set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the corners as +bodies of a lower grade ... + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the +plane will fly. + -- Donald Douglas +% +When you are about to do an objective and scientific piece of investigation +of a topic, it is well to gave the answer firmly in hand, so that you can +proceed forthrightly, without being deflected or swayed, directly to the goal. + -- Amrom Katz +% +When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by +asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't +know the answer either. + -- Edgar R. Fiedler +% +Where are the calculations that go with a calculated risk? +% +WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE + Oh, dear, where can the matter be + When it's converted to energy? + There is a slight loss of parity. + Johnny's so long at the fair. +% +Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to +examine the laws of heat. + -- Christopher Morley +% + While the engineer developed his thesis, the director leaned over to +his assistant and whispered, "Did you ever hear of why the sea is salt?" + "Why the sea is salt?" whispered back the assistant. "What do you +mean?" + The director continued: "When I was a little kid, I heard the story of +`Why the sea is salt' many times, but I never thought it important until just +a moment ago. It's something like this: Formerly the sea was fresh water and +salt was rare and expensive. A miller received from a wizard a wonderful +machine that just ground salt out of itself all day long. At first the miller +thought himself the most fortunate man in the world, but soon all the villages +had salt to last them for centuries and still the machine kept on grinding +more salt. The miller had to move out of his house, he had to move off his +acres. At last he determined that he would sink the machine in the sea and +be rid of it. But the mill ground so fast that boat and miller and machine +were sunk together, and down below, the mill still went on grinding and that's +why the sea is salt." + "I don't get you," said the assistant. + -- Guy Endore, "Men of Iron" +% +White dwarf seeks red giant for binary relationship. +% +Why do mathematicians insist on using words that already have another +meaning? "It is the complex case that is easier to deal with." "If it +doesn't happen at a corner, but at an edge, it nonetheless happens at a +corner." +% +Why don't you fix your little problem... and light this candle? + -- Alan Shepherd, the first man into space, Gemini program +% +With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once +build a nuclear balm? +% +With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand +miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and +still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no +such thing as progress. + -- Ransom K. Ferm +% +Without life, Biology itself would be impossible. +% +Xerox does it again and again and again and ... +% +Xerox never comes up with anything original. +% +Ya'll hear about the geometer who went to the beach to catch some +rays and became a tangent ? +% +"Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context." +% + "Yes, let's consider," said Bruno, putting his thumb into his +mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse. + "What do you keep that mouse for?" I said. "You should either +bury it or else throw it into the brook." + "Why, it's to measure with!" cried Bruno. "How ever would you +do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half +long, and two mouses wide." + I stopped him as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me +how it was used... + -- Lewis Carroll, "Sylvie and Bruno" +% + "Yo, Mike!" + "Yeah, Gabe?" + "We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah." + "I thought you fixed that last century!" + "No, no, not that. Someone's found a security problem in the physics +program. They're getting energy out of nowhere." + "Blessit! Lemme look... Hey, it's +there all right! OK, just a sec... +There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?" + -- Cold Fusion, 1989 +% +You are a taxi driver. Your cab is yellow and black, and has been in +use for only seven years. One of its windshield wipers is broken, and +the carburetor needs adjusting. The tank holds 20 gallons, but at the +moment is only three-quarters full. How old is the taxi driver?" +% +You can not get anything worthwhile done without raising a sweat. + -- The First Law Of Thermodynamics + +What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth. + -- The Second Law Of Thermodynamics + +You can not win the game, and you are not allowed to stop playing. + -- The Third Law Of Thermodynamics +% +You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding +decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left +over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart. + -- F. Allen +% +You can't cheat the phone company. +% +You cannot have a science without measurement. + -- R. W. Hamming +% +You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi. +% +You mean you didn't *know* she was off making lots of little phone companies? +% +You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than +about 10^12 to 1. + -- Ernest Rutherford +% +You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that, +contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from houses. +Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many scientists actually +use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the summer. If you visit a +scientist's house on a sultry August day, you'll find a cheerful fire +roaring on the hearth and the scientist sitting nearby, remarking on how +cool he is and drinking heavily. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +You will never amount to much. + -- Munich Schoolmaster, to Albert Einstein, age 10 +% +It is the theory which decides what can be observed. + -- Albert Einstein +% +God is subtle, but he is not malicious. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Dopeler effect: the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they +come at you rapidly. + -- Greg Oetjen of Lorton, VA in the Washington Post + "Style Invitational Report from Week 278" published + August 2, 1998 +% +Against all odds, over a noisy telephone line, tapped by the tax +authorities and the secret police, Alice will happily attempt, with +someone she doesn't trust, whom she cannot hear clearly, and who is +probably someone else, to fiddle her tax returns and to organise a coup +d'etat, while at the same time minimising the cost of the phone call. + +A coding theorist is someone who doesn't think Alice is crazy. + -- John Gordon, "Alice and Bob After-Dinner Speech", Zurich Seminar, + April 1984 +% diff --git a/fortunes/songs-poems b/fortunes/songs-poems new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53eae06 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/songs-poems @@ -0,0 +1,7156 @@ +100 buckets of bits on the bus +100 buckets of bits +Take one down, short it to ground +FF buckets of bits on the bus + +FF buckets of bits on the bus +FF buckets of bits +Take one down, short it to ground +FE buckets of bits on the bus + +ad infinitum... +% +99 blocks of crud on the disk, +99 blocks of crud! +You patch a bug, and dump it again: +100 blocks of crud on the disk! + +100 blocks of crud on the disk, +100 blocks of crud! +You patch a bug, and dump it again: +101 blocks of crud on the disk! ... +% +A bit of talcum +Is always walcum + -- Ogden Nash +% +A box without hinges, key, or lid, +Yet golden treasure inside is hid. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +A bunch of the boys were whooping it in the Malemute saloon; +The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune; +Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, +And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou. + -- Robert W. Service +% +A cousin of mine once said about money, +money is always there but the pockets change; +it is not in the same pockets after a change, +and that is all there is to say about money. + -- Gertrude Stein +% +A Elbereth Gilthoniel, +silivren penna m'iriel +o menel aglar elenath! +Na chaered palan-d'iriel +o galadhremmin ennorath, +Fanuilos, le linnathon +nef aear, s'i nef aearon! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +A fitter fits; Though sinners sin +A cutter cuts; And thinners thin +And an aircraft spotter spots; And paper-blotters blot +A baby-sitter I've never yet +Baby-sits -- Had letters let +But an otter never ots. Or seen an otter ot. + +A batter bats +(Or scatters scats); +A potting shed's for potting; +But no one's found +A bounder bound +Or caught an otter otting. + -- Ralph Lewin +% +A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and +B is for biff, which reads all your mail. +C is for cc, as hackers recall, while +D is for dd, the command that does all. +E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and +F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees. +G is for grep, a clever detective, while +H is for halt, which may seem defective. +I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and +J is for join, which nobody uses. +K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while +L is for lex, which is missing from DOS. +M is for more, from which less was begot, and +N is for nice, which it really is not. +O is for od, which prints out things nice, while +P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice. +Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and +R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table. +S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while +T is for true, which does very little. +U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and +V is for vi, which is hard to abort. +W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while +X is, well, X, of dubious fame. +Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and +Z is for zcat, which handles compression. + -- THE ABC'S OF UNIX +% +A lady with one of her ears applied +To an open keyhole heard, inside, +Two female gossips in converse free -- +The subject engaging them was she. +"I think", said one, "and my husband thinks +That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" +As soon as no more of it she could hear +The lady, indignant, removed her ear. +"I will not stay," she said with a pout, +"To hear my character lied about!" + -- Gopete Sherany +% +A little word of doubtful number, +A foe to rest and peaceful slumber. +If you add an "s" to this, +Great is the metamorphosis. +Plural is plural now no more, +And sweet what bitter was before. +What am I? +% +A man is like a rusty wheel on a rusty cart, +He sings his song as he rattles along and then he falls apart. + -- Richard Thompson +% +A man of genius makes no mistakes. +His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. + -- James Joyce, "Ulysses" +% +A man who fishes for marlin in ponds +will put his money in Etruscan bonds. +% +A mighty creature is the germ, +Though smaller than the pachyderm. +His customary dwelling place +Is deep within the human race. +His childish pride he often pleases +By giving people strange diseases. +Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? +You probably contain a germ. + -- Ogden Nash +% +A pig is a jolly companion, +Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt -- +A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, +Though mountains may topple and tilt. +When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, +When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, +Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, +You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, +You'll never go wrong with a pig! + -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" +% +A robin redbreast in a cage +Puts all Heaven in a rage. + -- Blake +% +A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. +Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid. + -- Genesis, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" + +I don't know what it's about. I'm just the drummer. Ask Peter. + -- Phil Collins in 1975, when asked about the message behind + the previous year's Genesis release, "The Lamb Lies Down + on Broadway". +% +A single flow'r he sent me, since we met. +All tenderly his messenger he chose; +Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-- +One perfect rose. + +I knew the language of the floweret; +"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose." +Love long has taken for his amulet +One perfect rose. + +Why is it no one ever sent me yet +One perfect limousine, do you suppose? +Ah no, it's always just my luck to get +One perfect rose. + -- Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose" +% +A truth that's told with bad intent +Beats all the lies you can invent. + -- William Blake +% +A-Z affectionately, +1 to 10 alphabetically, +from here to eternity without in betweens, +still looking for a custom fit in an off-the-rack world, +sales talk from sales assistants + when all i want to do is lower your resistance, +no rhythm in cymbals no tempo in drums, +love's on arrival, +she comes when she comes, +right on the target but wide of the mark... +% +Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) +Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, +And saw, within the moonlight in his room, +Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, +An angel writing in a book of gold. +Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, +And to the presence in the room he said, +"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head, +And with a look made of all sweet accord, +Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." +"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay not so," +Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, +But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then, +Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." +The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night +It came again with a great wakening light, +And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, +And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. + -- James Henry Leigh Hunt, "Abou Ben Adhem" +% +After a while you learn the subtle difference +Between holding a hand and chaining a soul, +And you learn that love doesn't mean security, +And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts +And presents aren't promises +And you begin to accept your defeats +With your head up and your eyes open, +With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child, +And you learn to build all your roads +On today because tomorrow's ground +Is too uncertain. And futures have +A way of falling down in midflight, +After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. +So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting +For someone to bring you flowers. +And you learn that you really can endure... +That you really are strong, +And you really do have worth +And you learn and learn +With every goodbye you learn. + -- Veronic Shoffstall, "Comes the Dawn" +% +After all my erstwhile dear, +My no longer cherished, +Need we say it was not love, +Just because it perished? + -- Edna St. Vincent Millay +% +Again she fled, but swift he came. +Tin'uviel! Tin'uviel! +He called her by her elvish name; +And there she halted listening. +One moment stood she, and a spell +His voice laid on her: Beren came +And doom fell on Tin'uviel +That in his arms lay glistening. + +As Beren looked into her eyes +Within the shadows of her hair, +The trembling starlight of the skies +He saw there mirrored shimmering. +Tin'uviel the elven-fair, +Immortal maiden elven-wise, +About him cast her shadowy hair +And arms like silver glimmering. + +Long was the way that fate them bore, +O'er stony mountains cold and grey, +Through halls of iron and darkling door, +And woods of nightshade morrowless. +The Sundering Seas between them lay, +And yet at last they met once more, +And long ago they passed away +In the forest singing sorrowless. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% + Against Idleness and Mischief + +How doth the little busy bee How skillfully she builds her cell! +Improve each shining hour, How neat she spreads the wax! +And gather honey all the day And labours hard to store it well +From every opening flower! With the sweet food she makes. + +In works of labour or of skill In books, or work, or healthful play, +I would be busy too; Let my first years be passed, +For Satan finds some mischief still That I may give for every day +For idle hands to do. Some good account at last. + -- Isaac Watts, 1674-1748 +% +Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, +Or what's a heaven for ? + -- Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto" +% +Ah, but the choice of dreams to live, +there's the rub. + +For all dreams are not equal, +some exit to nightmare +most end with the dreamer + +But at least one must be lived ... and died. +% +Ah, my friends, from the prison, they ask unto me, +"How good, how good does it feel to be free?" +And I answer them most mysteriously: +"Are birds free from the chains of the sky-way?" + -- Bob Dylan +% +Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, +Aleph-null bottles of beer, +You take one down, and pass it around, +Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. +% +Alive without breath, +As cold as death; +Never thirsty, ever drinking, +All in mail never clinking. +% +All I need to have a good time, +Is a reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine. +With those three things I don't need no sunshine, +A reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine. + +All I want is to never grow old, +I want to wash in a bathtub of gold. +I want 97 kilos already rolled, +I want to wash in a bathtub of gold. + +I want to light my cigars with 10 dollar bills, +I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills. +I want a bottle of Red Eye that's always filled, +I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills. + -- Country Joe and the Fish, "Zachariah" +% +All my friends are getting married, +Yes, they're all growing old, +They're all staying home on the weekend, +They're all doing what they're told. +% +All that is gold does not glitter, +Not all those who wander are lost; +The old that is strong does not wither, +Deep roots are not reached by the frost. +From the ashes a fire shall be woken, +A light from the shadows shall spring; +Renewed shall be blade that was broken, +The crownless again shall be king. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% + All that you touch, And all you create, + All that you see, And all you destroy, + All that you taste, All that you do, + All you feel, And all you say, + And all that you love, All that you eat, + And all that you hate, And everyone you meet, + All you distrust, All that you slight, + All you save, And everyone you fight, + And all that you give, And all that is now, + And all that you deal, And all that is gone, + All that you buy, And all that's to come, + Beg, borrow or steal, And everything under the sun is + in tune, + But the sun is eclipsed + By the moon. + +There is no dark side of the moon... really... matter of fact it's all dark. + -- Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon" +% +All the lines have been written There's been Sandburg, +It's sad but it's true Keats, Poe and McKuen +With all the words gone, They all had their day +What's a young poet to do? And knew what they're doin' + +But of all the words written The bird is a strange one, +And all the lines read, So small and so tender +There's one I like most, Its breed still unknown, +And by a bird it was said! Not to mention its gender. + +It reminds me of days of So what is this line +Both gloom and of light. Whose author's unknown +It still lifts my spirits And still makes me giggle +And starts the day right. Even now that I'm grown? + +I've read all the greats +Both starving and fat, +But none was as great as +"I tot I taw a puddy tat." + -- Etta Stallings, "An Ode To Childhood" +% +All the world's a VAX, +And all the coders merely butchers; +They have their exits and their entrails; +And one int in his time plays many widths, +His sizeof being _N bytes. At first the infant, +Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms. +And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun, +And shining morning face, creeping like slug +Unwillingly to school. + -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11 +% +All who joy would win Must share it -- +Happiness was born a twin. + -- Lord Byron +% +An eye in a blue face +Saw an eye in a green face. +"That eye is like this eye" +Said the first eye, +"But in low place, +Not in high place." +% +An Hacker there was, one of the finest sort +Who controlled the system; graphics was his sport. +A manly man, to be a wizard able; +Many a protected file he had sitting on his table. +His console, when he typed, a man might hear +Clicking and feeping wind as clear, +Aye, and as loud as does the machine room bell +Where my lord Hacker was Prior of the cell. +The Rule of good St Savage or St Doeppnor +As old and strict he tended to ignore; +He let go by the things of yesterday +And took the modern world's more spacious way. +He did not rate that text as a plucked hen +Which says that Hackers are not holy men. +And that a hacker underworked is a mere +Fish out of water, flapping on the pier. +That is to say, a hacker out of his cloister. +That was a text he held not worth an oyster. +And I agreed and said his views were sound; +Was he to study till his head wend round +Poring over books in the cloisters? Must he toil +As Andy bade and till the very soil? +Was he to leave the world upon the shelf? +Let Andy have his labor to himself! + -- Chaucer + [well, almost. Ed.] +% +And all that the Lorax left here in this mess +was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless." +Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess. +That was long, long ago, and each day since that day, +I've worried and worried and worried away. +Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart, +I've worried about it with all of my heart. + +"BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here, +the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear! +UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, +nothing is going to get better - it's not. +So... CATCH!" cries the Oncler. He lets something fall. +"It's a truffula seed. It's the last one of all! + +"You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds. +And truffula trees are what everyone needs. +Plant a new truffula -- treat it with care. +Give it clean water and feed it fresh air. +Grow a forest -- protect it from axes that hack. +Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!" +% +And as we stand on the edge of darkness +Let our chant fill the void +That others may know + + In the land of the night + The ship of the sun + Is drawn by + The grateful dead. + -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC. +% +And did those feet, in ancient times, +Walk upon England's mountains green? +And was the Holy Lamb of God +In England's pleasant pastures seen? +And did the Countenance Divine +Shine forth upon these crowded hills? +And was Jerusalem builded here +Among these dark satanic mills? + +Bring me my bow of burning gold! +Bring me my arrows of desire! +Bring me my spears! O clouds unfold! +Bring me my chariot of fire! +I shall not cease from mental fight, +Nor shall my sword rest in my hand, +Till we have built Jerusalem +In England's green and pleasant land. + -- William Blake, "Jerusalem" +% +And here I wait so patiently +Waiting to find out what price +You have to pay to get out of +Going thru all of these things twice + -- Dylan, "Memphis Blues Again" +% +And I heard Jeff exclaim, +As they strolled out of sight, +"Merry Christmas to all -- +You take credit cards, right?" + -- "Outsiders" comic +% +And if California slides into the ocean, +Like the mystics and statistics say it will. +I predict this motel will be standing, +Until I've paid my bill. + -- Warren Zevon, "Desperados Under the Eaves" +% +And if sometime, somewhere, someone asketh thee, +"Who kilt thee?", tell them it 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy! +% +And if you wonder, +What I am doing, +As I am heading for the sink. +I am spitting out all the bitterness, +Along with half of my last drink. +% +And in the heartbreak years that lie ahead, +Be true to yourself and the Grateful Dead. + -- Joan Baez +% +And miles to go before I sleep. + -- Robert Frost +% +And now your toner's toney, Disk blocks aplenty +And your paper near pure white, Await your laser drawn lines, +The smudges on your soul are gone Your intricate fonts, +And your output's clean as light.. Your pictures and signs. + +We've labored with your father, Your amputative absence +The venerable XGP, Has made the Ten dumb, +But his slow artistic hand, Without you, Dover, +Lacks your clean velocity. We're system untounged- + +Theses and papers DRAW Plots and TEXage +And code in a queue Have been biding their time, +Dover, oh Dover, With LISP code and programs, +We've been waiting for you. And this crufty rhyme. + +Dover, oh Dover, Dover, oh Dover, arisen from dead. +We welcome you back, Dover, oh Dover, awoken from bed. +Though still you may jam, Dover, oh Dover, welcome back to the Lab. +You're on the right track. Dover, oh Dover, we've missed your clean + hand... +% +...and report cards I was always afraid to show +Mama'd come to school +and as I'd sit there softly cryin' +Teacher'd say he's just not tryin' +Got a good head if he'd apply it +but you know yourself +it's always somewhere else +I'd build me a castle +with dragons and kings +and I'd ride off with them +As I stood by my window +and looked out on those +Brooklyn roads + -- Neil Diamond, "Brooklyn Roads" +% +And so it was, later, +As the miller told his tale, +That her face, at first just ghostly, +Turned a whiter shade of pale. + -- Procol Harum +% +And the silence came surging softly backwards +When the plunging hooves were gone... + -- Walter de La Mare, "The Listeners" +% +And this is good old Boston, +The home of the bean and the cod, +Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, +And the Cabots talk only to God. +% +And we heard him exclaim +As he started to roam: +"I'm a hologram, kids, +please don't try this at home!'" + -- Bob Violence +% +And... What in the world ever became of Sweet Jane? + She's lost her sparkle, you see she isn't the same. + Livin' on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine + All a friend can say is "Ain't it a shame?" + -- The Grateful Dead +% +Angels we have heard on High +Tell us to go out and Buy. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Antonio Antonio +Was tired of living alonio +He thought he would woo Antonio Antonio +Miss Lucamy Lu, Rode of on his polo ponio +Miss Lucamy Lucy Molonio. And found the maid + In a bowery shade, + Sitting and knitting alonio. +Antonio Antonio +Said if you will be my ownio +I'll love tou true Oh nonio Antonio +And buy for you You're far too bleak and bonio +An icery creamry conio. And all that I wish + You singular fish + Is that you will quickly begonio. +Antonio Antonio +Uttered a dismal moanio +And went off and hid +Or I'm told that he did +In the Antartical Zonio. +% +April is the cruellest month... + -- Thomas Stearns Eliot +% +Are there those in the land of the brave +Who can tell me how I should behave + When I am disgraced + Because I erased + A file I intended to save? +% +As for the women, though we scorn and flout 'em, +We may live with, but cannot live without 'em. + -- Frederic Reynolds +% +As I was going up Punch Card Hill, + Feeling worse and worser, +There I met a C.R.T. + And it drop't me a cursor. + +C.R.T., C.R.T., + Phosphors light on you! +If I had fifty hours a day + I'd spend them all at you. + -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes +% +As I was passing Project MAC, +I met a Quux with seven hacks. +Every hack had seven bugs; +Every bug had seven manifestations; +Every manifestation had seven symptoms. +Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, +How many losses at Project MAC? +% +As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day, +I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay, +The words were torn and tattered, +From the storm the night before, +The wind and rain had done its work and this is how it goes, + +Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys Spearmint beer, +Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complexion clear, +Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar, +And Texaco's a beauty cream that's used by every star. + +Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigedaire, +Learn to play the piano in your winter underwear, +Doctors say that babies should smoke until they're three, +And people over sixty-five should bathe in Lipton tea. +% +As me an' me marrer was readin' a tyape, +The tyape gave a shriek mark an' tried tae escyape; +It skipped ower the gyate tae the end of the field, +An' jigged oot the room wi' a spool an' a reel! +Follow the leader, Johnny me laddie, +Follow it through, me canny lad O; +Follow the transport, Johnny me laddie, +Away, lad, lie away, canny lad O! + -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +As some day it may happen that a victim must be found +I've got a little list -- I've got a little list +Of society offenders who might well be underground +And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed. + -- Koko, "The Mikado" +% +At times discretion should be thrown aside, +and with the foolish we should play the fool. + -- Menander +% +Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Azh nazg durbatal^uk, azh nazg gimbatul, +Azh nazg thrakatal^uk agh burzum ishi krimpatul! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely +get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Be valiant, but not too venturous. +Let thy attire be comely, but not costly. + -- John Lyly +% +Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all +Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. + -- John Keats +% +Because I do, +Because I do not hope, +Because I do not hope to survive +Injustice from the Palace, death from the air, +Because I do, only do, +I continue... + -- T. S. Pynchon +% +Beneath this stone lies Murphy, +They buried him today, +He lived the life of Riley, +While Riley was away. +% + better !pout !cry + better watchout + lpr why + santa claus < north pole > town + + cat /etc/passwd > list + ncheck list + ncheck list + cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist + cat list | grep nice > giftlist + santa claus < north pole > town + + who | grep sleeping + who | grep awake + who | grep 'bad\|good' + for (goodness sake) { + be good + } +% +Between the idea +And the reality +Between the motion +And the act +Falls the Shadow + -- T. S. Eliot, "The Hollow Man" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to system service dispatching.] +% +Big M, Little M, many mumbling mice +Are making midnight music in the moonlight, +Mighty nice! +% +Bit off more than my mind could chew, +Shower or suicide, what do I do? + -- Julie Brown, "Will I Make it Through the Eighties?" +% +Black shiny mollies and bright colored guppies, +Shy little angels as gentle as puppies, +Swimming and diving with scarcely a swish, +They were just some of my tropical fish. + +Then I got mantas that sting in the water, +Deadly piranhas that itch for a slaughter, +Savage male betas that bite with a squish, +Now I have many less tropical fish. + + If you think that + Fish are peaceful + That's an empty wish. + Just dump them together + And leave them alone, + And soon you will have -- no fish. + -- To My Favorite Things +% +Blackout, heatwave, .44 caliber homicide, +The bums drop dead and the dogs go mad in packs on the West Side, +A young girl standing on a ledge, looks like another suicide, +She wants to hit those bricks, + 'cause the news at six got to stick to a deadline, +While the millionaires hide in Beekman place, +The bag ladies throw their bones in my face, +I get attacked by a kid with stereo sound, +I don't want to hear it but he won't turn it down... + -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" +% +Boy, get your head out of the stars above, +You get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love. +Save your heart and let your body be enough, +To get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love. +Save your heart and let your body be enough, +And get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love. + -- Mac Macinelli, "Minimum Love" +% +Breathe deep the gathering gloom. +Watch lights fade from every room. +Bed-sitter people look back and lament; +another day's useless energies spent. + +Impassioned lovers wrestle as one. +Lonely man cries for love and has none. +New mother picks up and suckles her son. +Senior citizens wish they were young. + +Cold-hearted orb that rules the night; +Removes the colors from our sight. +Red is grey and yellow white. +But we decide which is real, and which is an illusion." + -- The Moody Blues, "Days of Future Passed" +% +Brillineggiava, ed i tovoli slati + girlavano ghimbanti nella vaba; +i borogovi eran tutti mimanti + e la moma radeva fuorigraba. + +"Figliuolo mio, sta' attento al Gibrovacco, + dagli artigli e dal morso lacerante; +fuggi l'uccello Giuggiolo, e nel sacco + metti infine il frumioso Bandifante". + -- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky" +% +But has any little atom, + While a-sittin' and a-splittin', +Ever stopped to think or CARE + That E = m c**2 ? +% +But I was there and I saw what you did, +I saw it with my own two eyes. +So you can wipe off that grin; +I know where you've been-- +It's all been a pack of lies! +% +But scientists, who ought to know +Assure us that it must be so. +Oh, let us never, never doubt +What nobody is sure about. + -- Hilaire Belloc +% +But soft you, the fair Ophelia: +Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, +But get thee to a nunnery -- go! + -- Mark "The Bard" Twain +% +But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, +In proving foresight may be vain: +The best laid schemes o' mice an' men +Gang aft a-gley, +An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain +For promised joy. + -- Robert Burns, "To a Mouse", 1785 +% +Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes +Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn; +Less dear than army ants in apple pies +Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn, +Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit; +Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose +They suck, and like the double-breasted suit +Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose, +Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed; +And stem the produce of thy waspish wits: +Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed; +Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits. +Be off, I say; go bug somebody new, +Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you. +% +By the time you swear you're his, +shivering and sighing +and he vows his passion is +infinite, undying -- +Lady, make a note of this: +One of you is lying. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Unfortunate Coincidence" +% +By the yard, life is hard. +By the inch, it's a cinch. +% +Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes, +Calm down, it's only bits and bytes, +Calm down, and speak to me in English, +Please realize that I'm not one of your computerites. +% +Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? +Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, +A root or two, a torus and a node: +The inverse of my verse, a null domain. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Candy +Is dandy +But liquor +Is quicker. + -- Ogden Nash, "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" + +Fortune updates the great quotes: #53. + Candy is dandy; but liquor is quicker, + and sex won't rot your teeth. +% +Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world. + -- The Beach Boys +% +Cecil, you're my final hope +Of finding out the true Straight Dope +For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat +But none of my cats are at all like that. +This unusual animal (so it is said) +Is simultaneously alive and dead! +What I don't understand is just why he +Can't be one or the other, unquestionably. +My future now hangs in between eigenstates. +In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't. +If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way +And rescue my psyche from quantum decay. +But if this queer thing has perplexed even you, +Then I will *___and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo. + -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium + of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams +% +Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, +But it's very funny -- did you ever try buying them without money? + -- Ogden Nash +% +Charlie was a chemist, +But Charlie is no more. +For what he thought was H2O, +Was H2SO4. +% +Children aren't happy without something to ignore, +And that's what parents were created for. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Chivalry, Schmivalry! + Roger the thief has a + method he uses for + sneaky attacks: +Folks who are reading are + Characteristically + Always Forgetting to + Guard their own bac ... +% +Christmas time is here, by Golly; Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens; +Disapproval would be folly; Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens; +Deck the halls with hunks of holly; Even though the prospect sickens, +Fill the cup and don't say when... Brother, here we go again. + +On Christmas day, you can't get sore; Relations sparing no expense'll, +Your fellow man you must adore; Send some useless old utensil, +There's time to rob him all the more, Or a matching pen and pencil, +The other three hundred and sixty-four! Just the thing I need... how nice. + +It doesn't matter how sincere Hark The Herald-Tribune sings, +It is, nor how heartfelt the spirit; Advertising wondrous things. +Sentiment will not endear it; God Rest Ye Merry Merchants, +What's important is... the price. May you make the Yuletide pay. + Angels We Have Heard On High, +Let the raucous sleighbells jingle; Tell us to go out and buy. +Hail our dear old friend, Kris Kringle, Sooooo... +Driving his reindeer across the sky, +Don't stand underneath when they fly by! + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Cold be hand and heart and bone, +and cold be sleep under stone; +never more to wake on stony bed, +never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. + +In the black wind the stars shall die, +and still on gold here let them lie, +till the dark lord lifts his hand +over dead sea and withered land. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Come fill the cup and in the fire of spring +Your winter garment of repentance fling. +The bird of time has but a little way +To flutter -- and the bird is on the wing. + -- Omar Khayyam +% +Come live with me and be my love, +And we will some new pleasures prove +Of golden sands and crystal brooks +With silken lines, and silver hooks. +There's nothing that I wouldn't do +If you would be my POSSLQ. + +You live with me, and I with you, +And you will be my POSSLQ. +I'll be your friend and so much more; +That's what a POSSLQ is for. + +And everything we will confess; +Yes, even to the IRS. +Some day on what we both may earn, +Perhaps we'll file a joint return. +You'll share my pad, my taxes, joint; +You'll share my life - up to a point! +And that you'll be so glad to do, +Because you'll be my POSSLQ. +% +Come live with me, and be my love, +And we will some new pleasures prove +Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, +With silken lines, and silver hooks. + -- John Donne +% +Come on, Virginia, don't make me wait! +Catholic girls start much too late, +Ah, but sooner or later, it comes down to fate, +I might as well be the one. +Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray, +Built you a temple and locked you away, +Ah, but they never told you the price that you paid, +The things that you might have done. +So come on, Virginia, show me a sign, +Send up a signal, I'll throw you a line, +That stained glass curtain that you're hiding behind, +Never lets in the sun. +Darling, only the good die young! + -- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young" +% +Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, +And every vector dreams of matrices. +Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: +It whispers of a more ergodic zone. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it does run over, +Tonight we will all merry be -- tomorrow we'll get sober. + -- John Fletcher, "The Bloody Brother", II, 2 +% +Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, +Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, +Their indices bedecked from one to _n, +Commingled in an endless Markov chain! + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Come, muse, let us sing of rats! + -- From a poem by James Grainger, 1721-1767 +% +Come, you spirits +That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, +And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full +Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, +Stop up the access and passage to remorse +That no compunctious visiting of nature +Shake my fell purpose, not keep peace between +The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, +And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, +Wherever in your sightless substances +You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, +And pall the in the dunnest smoke of hell, +That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, +Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, +To cry `Hold, hold!' + -- Lady MacBeth +% +Coming to Stores Near You: + +101 Grammatically Correct Popular Tunes Featuring: + + (You Aren't Anything but a) Hound Dog + It Doesn't Mean a Thing If It Hasn't Got That Swing + I'm Not Misbehaving + +And A Whole Lot More... +% +Confusion will be my epitaph +as I walk a cracked and broken path +If we make it we can all sit back and laugh +but I fear that tomorrow we'll be crying. + -- King Crimson, "In the Court of the Crimson King" +% +Death comes on every passing breeze, +He lurks in every flower; +Each season has its own disease, +Its peril -- every hour. + -- Reginald Heber +% + Deck us all with Boston Charlie, + Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo! + Nora's freezin' on the trolley, + Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo! + + Don't we know archaic barrel, + Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou. + Trolley Molly don't love Harold, + Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! + -- Pogo, "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" [Walt Kelly] +% +Declared guilty... of displaying feelings of an almost human nature. + -- Pink Floyd, "The Wall" +% +Despising machines to a man, +The Luddites joined up with the Klan, + And ride out by night + In a sheeting of white +To lynch all the robots they can. + -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson +% +Didja' ever have to make up your mind, +Pick up on one and leave the other behind, +It's not often easy, and it's not often kind, +Didja' ever have to make up your mind? + -- Lovin' Spoonful +% +Disillusioned words like bullets bark, +As human gods aim for their mark, +Make everything from toy guns that spark +To flesh-colored christs that glow in the dark. +It's easy to see without looking too far +That not much is really sacred. + -- Bob Dylan +% +Do your otters do the shimmy? +Do they like to shake their tails? +Do your wombats sleep in tophats? +Is your garden full of snails? +% +Don't be concerned, it will not harm you, +It's only me pursuing something I'm not sure of, +Across my dreams, with nets of wonder, +I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love. +% +Don't let nobody tell you what you cannot do; +don't let nobody tell you what's impossible for you; +don't let nobody tell you what you got to do, +or you'll never know ... what's on the other side of the rainbow... +remember, if you don't follow your dreams, +you'll never know what's on the other side of the rainbow... + -- melba moore, "the other side of the rainbow" +% +Don't lose +Your head +To gain a minute +You need your head +Your brains are in it. + -- Burma Shave +% +Don't wake me up too soon... +Gonna take a ride across the moon... +You and me. +% +Double Bucky, you're the one, +You make my keyboard so much fun, +Double Bucky, an additional bit or two, (Vo-vo-de-o) +Control and meta, side by side, +Augmented ASCII, 9 bits wide! +Double Bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few! + +Oh, I sure wish that I, +Had a couple of bits more! +Perhaps a set of pedals to make the number of bits four. + +Double Double Bucky! Double Bucky left and right +OR'd together, outta sight! +Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of, +Double Bucky, I'm happy I heard of, +Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of you! + -- to Nicholas Wirth, who suggested that an extra bit + be added to terminal codes on 36-bit machines for use + by screen editors. [to the tune of "Rubber Ducky"] +% +Down to the Banana Republics, +Down to the tropical sun. +Go the expatriated Americans, +Hoping to find some fun. +Some of them go for the sailing, +Caught by the lure of the sea. +Trying to find what is ailing, +Living in the land of the free. +Some of them are running from lovers, +Leaving no forward address. +Some of them are running tons of ganja, +Some are running from the IRS. +Late at night you will find them, +In the cheap hotels and bars. +Hustling the senoritas, +While they dance beneath the stars. + -- Jimmy Buffet, "Banana Republics" +% +Drink and dance and laugh and lie +Love, the reeling midnight through +For tomorrow we shall die! +(But, alas, we never do.) + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Flaw in Paganism" +% +Easy come and easy go, + some call me easy money, +Sometimes life is full of laughs, + and sometimes it ain't funny +You may think that I'm a fool + and sometimes that is true, +But I'm goin' to heaven in a flash of fire, + with or without you. + -- Hoyt Axton +% +Eleanor Rigby + Sits at the keyboard + And waits for a line on the screen +Lives in a dream +Waits for a signal + Finding some code + That will make the machine do some more. +What is it for? + +All the lonely users, where do they all come from? +All the lonely users, why does it take so long? + +Hacker MacKensie +Writing the code for a program that no one will run +It's nearly done +Look at him working, fixing the bugs in the night when there's + nobody there. +What does he care? + +All the lonely users, where do they all come from? +All the lonely users, why does it take so long? +Ah, look at all the lonely users. +Ah, look at all the lonely users. +% +Endless the world's turn, endless the sun's spinning +Endless the quest; +I turn again, back to my own beginning, +And here, find rest. +% +Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven + Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; +Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven + Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben. + -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +Euch ist bekannt, was wir beduerfen; +Wir wollen stark Getraenke schluerfen. + -- Goethe, "Faust" +% +Even a man who is pure at heart, +And says his prayers at night +Can become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, +And the moon is full and bright. + -- The Wolf Man, 1941 +% +Even in the moment of our earliest kiss, +When sighed the straitened bud into the flower, +Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this; +And that I knew, though not the day and hour. +Too season-wise am I, being country-bred, +To tilt at autumn or defy the frost: +Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did, +I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost." +I only hoped, with the mild hope of all +Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree, +A fairer summer and a later fall +Than in these parts a man is apt to see, +And sunny clusters ripened for the wine: +I tell you this across the blackened vine. + -- Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Even in the Moment of + Our Earliest Kiss", 1931 +% +Ever Onward! Ever Onward! +That's the sprit that has brought us fame. +We're big but bigger we will be, +We can't fail for all can see, that to serve humanity +Has been our aim. +Our products now are known in every zone. +Our reputation sparkles like a gem. +We've fought our way thru +And new fields we're sure to conquer, too +For the Ever Onward IBM! + -- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook +% +Ever since I was a young boy, +I've hacked the ARPA net, +From Berkeley down to Rutgers, He's on my favorite terminal, +Any access I could get, He cats C right into foo, +But ain't seen nothing like him, His disciples lead him in, +On any campus yet, And he just breaks the root, +That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Always has full SYS-PRIV's, +Sure sends a mean packet. Never uses lint, + That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, + Sure sends a mean packet. +He's a UNIX wizard, +There has to be a twist. +The UNIX wizard's got Ain't got no distractions, +Unlimited space on disk. Can't hear no whistles or bells, +How do you think he does it? Can't see no message flashing, +I don't know. Types by sense of smell, +What makes him so good? Those crazy little programs, + The proper bit flags set, + That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, + Sure sends a mean packet. + -- UNIX Wizard +% +Every love's the love before +In a duller dress. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Summary" +% +Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Every night my prayers I say, + And get my dinner every day; +And every day that I've been good, + I get an orange after food. +The child that is not clean and neat, + With lots of toys and things to eat, +He is a naughty child, I'm sure-- + Or else his dear papa is poor. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson +% +Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their +fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the +good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay +poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows. + +Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain +lied. Everybody got this broken feeling like their father or their dog +just died. + +Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates +and long stem rose. Everybody knows. + +Everybody knows that you love me, baby. Everybody knows that you really +do. Everybody knows that you've been faithful, give or take a night or +two. Everybody knows you've been discreet, but there were so many people +you just had to meet without your clothes. And everybody knows. + +And everybody knows it's now or never. Everybody knows that it's me or you. +And everybody knows that you live forever when you've done a line or two. +Everybody knows the deal is rotten: Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton +for you ribbons and bows. And everybody knows. + -- Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows" +% +Everything's great in this good old world; +(This is the stuff they can always use.) +God's in his heaven, the hill's dew-pearled; +(This will provide for baby's shoes.) +Hunger and War do not mean a thing; +Everything's rosy where'er we roam; +Hark, how the little birds gaily sing! +(This is what fetches the bacon home.) + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Far Sighted Muse" +% +Everywhere you go you'll see them searching, +Everywhere you turn you'll feel the pain, +Everyone is looking for the answer, +Well look again. + -- Moody Blues, "Lost in a Lost World" +% +F: When into a room I plunge, I + Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI. + Then I linger, darkly brooding + On the poison they're exuding. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +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 +% +Farewell we call to hearth and hall! +Though wind may blow and rain may fall, +We must away ere break of day +Far over wood and mountain tall. + + To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell + In glades beneath the misty fell, + Through moor and waste we ride in haste, + And whither then we cannot tell. + +With foes ahead, behind us dread, +Beneath the sky shall be our bed, +Until at last our toil be passed, +Our journey done, our errand sped. + + We must away! We must away! + We ride before the break of day! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Felix Catus is your taxonomic nomenclature, +An endothermic quadroped, carnivorous by nature. +Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses +Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses. +I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations, +A singular development of cat communications +That obviates your basic hedonistic predelection +For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection. +A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents: +You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance; +And when not being utilitized to aid in locomotion, +It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion. +Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display +Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array. +And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend, +I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend. + -- Lt. Cmdr. Data, "An Ode to Spot" +% +Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, +Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! +Drink and the devil had done for the rest, +Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! + -- Stevenson, "Treasure Island" +% +Fifty flippant frogs +Walked by on flippered feet +And with their slime they made the time +Unnaturally fleet. +% +Finality is death. +Perfection is finality. +Nothing is perfect. +There are lumps in it. +% +Five names that I can hardly stand to hear, +Including yours and mine and one more chimp who isn't here, +I can see the ladies talking how the times is gettin' hard, +And that fearsome excavation on Magnolia boulevard, +Yes, I'm goin' insane, +And I'm laughing at the frozen rain, +Well, I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home? + Bad sneakers and a pina colada my friend, + Stopping on the avenue by Radio City, with a + Transistor and a large sum of money to spend... +You fellah, you tearin' up the street, +You wear that white tuxedo, how you gonna beat the heat, +Do you take me for a fool, do you think that I don't see, +That ditch out in the Valley that they're diggin' just for me, +Yes, and goin' insane, +You know I'm laughin' at the frozen rain, +Feel like I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home? +(chorus) + -- Bad Sneakers, "Steely Dan" +% +Flying saucers on occasion + Show themselves to human eyes. +Aliens fume, put off invasion + While they brand these tales as lies. +% +"For a couple o' pins," says Troll, and grins, +"I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins. +A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet! +I'll try my teeth on thee now. + Hee now! See now! +I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins; +I've a mind to dine on thee now." + +But just as he thought his dinner was caught, +He found his hands had hold of naught. +Before he could mind, Tom slipped behing +And gave him the boot to larn him. + Warn him! Darn him! +A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thoguht, +Would be the way to larn him. + +But harder than stone is the flesh and bone +Of a troll that sits in the hills alone. +As well set your boot to the mountain's root, +For the seat of a troll don't feel it. + Peel it! Heal it! +Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan, +And he knew his toes could feel it. + +Tom's leg is game, since home he came, +And his bootless foot is lasting lame; +But Troll don't care, and he's still there +With the bone he boned from its owner. + Doner! Boner! +Troll's old seat is still the same, +And the bone he boned from its owner! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +For gin, in cruel +Sober truth, +Supplies the fuel +For flaming youth. + -- Noel Coward +% +For knighthood is not in the feats of war, +As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong, +But in a cause which truth cannot defer: +He ought himself for to make sure and strong, +Just to keep mixt with mercy among: +And no quarrel a knight ought to take +But for a truth, or for the common's sake. + -- Stephen Hawes +% +"Force is but might," the teacher said-- +"That definition's just." +The boy said naught but thought instead, +Remembering his pounded head: +"Force is not might but must!" +% +Four be the things I am wiser to know: +Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. + +Four be the things I'd been better without: +Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. + +Three be the things I shall never attain: +Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. + +Three be the things I shall have till I die: +Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Inventory" [or "Not so Deep as a Well"?] +% +Friends, Romans, Hipsters, +Let me clue you in; +I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him. +The square kicks some cats are on stay with them; +The hip bits, like, go down under; +so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus +Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes; +If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea, +And, like, old Caesar really set them straight. +Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- +for Brutus is a real cool cat; +So are they all, all cool cats, -- +Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down. +% +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 +% +Get in touch with your feelings of hostility against the dying light. + -- Dylan Thomas [paraphrased periphrastically] +% +Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight! +Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing, +Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains! +Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty! +Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness, +Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Gibson's Springtime Song (to the tune of "Deck the Halls"): + +'Tis the season to chase mousies (Fa la la la la, la la la la) +Snatch them from their little housies (...) +First we chase them 'round the field (...) +Then we have them for a meal (...) + +Toss them here and catch them there (...) +See them flying through the air (...) +Watch them fly and hear them squeal (...) +Falling mice have great appeal (...) + +See the hunter stretched before us (...) +He's chased the mice in field and forest (...) +Watch him clean his long white whiskers (...) +Of the blood of little critters (...) +% +Gil-galad was an Elven-king. +Of him the harpers sadly sing: +the last whose realm was fair and free +between the Mountains and the Sea. + +His sword was long, his lance was keen, +his shining helm afar was seen; +the countless stars of heaven's field +were mirrored in his silver shield. + +But long ago he rode away, +and where he dwelleth none can say; +for into darkness fell his star +in Mordor where the shadows are. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Gimme Twinkies, gimme wine, + Gimme jeans by Calvin Kline ... +But if you split those atoms fine, + Mama keep 'em off those genes of mine! + +Gimme zits, take my dough, + Gimme arsenic in my jelly roll ... +Call the devil and sell my soul, + But Mama keep dem atoms whole! + -- Milo Bloom, "The Split-Atom Blues," in "Bloom County" +% +Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe, +Bold I can meet -- perhaps may turn his blow! +But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, +Save me, oh save me from the candid friend. + -- George Canning +% +Give me your students, your secretaries, +Your huddled writers yearning to breathe free, +The wretched refuse of your Selectric III's. +Give these, the homeless, typist-tossed to me. +I lift my disk beside the processor. + -- Inscription on a Word Processor +% +Go placidly amid the noise and waste, +And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. +Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. +Rotate your tires. +Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, +And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. +Know what to kiss -- and when. +Remember that two wrongs never make a right, +But that three do. +Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD". +Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, +And despite the changing fortunes of time, +There is always a big future in computer maintenance. + + You are a fluke of the universe ... + You have no right to be here. + Whether you can hear it or not, the universe + Is laughing behind your back. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may +be in owning a piece thereof. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +God rest ye CS students now, The bearings on the drum are gone, +Let nothing you dismay. The disk is wobbling, too. +The VAX is down and won't be up, We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol +Until the first of May. Can't tell false from true. +The program that was due this morn, And now we find that we can't get +Won't be postponed, they say. At Berkeley's 4.2. +(chorus) (chorus) + +We've just received a call from DEC, And now some cheery news for you, +They'll send without delay The network's also dead, +A monitor called RSuX We'll have to print your files on +It takes nine hundred K. The line printer instead. +The staff committed suicide, The turnaround time's nineteen weeks. +We'll bury them today. And only cards are read. +(chorus) (chorus) + +And now we'd like to say to you CHORUS: Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, +Before we go away, Comfort and joy, +We hope the news we've brought to you Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. +Won't ruin your whole day. +You've got another program due, tomorrow, by the way. +(chorus) + -- to God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen +% +Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields +Sold in a market down in New Orleans +Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright +Hear him whip the women, just around midnight + +Ah, brown sugar how come you taste so good? +Ah, brown sugar just like a young girl should + +Drums beating cold English blood runs hot +Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop +House boy knows that he's doing alright +You should a heard him just around midnight. +... +I bet your mama was tent show queen +And all her girlfriends were sweet sixteen +I'm no school boy but I know what I like +You should have heard me just around midnight. + -- Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar" +% +Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack, +I went out for a ride and never came back. +Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, +I took a wrong turn and I just kept going. + + Everybody's got a hungry heart. + Everybody's got a hungry heart. + Lay down your money and you play your part, + Everybody's got a hungry heart. + +I met her in a Kingstown bar, +We fell in love, I knew it had to end. +We took what we had and we ripped it apart, +Now here I am down in Kingstown again. + +Everybody needs a place to rest, +Everybody wants to have a home. +Don't make no difference what nobody says, +Ain't nobody likes to be alone. + -- Bruce Springsteen, "Hungry Heart" +% +Graphics blind the eyes. +Audio files deafen the ear. +Mouse clicks numb the fingers. +Heuristics weaken the mind. +Options wither the heart. + +The Guru observes the net +but trusts his inner vision. +He allows things to come and go. +His heart is as open as the ether. +% +H: If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you, + Slice him up before he slays you. + Nothing makes you look a slob + Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB). + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% + Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there +may be in Science. As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system. +Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results. And listen to others, +even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers. Avoid loud and +aggressive persons, for they are sales reps. + If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised, +for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched. +Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real +hassle and could change your fortunes in time. + Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of +bugs. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive +for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations. Strive for +proportionality. Especially, do not faint when it occurs. Neither be cyclical +about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed. + Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points. Gracefully pass +them on to the youth at the next desk. Nurture some mutual funds to shield +you in times of sudden layoffs. But do not distress yourself with imaginings +-- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly. Murphy's Law runs the +Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt B*n dS = 0. + Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you +can conceive of to try. With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken +line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary. Be linear. Strive +to stay employed. + -- Technolorata, "Analog" +% +"Had he and I but met +By some old ancient inn, But ranged as infantry, +We should have sat us down to wet And staring face to face, +Right many a nipperkin! I shot at him as he at me, + And killed him in his place. +I shot him dead because -- +Because he was my foe, He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, +Just so: my foe of course he was; Off-hand-like -- just as I -- +That's clear enough; although Was out of work -- had sold his traps + No other reason why. +Yes; quaint and curious war is! +You shoot a fellow down +You'd treat, if met where any bar is +Or help to half-a-crown." + -- Thomas Hardy +% +Half a bee, philosophically, must ipso facto half not be. +But half the bee has got to be, vis-a-vis its entity. See? +But can a bee be said to be or not to be an entire bee, +When half the bee is not a bee, due to some ancient injury? +% +Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. + -- Pink Floyd +% + Hard Copies and Chmod + +And everyone thinks computers are impersonal +cold diskdrives hardware monitors +user-hostile software + +of course they're only bits and bytes +and characters and strings +and files + +just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend +telling me he loves me and +he'll take care of me + +simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory +deep intimate secrets and +how he doesn't trust me + +couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould +on personal stationery + -- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu +% +Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, +Advertising wondrous things. + +Angels we have heard on High +Tell us to go out and Buy. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Have you ever felt like a wounded cow +halfway between an oven and a pasture? +walking in a trance toward a pregnant + seventeen-year-old housewife's + two-day-old cookbook? + -- Richard Brautigan +% +Have you seen how Sonny's burning, +Like some bright erotic star, +He lights up the proceedings, +And raises the temperature. + -- The Birthday Party, "Sonny's Burning" +% +Have you seen the old man in the closed down market, +Kicking up the papers in his worn out shoes? +In his eyes you see no pride, hands hang loosely at his side +Yesterdays papers, telling yesterdays news. + +How can you tell me you're lonely, +And say for you the sun don't shine? +Let me take you by the hand +Lead you through the streets of London +I'll show you something to make you change your mind... + +Have you seen the old man outside the sea-man's mission +Memories fading like the metal ribbons that he wears. +In our winter city the rain cries a little pity +For one more forgotten hero and a world that doesn't care... +% +Have you seen the well-to-do, up and down Park Avenue? +On that famous thoroughfare, with their noses in the air, +High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars, +Spending every dime, for a wonderful time... +If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, +Why don't you go where fashion sits, +... +Dressed up like a million dollar trooper, +Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper, (super dooper) +Come, let's mix where Rockefeller's walk with sticks, +Or umberellas, in their mitts, +Puttin' on the Ritz. +... +If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, +Why don't you go where fashion sits, +Puttin' on the Ritz. +Puttin' on the Ritz. +Puttin' on the Ritz. +Puttin' on the Ritz. +% +He heard there oft the flying sound +Of feet as light as linden-leaves, +Of music welling underground, +In hidden hollows quavering. +Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves, +And one by one with sighing sound +Whispering fell the beechen leaves +In the wintry woodland wavering. + +He sought her ever, wandering far +Where leaves of years were thickly strewn, +By light of moon and ray of star +In frosty heavens shivering. +Her mantle glinted in the moon, +As on a hill-top high and far +She danced, and at her feet was strewn +A mist of silver quivering. + +When winter passed, she came again, +And her song released the sudden spring, +Like rising lark, and falling rain, +And melting water bubbling. +He saw the elven-flowers spring +About her feet, and healed again +He longed by her to dance and sing +Upon the grass untroubling. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +He thought he saw an albatross +That fluttered 'round the lamp. +He looked again and saw it was +A penny postage stamp. +"You'd best be getting home," he said, +"The nights are rather damp." +% +He who invents adages for others to peruse +takes along rowboat when going on cruise. +% +He who loses, wins the race, +And parallel lines meet in space. + -- John Boyd, "Last Starship from Earth" +% +He's been like a father to me, +He's the only DJ you can get after three, +I'm an all-night musician in a rock and roll band, +And why he don't like me I don't understand. + -- The Byrds +% +Her locks an ancient lady gave +Her loving husband's life to save; +And men -- they honored so the dame -- +Upon some stars bestowed her name. + +But to our modern married fair, +Who'd give their lords to save their hair, +No stellar recognition's given. +There are not stars enough in heaven. +% +Here I am again right where I know I shouldn't be +I've been caught inside this trap too many times +I must've walked these steps and said these words a + thousand times before +It seems like I know everybody's lines. + -- David Bromberg, "How Late'll You Play 'Til?" +% +Here I sit, broken-hearted, +All logged in, but work unstarted. +First net.this and net.that, +And a hot buttered bun for net.fat. + +The boss comes by, and I play the game, +Then I turn back to net.flame. +Is there a cure (I need your views), +For someone trapped in net.news? + +I need your help, I say 'tween sobs, +'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs. +% +Here in my heart, I am Helen; + I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least. +I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"el; + I'm Salome, moon of the East. + +Here in my soul I am Sappho; + Lady Hamilton am I, as well. +In me R'ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea, + With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell. + +I'm all of the glamorous ladies + At whose beckoning history shook. +But you are a man, and see only my pan, + So I stay at home with a book. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +HERE LIES LESTER MOORE +SHOT 4 TIMES WITH A .44 +NO LES +NO MOORE + -- tombstone, in Tombstone, AZ +% +Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! +Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow! +Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey! Come derry dol! Hop along, my hearties! +Hobbits! Ponies all! We are fond of parties. +Now let the fun begin! Let us sing together! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling! +Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling. + +Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight, +Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight, +There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter, +Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water. + +Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing +Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing? +Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o +Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o! + +Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away! +Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day. +Tom's going home again water-lilies bringing. +Hey! come derry dol! Can you hear me singing? + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander? +Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder? +Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin, +White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey, diddle, diddle the overflow pdl +To get a little more stack; +If that's not enough then you lose it all +And have to pop all the way back. +% +Hickory Dickory Dock, +The mice ran up the clock, +The clock struck one, +The others escaped with minor injuries. +% +Hier liegt ein Mann ganz obnegleich; +Im Leibe dick, an Suden reich. +Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws +Weil es uns dunkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head; + We buried him today because + As far as we can tell, he's dead. + + -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty + Sue Bach and written by the local doggeral catcher; + "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele +% +Higgeldy Piggeldy, +Hamlet of Elsinore +Ruffled the critics by +Dropping this bomb: +"Phooey on Freud and his +Psychoanalysis -- +Oedipus, Shmoedipus, +I just love Mom." +% +...his disciples lead him in; he just does the rest. + -- The Who, "Tommy" +% +History is curious stuff + You'd think by now we had enough +Yet the fact remains I fear + They make more of it every year. +% +Hit them biscuits with another touch of gravy, +Burn that sausage just a match or two more done. +Pour my black old coffee longer, +While that smell is gettin' stronger +A semi-meal ain't nuthin' much to want. + +Loan me ten, I got a feelin' it'll save me, +With an ornery soul who don't shoot pool for fun, +If that coat'll fit you're wearin', +The Lord'll bless your sharin' +A semi-friend ain't nuthin' much to want. + +And let me halfway fall in love, +For part of a lonely night, +With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. +Yes, I could halfway fall in deep-- +Into a snugglin', lovin' heap, +With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. + -- Elroy Blunt +% +Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go +To heal my heart and drown my woe. +Rain may fall and wind may blow, +And many miles be still to go, +But under a tall tree I will lie, +And let the clouds go sailing by. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo! +By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow, +By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us! +Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hop along my little friends, up the Withywindle! +Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle. +Down west sinks the Sun; soon you will be groping. +When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open, +Out of the winfow-panes light will twinkle yellow. +Fear no alder black! Heed no hoary willow! +Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you. +Hey now! merry dol! We'll be waiting for you! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat? + -- Pink Floyd +% +How doth the little crocodile + Improve his shining tail, +And pour the waters of the Nile + On every golden scale! + +How cheerfully he seems to grin, + How neatly spreads his claws, +And welcomes little fishes in, + With gently smiling jaws! + -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" +% +How doth the VAX's C-compiler + Improve its object code. +And even as we speak does it + Increase the system load. + +How patiently it seems to run + And spit out error flags, +While users, with frustration, all + Tear their clothes to rags. +% +Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, +Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! +All the king's horses, +And all the king's men, +Had scrambled eggs for breakfast again! +% +I always will remember -- I was in no mood to trifle; +'Twas a year ago November -- I got down my trusty rifle +I went out to shoot some deer And went out to stalk my prey -- +On a morning bright and clear. What a haul I made that day! +I went and shot the maximum I tied them to my bumper and +The game laws would allow: I drove them home somehow, +Two game wardens, seven hunters, Two game wardens, seven hunters, +And a cow. And a cow. + +The Law was very firm, it People ask me how I do it +Took away my permit-- And I say, "There's nothin' to it! +The worst punishment I ever endured. You just stand there lookin' cute, +It turns out there was a reason: And when something moves, you shoot." +Cows were out of season, and And there's ten stuffed heads +One of the hunters wasn't insured. In my trophy room right now: + Two game wardens, seven hunters, + And a pure-bred guernsey cow. + -- Tom Lehrer, "The Hunting Song" +% +I am changing my name to Chrysler +I am going down to Washington, D.C. +I will tell some power broker + What they did for Iacocca +Will be perfectly acceptable to me! + +I am changing my name to Chrysler, +I am heading for that great receiving line. +When they hand a million grand out, + I'll be standing with my hand out, +Yessir, I'll get mine! +% +I B M +U B M +We all B M +For I B M!!!! + -- H.A.R.L.I.E. +% +I can live without +Someone I love +But not without +Someone I need. + -- "Safety" +% +I can see him a'comin' +With his big boots on, +With his big thumb out, +He wants to get me. +He wants to hurt me. +He wants to bring me down. +But some time later, +When I feel a little straighter, +I'll come across a stranger +Who'll remind me of the danger, +And then.... I'll run him over. +Pretty smart on my part! +To find my way... In the dark! + -- Phil Ochs +% +I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. + -- Joe Walsh +% +I don't know what Descartes' got, +But booze can do what Kant cannot. + -- Mike Cross +% +I don't need no arms around me... +I don't need no drugs to calm me... +I have seen the writing on the wall. +Don't think I need anything at all. +No! Don't think I need anything at all! +All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. +All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. + -- Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall", Part III +% +I don't wanna argue, and I don't wanna fight, +But there will definitely be a party tonight... +% +I don't want a pickle, + I just wanna ride on my motorsickle. +And I don't want to die, + I just want to ride on my motorcy. +Cle. + -- Arlo Guthrie +% +I gave my love an Apple, that had no core; +I gave my love a building, that had no floor; +I wrote my love a program, that had no end; +I gave my love an upgrade, with no cryin'. + +How can there be an Apple, that has no core? +How can there be a building, that has no floor? +How can there be a program, that has no end? +How can there be an upgrade, with no cryin'? + +An Apple's MOS memory don't use no core! +A building that's perfect, it has no flaw! +A program with GOTOs, it has no end! +I lied about the upgrade, with no cryin'! +% +I get up each morning, gather my wits. +Pick up the paper, read the obits. +If I'm not there I know I'm not dead. +So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed. + +Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent? +My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went. +But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin, +And think of the places my get-up has been. + -- Pete Seeger +% +I had an errand there: gathering water-lilies, +green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady, +the last ere the year's end to keep them from the winter, +to flower by her pretty feet till the snows are melted. + +Each year at summer's end I go to find them for her, +in a wide pool, deep and clear, far down Withywindle; +there they open first in spring and there they linger latest. + +By that pool long ago I found the River-daughter, +fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes. +Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating! + +And that proved well for you--for now I shall no longer +go down deep again along the forest-water, +no while the year is old. Nor shall I be passing +Old Man Willow's house this side of spring-time, +not till the merry spring, when the River-daughter +dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, +And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. +He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; +And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. + +The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow-- +Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; +For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an india-rubber ball, +And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all. + -- R. L. Stevenson +% +I have learned +To spell hors d'oeuvres +Which still grates on +Some people's n'oeuvres. + -- Warren Knox +% +I have lots of things in my pockets; +None of them is worth anything. +Sociopolitical whines aside, +Gan you give me, gratis, free, +The price of half a gallon +Of Gallo extra bad +And most of the bus fare home. +% +I have no doubt the Devil grins, +As seas of ink I spatter. +Ye gods, forgive my "literary" sins-- +The other kind don't matter. + -- Robert W. Service +% +I have that old biological urge, +I have that old irresistible surge, +I'm hungry. +% +I knew Leo G. Carrol +Was over a barrel +When Tarantula took to the hills. ["Lick it!"] +And I really got hot +When I saw Jeanette Scott +Fight a triffid that spits poison and kills. + +Science fiction, double feature +Doctor X will build a creature. +See androids fighting Brad and Janet +Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet +Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh +At the late night, double feature, picture show. + -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +I know if you been talkin' you done said +just how surprised you wuz by the living dead. +You wuz surprised that they could understand you words +and never respond once to all the truth they heard. +But don't you get square! +There ain't no rule that says they got to care. +They can always swear they're deaf, dumb and blind. +% +I lately lost a preposition; +It hid, I thought, beneath my chair +And angrily I cried, "Perdition! +Up from out of under there." + +Correctness is my vade mecum, +And straggling phrases I abhor, +And yet I wondered, "What should he come +Up from out of under for?" + -- Morris Bishop +% +I lay my head on the railroad tracks, +Waitin' for the double E. +The railroad don't run no more. +Poor poor pitiful me. [chorus] + Poor poor pitiful me, poor poor pitiful me. + These young girls won't let me be, + Lord have mercy on me! + Woe is me! + +Well, I met a girl, West Hollywood, +Well, I ain't naming names. +But she really worked me over good, +She was just like Jesse James. +She really worked me over good, +She was a credit to her gender. +She put me through some changes, boy, +Sort of like a Waring blender. [chorus] + +I met a girl at the Rainbow Bar, +She asked me if I'd beat her. +She took me back to the Hyatt House, +I don't want to talk about it. [chorus] + -- Warren Zevon, "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" +% +I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah +Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda + S-O-D-A soda +I saw the little runt sitting there on a log +I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda + Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda + +Well I've been around but I ain't never seen +A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green + Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda +Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand +How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand + Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda + -- Weird Al Yankovic, "The Star Wars Song," to the tune of + "Lola" by the Kinks +% +I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's; +I will not Reason and Compare; my business is to Create. + -- William Blake, "Jerusalem" +% +I never saw a purple cow +I never hope to see one +But I can tell you anyhow +I'd rather see than be one. + -- Gellett Burgess + +I've never seen a purple cow +I never hope to see one +But from the milk we're getting now +There certainly must be one + -- Odgen Nash + +Ah, yes, I wrote "The Purple Cow" +I'm sorry now I wrote it +But I can tell you anyhow +I'll kill you if you quote it. + -- Gellett Burgess, many years later +% +I owe, I owe, +It's off to work I go... +% +I really hate this damned machine +I wish that they would sell it. +It never does quite what I want +But only what I tell it. +% +"I said, "Preacher, give me strength for round 5." +He said,"What you need is to grow up, son." +I said,"Growin' up leads to growin' old, +And then to dying, and to me that don't sound like much fun." + -- John Cougar, "The Authority Song" +% +I saw a man pursuing the Horizon, +'Round and round they sped. +I was disturbed at this, +I accosted the man, +"It is futile," I said. +"You can never--" +"You lie!" He cried, +and ran on. + -- Stephen Crane +% +I see a bad moon rising. +I see trouble on the way. +I see earthquakes and lightnin' +I see bad times today. +Don't go 'round tonight, +It's bound to take your life. +There's a bad moon on the rise. + -- J. C. Fogerty, "Bad Moon Rising" +% +I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, +I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. +Bernoulli would have been content to die +Had he but known such _a-squared cos 2(phi)! + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +I sent a letter to the fish, I said it very loud and clear, +I told them, "This is what I wish." I went and shouted in his ear. +The little fishes of the sea, But he was very stiff and proud, +They sent an answer back to me. He said "You needn't shout so loud." +The little fishes' answer was And he was very proud and stiff, +"We cannot do it, sir, because..." He said "I'll go and wake them if..." +I sent a letter back to say I took a kettle from the shelf, +It would be better to obey. I went to wake them up myself. +But someone came to me and said But when I found the door was locked +"The little fishes are in bed." I pulled and pushed and kicked and + knocked, +I said to him, and I said it plain And when I found the door was shut, +"Then you must wake them up again." I tried to turn the handle, But... + + "Is that all?" asked Alice. + "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye." +% +I sent a message to another time, +But as the days unwind -- this I just can't believe, +I sent a message to another plane, +Maybe it's all a game -- but this I just can't conceive. +... +I met someone who looks at lot like you, +She does the things you do, but she is an IBM. +She's only programmed to be very nice, +But she's as cold as ice, whenever I get too near, +She tells me that she likes me very much, +But when I try to touch, she makes it all too clear. +... +I realize that it must seem so strange, +That time has rearranged, but time has the final word, +She knows I think of you, she reads my mind, +She tries to be unkind, she knows nothing of our world. + -- ELO, "Yours Truly, 2095" +% +I shot a query into the net. +I haven't got an answer yet, A posted message called me rotten +But seven people gave me hell For ignoring mail I'd never gotten; +And said I ought to learn to spell; An angry message asked me, Please + Don't send such drivel overseas; +A lawyer sent me private mail +And swore he'd slap my ass in jail -- One netter thought it was a hoax: +I'd mentioned Un*x in my gem "Hereafter, post to net dot jokes!"; +And failed to add the T and M; Another called my grammar vile + And criticized my writing style. +Each day I scan each Subject line +In hopes the topic will be mine; +I shot a query into the net. +I haven't got an answer yet... + -- Ed Nather +% +I stood on the leading edge, +The eastern seaboard at my feet. +"Jump!" said Yoko Ono +I'm too scared and good-looking, I cried. +Go on and give it a try, +Why prolong the agony, all men must die. + -- Roger Waters, "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" +% +I think that I shall never hear +A poem lovelier than beer. +The stuff that Joe's Bar has on tap, +With golden base and snowy cap. +The stuff that I can drink all day +Until my mem'ry melts away. +Poems are made by fools, I fear +But only Schlitz can make a beer. +% +I think that I shall never see +A billboard lovely as a tree. +Indeed, unless the billboards fall +I'll never see a tree at all. + -- Ogden Nash +% +I think that I shall never see +A thing as lovely as a tree. +But as you see the trees have gone +They went this morning with the dawn. +A logging firm from out of town +Came and chopped the trees all down. +But I will trick those dirty skunks +And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'. +% +"I thought that you said you were 20 years old!" +"As a programmer, yes," she replied, +"And you claimed to be very near two meters tall!" +"You said you were blonde, but you lied!" +Oh, she was a hacker and he was one, too, +They had so much in common, you'd say. +They exchanged jokes and poems, and clever new hacks, +And prompts that were cute or risque'. +He sent her a picture of his brother Sam, +She sent one from some past high school day, +And it might have gone on for the rest of their lives, +If they hadn't met in L.A. +"Your beard is an armpit," she said in disgust. +He answered, "Your armpit's a beard!" +And they chorused: "I think I could stand all the rest +If you were not so totally weird!" +If she had not said what he wanted to hear, +And he had not done just the same, +They'd have been far more honest, and never have met, +And would not have had fun with the game. + -- Judith Schrier, "Face to Face After Six Months of + Electronic Mail" +% +I used to be such a sweet sweet thing, 'til they got a hold of me, +I opened doors for little old ladies, I helped the blind to see, +I got no friends 'cause they read the papers, they can't be seen, +With me, and I'm feelin' real shot down, +And I'm, uh, feelin' mean, + No more, Mr. Nice Guy, + No more, Mr. Clean, + No more, Mr. Nice Guy, +They say "He's sick, he's obscene". + +My dog bit me on the leg today, my cat clawed my eyes, +Ma's been thrown out of the social circle, and Dad has to hide, +I went to church, incognito, when everybody rose, +The reverend Smithy, he recognized me, +And punched me in the nose, he said, +(chorus) +He said "You're sick, you're obscene". + -- Alice Cooper, "No More Mr. Nice Guy" +% +I was born in a barrel of butcher knives +Trouble I love and peace I despise +Wild horses kicked me in my side +Then a rattlesnake bit me and he walked off and died. + -- Bo Diddley +% +I was eatin' some chop suey, +With a lady in St. Louie, +When there sudden comes a knockin' at the door. +And that knocker, he says, "Honey, +Roll this rocker out some money, +Or your daddy shoots a baddie to the floor." + -- Mr. Miggle +% +I went home with a waitress, +The way I always do. +How I was I to know? +She was with the Russians too. + +I was gambling in Havana, +I took a little risk. +Send lawyers, guns, and money, +Dad, get me out of this. + -- Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns and Money" +% +I went over to my friend, he was eatin' a pickle. +I said "Hi, what's happenin'?" +He said "Nothin'." +Try to sing this song with that kind of enthusiasm; +As if you just squashed a cop. + -- Arlo Guthrie, "Motorcycle Song" +% +I will not play at tug o' war. +I'd rather play at hug o' war, +Where everyone hugs +Instead of tugs, +Where everyone giggles +And rolls on the rug, +Where everyone kisses, +And everyone grins, +And everyone cuddles, +And everyone wins. + -- Shel Silverstein, "Hug o' War" +% +I woke up a feelin' mean +went down to play the slot machine +the wheels turned round, +and the letters read +"Better head back to Tennessee Jed" + -- Grateful Dead +% +I would like to know +What I was fencing in +And what I was fencing out. + -- Robert Frost +% +I'd never cry if I did find + A blue whale in my soup... +Nor would I mind a porcupine + Inside a chicken coop. +Yes life is fine when things combine, + Like ham in beef chow mein... +But lord, this time I think I mind, + They've put acid in my rain. + -- - Milo Bloom +% +I'd rather laugh with the sinners, +Than cry with the saints, +The sinners are much more fun! + -- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young" +% +I'll grant thee random access to my heart, +Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love; +And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove +And in our bound partition never part. + +Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? +Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, +A root or two, a torus and a node: +The inverse of my verse, a null domain. + +I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, +I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. +Bernoulli would have been content to die +Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(thi)! + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +I'll learn to play the Saxophone, +I play just what I feel. +Drink Scotch whisky all night long, +And die behind the wheel. +They got a name for the winners in the world, +I want a name when I lose. +They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, +Call me Deacon Blues. + -- Becker and Fagan, "Deacon Blues" +% +I'll see you... on the dark side of the moon... + -- Pink Floyd +% +I'm an artist. +But it's not what I really want to do. +What I really want to do is be a shoe salesman. +I know what you're going to say -- +"Dreamer! Get your head out of the clouds." +All right! But it's what I want to do. +Instead I have to go on painting all day long. + +The world should make a place for shoe salesmen. + -- J. Feiffer +% +I'm free -- and freedom tastes of reality. + -- The Who +% +I'm just as sad as sad can be! + I've missed your special date. +Please say that you're not mad at me + My tax return is late. + -- Modern Lines for Modern Greeting Cards +% +i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be +living apart. + -- e. e. cummings +% +I'm N-ary the tree, I am, +N-ary the tree, I am, I am. +I'm getting traversed by the parser next door, +She's traversed me seven times before. +And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!) +Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!) +I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary. +N-ary the tree I am, I am, +N-ary the tree I am. + -- Stolen from Herman's Hermits +% +I'm So Miserable Without You It's Almost Like Having You Here + -- Song title by Stephen Bishop. + +She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft + -- Song title by Jerry Reed. + +When My Love Comes Back from the Ladies' Room Will I Be Too Old to Care? + -- Song title by Lewis Grizzard. + +I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling + -- Unattributed song title. + +Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life + -- Unattributed song title. +% +I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, +I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; +In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, +I am the very model of a modern Major-General. + -- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance" +% +I've been on this lonely road so long, +Does anybody know where it goes, +I remember last time the signs pointed home, +A month ago. + -- Carpenters, "Road Ode" +% +I've built a better model than the one at Data General +For data bases vegetable, animal, and mineral +My OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality; +My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality. +My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity, +You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity; +There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting; +My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting. + +I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point: +There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point, +Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral +I've built a better model than the one at Data General. + + -- Steve Levine, "A Computer Song" (To the tune of + "Modern Major General", from "Pirates of Penzance", + by Gilbert & Sullivan) +% +I've finally found the perfect girl, +I couldn't ask for more, +She's deaf and dumb and over-sexed, +And owns a liquor store. +% +I/O, I/O, +It's off to disk I go, +A bit or byte to read or write, +I/O, I/O, I/O... +% +I +am +not +very +happy +acting +pleased +whenever +prominent +scientists +overmagnify +intellectual +enlightenment +% +IBM had a PL/I, + Its syntax worse than JOSS; +And everywhere this language went, + It was a total loss. +% +If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, +... it expects what never was and never will be. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +If a system is administered wisely, +its users will be content. +They enjoy hacking their code +and don't waste time implementing +labor-saving shell scripts. +Since they dearly love their accounts, +they aren't interested in other machines. +There may be telnet, rlogin, and ftp, +but these don't access any hosts. +There may be an arsenal of cracks and malware, +but nobody ever uses them. +People enjoy reading their mail, +take pleasure in being with their newsgroups, +spend weekends working at their terminals, +delight in the doings at the site. +And even though the next system is so close +that users can hear its key clicks and biff beeps, +they are content to die of old age +without ever having gone to see it. +% +If all be true that I do think, +There be five reasons why one should drink; +Good friends, good wine, or being dry, +Or lest we should be by-and-by, +Or any other reason why. +% +If all the seas were ink, +And all the reeds were pens, +And all the skies were parchment, +And all the men could write, +These would not suffice +To write down all the red tape +Of this Government. +% +If an S and an I and an O and a U +With an X at the end spell Su; +And an E and a Y and an E spell I, +Pray what is a speller to do? +Then, if also an S and an I and a G +And an HED spell side, +There's nothing much left for a speller to do +But to go commit siouxeyesighed. + -- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament" +% +If Dr. Seuss Were a Technical Writer..... + +Here's an easy game to play. +Here's an easy thing to say: + +If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, +And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort, +And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, +Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report! + +If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, +And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, +And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash, +then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash! + +You can't say this? What a shame, sir! +We'll find you another game, sir. + +If the label on the cable on the table at your house, +Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse, +But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol, +That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall, +And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, +So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse, +Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, +'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang! + +When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk, +And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc, +Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to ram your rom. +Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom! + + -- DementDJ@ccip.perkin-elmer.com (DementDJ) [rec.humor.funny] +% +If I could read your mind, love, +What a tale your thoughts could tell, +Just like a paperback novel, +The kind the drugstore sells, +When you reach the part where the heartaches come, +The hero would be me, +Heroes often fail, +You won't read that book again, because + the ending is just too hard to take. + +I walk away, like a movie star, +Who gets burned in a three way script, +Enter number two, +A movie queen to play the scene +Of bringing all the good things out in me, +But for now, love, let's be real +I never thought I could act this way, +And I've got to say that I just don't get it, +I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling is gone +And I just can't get it back... + -- Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind" +% +If I could stick my pen in my heart, +I would spill it all over the stage. +Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya, +Would you think the boy was strange? +Ain't he strange? +... +If I could stick a knife in my heart, +Suicide right on the stage, +Would it be enough for your teenage lust, +Would it help to ease the pain? +Ease your brain? + -- Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock'N Roll" +% +If I don't drive around the park, +I'm pretty sure to make my mark. +If I'm in bed each night by ten, +I may get back my looks again. +If I abstain from fun and such, +I'll probably amount to much; +But I shall stay the way I am, +Because I do not give a damn. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +If I promised you the moon and the stars, would you believe it? + -- Alan Parsons Project +% +If I traveled to the end of the rainbow +As Dame Fortune did intend, +Murphy would be there to tell me +The pot's at the other end. + -- Bert Whitney +% +If researchers wrote nursery rhymes... + +Little Miss Muffet sat on her gluteal region, +Eating components of soured milk. +On at least one occasion, + along came an arachnid and sat down beside her, +Or at least in her vicinity, +And caused her to feel an overwhelming, but not paralyzing, fear, +Which motivated the patient to leave the area rather quickly. + -- Ann Melugin Williams +% +If she had not been cupric in her ions, +Her shape ovoidal, +Their romance might have flourished. +But he built tetrahedral in his shape, +His ions ferric, +Love could not help but die, +Uncatylised, inert, and undernourished. +% +If you had just a minute to breathe, +And they granted you one final wish, +Would you ask for something +Like another chance? + -- Traffic, "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" +% +If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker, +It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock. + Or some joker who is slicker, + Will trick you of your liquor, +If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock. +% +If you're worried by earthquakes and nuclear war, +As well as by traffic and crime, +Consider how worry-free gophers are, +Though living on burrowed time. + -- Richard Armour, WSJ, 11/7/83 +% +Il brilgue: les t^oves libricilleux + Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave, +Enm^im'es sont les gougebosquex, + Et le m^omerade horgrave. + +Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven + Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; +Und aller-mumsige Burggoven + Dir mohmen Rath ausgraben. + -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +In /users3 did Kubla Kahn +A stately pleasure dome decree, +Where /bin, the sacred river ran +Through Test Suites measureless to Man +Down to a sunless C. +% +In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. +Find the fun and snap! The job's a game. +And every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake, + a lark, a spree; it's very clear to see. + -- Mary Poppins +% +In high school in Brooklyn +I was the baseball manager, +proud as I could be +I chased baseballs, +gathered thrown bats +handed out the towels Eventually, I bought my own +It was very important work but it was dark blue while +for a small spastic kid, the official ones were green +but I was a team member Nobody ever said anything +When the team got to me about my blue jacket; +their warm-up jackets the guys were my friends +I didn't get one Yet it hurt me all year +Only the regular team to wear that blue jacket +got these jackets, and among all those green ones +surely not a manager Even now, forty years after, + I still recall that jacket + and the memory goes on hurting. + -- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance" +% +In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space +Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. +Our asymptotes no longer out of phase, +We shall encounter, counting, face to face. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +In the dimestores and bus stations +People talk of situations +Read books repeat quotations +Draw conclusions on the wall. + -- Bob Dylan +% +In the early morning queue, +With a listing in my hand. +With a worry in my heart, There on terminal number 9, +Waitin' here in CERAS-land. Pascal run all set to go. +I'm a long way from sleep, But I'm waitin' in the queue, +How I miss a good meal so. With this code that ever grows. +In the early mornin' queue, Now the lobby chairs are soft, +With no place to go. But that can't make the queue move fast. + Hey, there it goes my friend, + I've moved up one at last. + -- Ernest Adams, "Early Morning Queue", to "Early + Morning Rain" by G. Lightfoot +% +In the land of the dark the Ship of the +Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead. + -- Egyptian Book of the Dead +% +In this vale +Of toil and sin +Your head grows bald +But not your chin. + -- Burma Shave +% +In Xanadu did Kubla Khan +A stately pleasure dome decree: +Where Alph, the sacred river, ran +Through caverns measureless to man +Down to a sunless sea. +So twice five miles of fertile ground +With walls and towers were girdled round: +And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, +Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; +And here were forest ancient as the hills, +Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. + -- S. T. Coleridge, "Kubla Kahn" +% +In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree +But only if the NFL to a franchise would agree. +% +Into love and out again, + Thus I went and thus I go. +Spare your voice, and hold your pen: + Well and bitterly I know +All the songs were ever sung, + All the words were ever said; +Could it be, when I was young, + Someone dropped me on my head? + -- Dorothy Parker, "Theory" +% +It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, +Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. +It lies behind starts and under hills, +And empty holes it fills. +It comes first and follows after, +Ends life, kills laughter. +% +It hangs down from the chandelier +Nobody knows quite what it does +Its color is odd and its shape is weird +It emits a high-sounding buzz + +It grows a couple of feet each day +and wriggles with sort of a twitch +Nobody bugs it 'cause it comes from +a visiting uncle who's rich! + -- To "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" +% +It happened long ago +In the new magic land +The Indians and the buffalo +Existed hand in hand +The Indians needed food +They need skins for a roof +They only took what they needed +And the buffalo ran loose +But then came the white man +With his thick and empty head +He couldn't see past his billfold +He wanted all the buffalo dead +It was sad, oh so sad. + -- Ted Nugent, "The Great White Buffalo" +% +It is not good for a man to be without knowledge, +and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way. + -- Proverbs 19:2 +% +It used to be the fun was in +The capture and kill. +In another place and time +I did it all for thrills. + -- Lust to Love +% +It was one time too many +One word too few +It was all too much for me and you +There was one way to go +Nothing more we could do +One time too many +One word too few + -- Meredith Tanner +% +It's faster horses, +Younger women, +Older whiskey and +More money. + -- Tom T. Hall, "The Secret of Life" +% +It's gonna be alright, +It's almost midnight, +And I've got two more bottles of wine. +% +It's just a jump to the left + And then a step to the right. +Put your hands on your hips + And pull your knees in tight. +It's the pelvic thrust + That really gets you insa-a-a-a-ane + + LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN! + -- Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +It's just apartment house rules, +So all you 'partment house fools +Remember: one man's ceiling is another man's floor. +One man's ceiling is another man's floor. + -- Paul Simon, "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor" +% +It's Like This + +Even the samurai +have teddy bears, +and even the teddy bears +get drunk. +% +It's not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon. + -- Tom Lehrer, "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" +% +It's so confusing choosing sides in the heat of the moment, + just to see if it's real, +Oooh, it's so erotic having you tell me how it should feel, +But I'm avoiding all the hard cold facts that I got to face, +So ask me just one question when this magic night is through, +Could it have been just anyone or did it have to be you? + -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" +% +John Dame May Oscar +Was Gay Was Whitty Was Wilde +But Gerard Hopkins But John Greenleaf But Thornton +Was Manley Was Whittier Was Wilder + -- Willard Espy +% +John the Baptist after poisoning a thief, +Looks up at his hero, the Commander-in-Chief, +Saying tell me great leader, but please make it brief +Is there a hole for me to get sick in? +The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly, +Saying death to all those who would whimper and cry. +And dropping a barbell he points to the sky, +Saying the sun is not yellow, it's chicken. + -- Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues" +% +Just a song before I go, Going through security +To whom it may concern, I held her for so long. +Traveling twice the speed of sound She finally looked at me in love, +It's easy to get burned. And she was gone. +When the shows were over Just a song before I go, +We had to get back home, A lesson to be learned. +And when we opened up the door Traveling twice the speed of sound +I had to be alone. It's easy to get burned. +She helped me with my suitcase, +She stands before my eyes, +Driving me to the airport +And to the friendly skies. + -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Just a Song Before I Go" +% +Just machines to make big decisions, +Programmed by men for compassion and vision, +We'll be clean when their work is done, +We'll be eternally free, yes, eternally young, +What a beautiful world this will be, +What a glorious time to be free. + -- Donald Fagon, "What A Beautiful World" +% +`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, + As he landed his crew with care; +Supporting each man on the top of the tide + By a finger entwined in his hair. + +'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: + That alone should encourage the crew. +Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: + What I tell you three times is true.' +% +`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, + As he landed his crew with care; +Supporting each man on the top of the tide + By a finger entwined in his hair. + +`Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: + That alone should encourage the crew. +Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: + What I tell you three times is true.' +% +Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone, +Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you, +I went out this morning and I wrote down this song, +Just can't remember who to send it to... + +Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain, +I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end, +I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, +But I always thought that I'd see you again. +Thought I'd see you one more time again. + -- James Taylor, "Fire and Rain" +% +K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining; + Cobol's wordy and confining; + KOBOLDS topple when you strike them; + Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries she +With silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, +Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, +The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. +Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me... + -- Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" +% +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Ether! (ether who?) Ether Bunny... Yea! +[chorus] + Yeay! + Stay on the Happy side, always on the happy side, + Stay on the Happy side of life! + Bum bum bum bum bum bum + You will feel no pain, as we drive you insane, + So Stay on the Happy Side of life! + +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Anna! (anna who?) + An another ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Stilla! (stilla who?) + Still another ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Yetta! (yetta who?) + Yet another ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Cargo! (cargo who?) + Cargo beep beep and run over ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Boo! (boo who?) + Don't Cry! Ether bunny be back next year! [chorus] +% +Ladies and Gentlemen, Hobos and Tramps, +Cross-eyed mosquitos and bowlegged ants, +I come before you to stand behind you +To tell you of something I know nothing about. +Next Thursday (which is good Friday), +There will be a convention held in the +Women's Club which is strictly for Men. +Admission is free, pay at the door, +Pull up a chair, and sit on the floor. +It was a summer's day in winter, +And the snow was raining fast, +As a barefoot boy with shoes on, +Stood sitting in the grass. +Oh, that bright day in the dead of night, +Two dead men got up to fight. +Three blind men to see fair play, +Forty mutes to yell "Hooray"! +Back to back, they faced each other, +Drew their swords and shot each other. +A deaf policeman heard the noise, +Came and arrested those two dead boys. +% +Ladles and Jellyspoons! +I come before you to stand behind you, +To tell you something I know nothing about. +Since next Thursday will be Good Friday, +There will be a fathers' meeting, for mothers only. +Wear your best clothes, if you don't have any, +And please stay at home if you can possibly be there. +Admission is free, please pay at the door. +Have a seat on me: please sit on the floor. +No matter where you manage to sit, +The man in the balcony will certainly spit. +We thank you for your unkind attention, +And would now like to present our next act: +"The Four Corners of the Round Table." +% +Lady, lady, should you meet +One whose ways are all discreet, +One who murmurs that his wife +Is the lodestar of his life, +One who keeps assuring you +That he never was untrue, +Never loved another one... +Lady, lady, better run! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Social Note" +% +Ladybug, ladybug, +Look to your stern! +Your house is on fire, +Your children will burn! +So jump ye and sing, for +The very first time +The four lines above +Have been put into rhyme. + -- Walt Kelly +% +Last night I met upon the stair +A little man who wasn't there. +He wasn't there again today. +Gee how I wish he'd go away! +% +Latin is a language, +As dead as can be. +First it killed the Romans, +And now it's killing me. +% +Let me not to the marriage of true minds +Admit impediments. Love is not love +Which alters when it alteration finds, +Or bends with the remover to remove: +O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, +That looks on tempests and is never shaken; +It is the star to every wandering bark, +Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. +Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks +Within his bending sickle's compass come; +Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, +But bears it out even to the edge of doom. +If this be error and upon me proved, +I never writ, nor no man ever loved. +% +Let us go then you and I +while the night is laid out against the sky +like a smear of mustard on an old pork pie. + +"Nice poem Tom. I have ideas for changes though, why not come over?" + -- Ezra +% +Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, +The muttering retreats +Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels +And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: +Streets that follow like a tedious argument +Of insidious intent +To lead you to an overwhelming question... +Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" + -- T. S. Eliot, "Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock" +% +Let us treat men and women well; +Treat them as if they were real; +Perhaps they are. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Life is like a tin of sardines. +We're, all of us, looking for the key. + -- Beyond the Fringe +% +Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. + -- John Lennon, "Beautiful Boy" +% +Lift every voice and sing +Till earth and heaven ring, +Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; +Let our rejoicing rise +High as the listening skies, +Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. + +Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. +Sing a song full of the hope that the present has bought us. +Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, +Let us march on till victory is won. + -- James Weldon Johnson +% +Lighten up, while you still can, +Don't even try to understand, +Just find a place to make your stand, +And take it easy. + -- The Eagles, "Take It Easy" +% +Like corn in a field I cut you down, +I threw the last punch way too hard, +After years of going steady, well, I thought it was time, +To throw in my hand for a new set of cards. +And I can't take you dancing out on the weekend, +I figured we'd painted too much of this town, +And I tried not to look as I walked to my wagon, +And I knew then I had lost what should have been found, +I knew then I had lost what should have been found. + And I feel like a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford + I'm as low as a paid assassin is + You know I'm cold as a hired sword. + I'm so ashamed we can't patch it up, + You know I can't think straight no more + You make me feel like a bullet, honey, + a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford. + -- Elton John "I Feel Like a Bullet" +% +"Lines that are parallel meet at Infinity!" +Euclid repeatedly, heatedly, urged. + +Until he died, and so reached that vicinity: +in it he found that the damned things diverged. + -- Piet Hein +% +Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine, +Lisp Machine is Fun. +Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine, +Fun for everyone. +% +Little Fly, +Thy summer's play If thought is life +My thoughtless hand And strength & breath, +Has brush'd away. And the want + Of thought is death, +Am not I +A fly like thee? Then am I +Or art not thou A happy fly +A man like me? If I live + Or if I die. + +For I dance +And drink & sing, +Till some blind hand +Shall brush my wing. + -- William Blake, "The Fly" +% +Lizzie Borden took an axe, +And plunged it deep into the VAX; +Don't you envy people who +Do all the things ___YOU want to do? +% +Logicians have but ill defined +As rational the human kind. +Logic, they say, belongs to man, +But let them prove it if they can. + -- Oliver Goldsmith +% +Louie Louie, me gotta go +Louie Louie, me gotta go + +Fine little girl she waits for me +Me catch the ship for cross the sea +Me sail the ship all alone Three nights and days me sail the sea +Me never thinks me make it home Me think of girl constantly +(chorus) On the ship I dream she there + I smell the rose in her hair +Me see Jamaica moon above (chorus, guitar solo) +It won't be long, me see my love +I take her in my arms and then +Me tell her I never leave again + -- The real words to The Kingsmen's classic "Louie Louie" +% +Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay. +Love isn't love 'til you give it away. + -- Oscar Hammerstein II +% +Love, which is quickly kindled in a gentle heart, + seized this one for the fair form + that was taken from me-and the way of it afficts me still. +Love, which absolves no loved one from loving, + seized me so strongly with delight in him, + that, as you see, it does not leave me even now. +Love brought us to one death. + -- La Divina Commedia: Inferno V, vv. 100-06 +% +Margaret, are you grieving +Over Goldengrove unleaving? +Leaves, like the things of man, +You, with your fresh thoughts +Care for, can you? +Ah! as the heart grows older +It will come to such sights colder +By and by, nor spare a sigh +Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie +And yet you will weep and know why. +Now no matter, child, the name +Sorrow's springs are the same: +It is the blight man was born for, +It is Margaret you mourn for. + -- Gerard Manley Hopkins. +% +Meanehwael, baccat meaddehaele, monstaer lurccen; +Fulle few too many drincce, hie luccen for fyht. +[D]en Hreorfneorht[d]hwr, son of Hrwaerow[p]heororthwl, +AEsccen aewful jeork to steop outsyd. +[P]hud! Bashe! Crasch! Beoom! [D]e bigge gye +Eallum his bon brak, byt his nose offe; +Wicced Godsylla waeld on his asse. +Monstaer moppe fleor wy[p] eallum men in haelle. +Beowulf in bacceroome fonecall bemaccen waes; +Hearen sond of ruccus saed, "Hwaet [d]e helle?" +Graben sheold strang ond swich-blaed scharp +Sond feorth to fyht [d]e grimlic foe. +"Me," Godsylla saed, "mac [d]e minsemete." +Heoro cwyc geten heold wi[p] faemed half-nelson +Ond flyng him lic frisbe bac to fen. +Beowulf belly up to meaddehaele bar, +Saed, "Ne foe beaten mie faersom cung-fu." +Eorderen cocca-colha yce-coeld, [d]e reol [p]yng. + -- Not Chaucer, for certain +% +Most folks they like the daytime, + 'cause they like to see the shining sun. +They're up in the morning, + off and a-running till they're too tired for having fun. +But when the sun goes down, + and the bright lights shine, my daytime has just begun. + +Now there are two sides to this great big world, + and one of them is always night. +If you can take care of business in the sunshine, baby, + I guess you're gonna be all right. +Don't come looking for me to lend you a hand. + My eyes just can't stand the light. + +'Cause I'm a night owl honey, sleep all day long. + -- Carly Simon +% +Mummy dust to make me old; +To shroud my clothes, the black of night; +To age my voice, an old hag's cackle; +To whiten my hair, a scream of fright; +A blast of wind to fan my hate; +A thunderbolt to mix it well -- +Now begin thy magic spell! + -- Walter Disney, "Snow White" +% +My analyst told me that I was right out of my head, + But I said, "Dear Doctor, I think that it is you instead. +Because I have got a thing that is unique and new, + To prove it I'll have the last laugh on you. +'Cause instead of one head -- I've got two. + +And you know two heads are better than one. +% +My Bonnie looked into a gas tank, +The height of its contents to see! +She lit a small match to assist her, +Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me. +% +My calculator is my shepherd, I shall not want +It maketh me accurate to ten significant figures, + and it leadeth me in scientific notation to 99 digits. +It restoreth my square roots and guideth me along paths of floating + decimal points for the sake of precision. +Yea, tho I walk through the valley of surprise quizzes, + I will fear no prof, for my calculator is there to hearten me. +It prepareth a log table to comfort me, it prepareth an + arc sin for me in the presence of my teachers. +It anoints my homework with correct solutions, my interpolations are + over. +Surely, both precision and accuracy shall follow me all the days of my + life, and I shall dwell in the house of Texas instruments forever. +% +My darling wife was always glum. +I drowned her in a cask of rum, +And so made sure that she would stay +In better spirits night and day. +% +My love runs by like a day in June, + And he makes no friends of sorrows. +He'll tread his galloping rigadoon + In the pathway or the morrows. +He'll live his days where the sunbeams start + Nor could storm or wind uproot him. +My own dear love, he is all my heart -- + And I wish somebody'd shoot him. + -- Dorothy Parker, part 3 +% +My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet, + And a wild young wood-thing bore him! +The ways are fair to his roaming feet, + And the skies are sunlit for him. +As sharply sweet to my heart he seems + As the fragrance of acacia. +My own dear love, he is all my dreams -- + And I wish he were in Asia. + -- Dorothy Parker, part 2 +% +My My, hey hey +Rock and roll is here to stay The king is gone but he's not forgotten +It's better to burn out This is the story of a Johnny Rotten +Than to fade away It's better to burn out than it is to rust +My my, hey hey The king is gone but he's not forgotten + +It's out of the blue and into the black Hey hey, my my +They give you this, but you pay for that Rock and roll can never die +And once you're gone you can never come back There's more to the picture +When you're out of the blue Than meets the eye +And into the black + -- Neil Young + "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), Rust Never Sleeps" +% +"My name is Sue! How do you do?! Now you gonna die!" +Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes, +And he went down, but to my surprise, +Come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear. +So I busted a chair right across his teeth, +And we crashed through the walls and into the streets, +Kickin' and a-gougin' in the mud and the blood and beer. +Now I tell you, I've fought tougher men, +But I really can't remember when: +He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile. +But I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss, +And he went for his gun, but I pulled mine first, +And he sat there lookin' at me, and I saw him smile. +He said: "Son, this world is rough, +And if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough, +And I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along. +So I give you that name and I said goodbye, +And I knew you'd have to get tough or die, +And it's that name that's helped to make you strong! + -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue" +% +My own dear love, he is strong and bold + And he cares not what comes after. +His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, + And his eyes are lit with laughter. +He is jubilant as a flag unfurled -- + Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. +My own dear love, he is all my world -- + And I wish I'd never met him. + -- Dorothy Parker, part 1 +% +My pen is at the bottom of a page, +Which, being finished, here the story ends; +'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done, +But stories somehow lengthen when begun. + -- Byron +% +My soul is crushed, my spirit sore +I do not like me anymore, +I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse, +I ponder on the narrow house +I shudder at the thought of men +I'm due to fall in love again. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Enough Rope" +% +Nature to all things fixed the limits fit, +And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit. +As on the land while here the ocean gains, +In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; +Thus in the soul while memory prevails, +The solid power of understanding fails; +Where beams of warm imagination play, +The memory's soft figures melt away. + -- Alexander Pope (on runtime bounds checking?) +% +Near the Studio Jean Cocteau +On the Rue des Ecoles +lived an old man +with a blind dog +Every evening I would see him +guiding the dog along +the sidewalk, keeping +a firm grip on the leash +so that the dog wouldn't +run into a passerby +Sometimes the dog would stop +and look up at the sky +Once the old man +noticed me watching the dog +and he said, "Oh, yes, +this one knows +when the moon is out, +he can feel it on his face" + -- Barry Gifford +% +Neuroses are red, + Melancholia's blue. +I'm schizophrenic, + What are you? +% +New York's got the ways and means; +Just won't let you be. + -- The Grateful Dead +% +New York-- to that tall skyline I come +Flyin' in from London to your door +New York-- lookin' down on Central Park +Where they say you should not wander after dark. +New York. + -- Simon and Garfunkle +% +Next, upon a stool, we've a sight to make you drool. +Seven virgins and a mule, keep it cool, keep it cool. + -- ELP, "Karn Evil 9" (1st Impression, Part 2) +% +Nine megs for the secretaries fair, +Seven megs for the hackers scarce, +Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs, +Three megs for system source; + +One disk to rule them all, +One disk to bind them, +One disk to hold the files +And in the darkness grind 'em. +% +Nine-track tapes and seven-track tapes +And tapes without any tracks; +Stretchy tapes and snarley tapes +And tapes mixed up on the racks -- + Take hold of the tape + And pull off the strip, + And then you'll be sure + Your tape drive will skip. + -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes +% +No one likes us. +I don't know why. +We may not be perfect, We give them money, +But heaven knows we try. But are they grateful? +But all around, No, they're spiteful, +Even our old friends put us down. And they're hateful. +Let's drop the big one, They don't respect us, +And see what happens. So let's surprise them + We'll drop the big one, + And pulverize 'em. +Asia's crowded, +Europe's too old, +Africa is far too hot, We'll save Australia. +And Canada's too cold. Don't wanna hurt no kangaroos. +And South America stole our name We'll build an All-American amusement +Let's drop the big one, park there-- +There'll be no one left to blame us. They got surfin', too! + +Boom! goes London, +And Boom! Paree. +More room for you, Oh, how peaceful it'll be! +And more room for me, We'll set everybody free! +And every city, You'll wear a Japanese kimono, babe; +The whole world round, There'll be Italian shoes for me! +Will just be another American town. They all hate us anyhow, + So, let's drop the big one now. + Let's drop the big one now! + -- Randy Newman, "Drop the Big One" +% +No pig should go sky diving during monsoon +For this isn't really the norm. +But should a fat swine try to soar like a loon, +So what? Any pork in a storm. + +No pig should go sky diving during monsoon, +It's risky enough when the weather is fine. +But to have a pig soar when the monsoon doth roar +Cast even more perils before swine. +% +No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff -- +He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough. +Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame +And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame. + (refrain) +Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails +And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail. +All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff +But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!" + (refrain) +Puff used more resources than DCS could spare. +The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care. +A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end, +But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again! + (refrain) +Refrain: + Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, + And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory. + Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, + And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory. +% +"No program is perfect," +They said with a shrug. +"The customer's happy-- +What's one little bug?" + +But he was determined, Then change two, then three more, +The others went home. As year followed year. +He dug out the flow chart And strangers would comment, +Deserted, alone. "Is that guy still here?" + +Night passed into morning. He died at the console +The room was cluttered Of hunger and thirst +With core dumps, source listings. Next day he was buried +"I'm close," he muttered. Face down, nine edge first. + +Chain smoking, cold coffee, And his wife through her tears +Logic, deduction. Accepted his fate. +"I've got it!" he cried, Said "He's not really gone, +"Just change one instruction." He's just working late." + -- The Perfect Programmer +% +No rock so hard but that a little wave +May beat admission in a thousand years. + -- Tennyson +% +No sooner had Edger Allen Poe +Finished his old Raven, +then he started his Old Crow. +% +No, his mind is not for rent +To any god or government. +Always hopeful, yet discontent, +He knows changes aren't permanent - +But change is. +% +Nothing that's forced can ever be right, +If it doesn't come naturally, leave it. +That's what she said as she turned out the light, +And we bent our backs as slaves of the night, +Then she lowered her guard and showed me the scars +She got from trying to fight +Saying, oh, you'd better believe it. +[...] +Well nothing that's real is ever for free +And you just have to pay for it sometime. +She said it before, she said it to me, +I suppose she believed there was nothing to see, +But the same old four imaginary walls +She'd built for livin' inside +I said oh, you just can't mean it. +[...] +Well nothing that's forced can ever be right, +If it doesn't come naturally, leave it. +That's what she said as she turned out the light, +And she may have been wrong, and she may have been right, +But I woke with the frost, and noticed she'd lost +The veil that covered her eyes, +I said oh, you can leave it. + -- Al Stewart, "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It" +% +Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; +Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure. + -- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan" +% +Now I lay me back to sleep. +The speaker's dull; the subject's deep. +If he should stop before I wake, +Give me a nudge for goodness' sake. + -- Anonymous +% +Now I lay me down to sleep +I pray the double lock will keep; +May no brick through the window break, +And, no one rob me till I awake. +% +Now I lay me down to sleep, +I pray the Lord my soul to keep, +If I should die before I wake, +I'll cry in anguish, "Mistake!! Mistake!!" +% +Now I lay me down to study, +I pray the Lord I won't go nutty. +And if I fail to learn this junk, +I pray the Lord that I won't flunk. +But if I do, don't pity me at all, +Just lay my bones in the study hall. +Tell my teacher I've done my best, +Then pile my books upon my chest. +% +Now it's time to say goodbye +To all our company... +M-I-C (see you next week!) +K-E-Y (Why? Because we LIKE you!) +M-O-U-S-E. +% +Now let the song begin! Let us sing together +Of sun, star, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather, +Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather, +Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather, +Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water: +Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Now of my threescore years and ten, +Twenty will not come again, +And take from seventy springs a score, +It leaves me only fifty more. + +And since to look at things in bloom +Fifty springs are little room, +About the woodlands I will go +To see the cherry hung with snow. + -- A. E. Housman +% +Now that day wearies me, +My yearning desire +Will receive more kindly, +Like a tired child, the starry night. + +Hands, leave off your deeds, +Mind, forget all thoughts; +All of my forces +Yearn only to sink into sleep. + +And my soul, unguarded, +Would soar on widespread wings, +To live in night's magical sphere +More profoundly, more variously. + -- Hermann Hesse, "Going to Sleep" +% +Now what would they do if I just sailed away? +Who the hell really compelled me to leave today? +Runnin' low on stories of what made it a ball, +What would they do if I made no landfall?" + -- Jimmy Buffet, "Landfall" +% +Now's the time to have some big ideas +Now's the time to make some firm decisions +We saw the Buddha in a bar down south +Talking politics and nuclear fission +We see him and he's all washed up -- +Moving on into the body of a beetle +Getting ready for a long long crawl +He ain't nothing -- he ain't nothing at all... + +Death and Money make their point once more +In the shape of Philosophical assassins +Mark and Danny take the bus uptown +Deadly angels for reality and passion +Have the courage of the here and now +Don't taking nothing from the half-baked buddhas +When you think you got it paid in full +You got nothing -- you got nothing at all... + We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. + We know his name and he mustn't get away. + We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. + It would take one shot -- to blow him away... + -- Shriekback, "Gunning for the Buddah" +% +O give me a home, +Where the buffalo roam, +Where the deer and the antelope play, +Where seldom is heard +A discouraging word, +'Cause what can an antelope say? +% +O love, could thou and I with fate conspire +To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, +Might we not smash it to bits +And mould it closer to our hearts' desire? + -- Omar Khayyam, tr. FitzGerald +% +O slender as a willow-wand! O clearer than clear water! +O reed by the living pool! Fair river-daughter! +O spring-time and summer-time, and spring again after! +O wind on the waterfall, and the leaves' laughter! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +O! Wanderers in the shadowed land +despair not! For though dark they stand, +all woods there be must end at last, +and see the open sun go past: +the setting sun, the rising sun, +the day's end, or the day begun. +For east or west all woods must fail ... + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Observe yon plumed biped fine. +To activate its captivation, +Deposit on its termination, +A quantity of particles saline. +% +Of all the words of witch's doom +There's none so bad as which and whom. +The man who kills both which and whom +Will be enshrined in our Who's Whom. + -- Fletcher Knebel +% +Oh don't the days seem lank and long + When all goes right and none goes wrong, +And isn't your life extremely flat + With nothing whatever to grumble at! +% +Oh give me your pity! +I'm on a committee, We attend and amend +Which means that from morning And contend and defend + to night, Without a conclusion in sight. + +We confer and concur, +We defer and demur, We revise the agenda +And reiterate all of our thoughts. With frequent addenda + And consider a load of reports. + +We compose and propose, +We suppose and oppose, But though various notions +And the points of procedure are fun; Are brought up as motions, + There's terribly little gets done. + +We resolve and absolve; +But we never dissolve, +Since it's out of the question for us +To bring our committee +To end like this ditty, +Which stops with a period, thus. + -- Leslie Lipson, "The Committee" +% +Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 4BSD? +My friends all got sources, so why can't I see? +Come all you moby hackers, come sing it out with me: +To hell with the lawyers from AT&T! +% +"Oh, 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown! +Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town? +And whence such fair garments such prosperi-ty?" +"Oh, didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she. + +"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, +Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks; +And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" +"Yes: That's how we dress when we're ruined," said she. + +"At home in the barton you said `thee' and `thou,' +And `thik oon' and `theas oon' and `t'other;' but now +Your talking quite fits 'ee for compa-ny!" +"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she. + +"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak +But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek, +And your little gloves fit like as on any la-dy!" +"We never do work when we're ruined," said she. + +"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream, +And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem +To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" +"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she. + +"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown, +And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" +"My dear--a raw country girl, such as you be, +Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she. + -- Thomas Hardy +% +Oh, by the way, which one's Pink? + -- Pink Floyd +% +Oh, give me a home, +Where the buffalo roam, +And I'll show you a house with a really messy kitchen. +% +Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus + Where the three-body problem is solved, + Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K, + And the cold virus never evolved. (chorus) +We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high, + Our ball bearings are perfectly round. + Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed, + And a kilogram weighs half a pound. (chorus) +If we run out of space for our burgeoning race + No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch + When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart, + If we just find a big enough wrench. (chorus) +I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space, + And living up here is a bore. + Tell the shiggies, "Don't cry," they can kiss me goodbye + 'Cause I'm moving next week to L4! (chorus) + +CHORUS: Home, home on LaGrange, + Where the space debris always collects, + We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams: + Solar power and zero-gee sex. + -- to Home on the Range +% +Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay + I muck with indices and structs all day +And when it works, I shout hoo-ray + Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay +% +Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, +And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings; +Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth +Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things +You have not dreamed of -- +Wheeled and soared and swung +High in the sunlit silence. +Hovering there +I've chased the shouting wind along and flung +My eager craft through footless halls of air. +Up, up along delirious, burning blue +I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, +Where never lark, or even eagle flew; +And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod +The high untrespassed sanctity of space, +Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. + -- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight" +% +Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, +A medley of extemporanea; +And love is thing that can never go wrong; +And I am Marie of Roumania. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Comment" +% +Oh, the Slithery Dee, he crawled out of the sea. +He may catch all the others, but he won't catch me. +No, he won't catch me, stupid ol' Slithery Dee. +He may catch all the others, but AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! + -- The Smothers Brothers +% +Oh, when I was in love with you, + Then I was clean and brave, +And miles around the wonder grew + How well did I behave. + +And now the fancy passes by, + And nothing will remain, +And miles around they'll say that I + Am quite myself again. + -- A. E. Housman +% +Oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of livin' is gone. + -- John Cougar, "Jack and Diane" +% +Old Mother Hubbard lived in a shoe, +She had so many children, +She didn't know what to do. +So she moved to Atlanta. +% +Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard +To fetch her poor daughter a dress. +When she got there, the cupboard was bare +And so was her daughter, I guess... +% +Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, +Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. +None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master: +His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turned back time, +You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime. +She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain. +Don't bother asking for explanations, she'll just tell you that she came +In the Year of the Cat. + +She doesn't give you time for questions, as she locks up your arm in hers, +And you follow 'till your sense of which direction completely disappears. +By the blue-tiled walls near the market stall there's a hidden door she + leads you to. +These days, she say, I feel my life just like a river running through +The Year of the Cat. + +Well, she looks at you so coolly, +And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea. +She comes in incense and patchouli, +So you take her to find what's waiting inside +The Year of the Cat. + +Well, morning comes and you're still with her, but the bus and the tourists + are gone, +And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket, so you have to stay on. +But the drum-beat strains of the night remain in the rhythm of the new-born day. +You know some time you're bound to leave her, but for now you're going to stay +In the Year of the Cat. + -- Al Stewart, "Year of the Cat" +% +On the good ship Enterprise +Every week there's a new surprise +Where the Romulans lurk +And the Klingons often go berserk. + +Yes, the good ship Enterprise +There's excitement anywhere it flies +Where Tribbles play +And Nurse Chapel never gets her way. + + See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge, + Mr. Spock is at his side. + The weekly menace, ooh-ooh + It gets fried, scattered far and wide. + +It's the good ship Enterprise +Heading out where danger lies +And you live in dread +If you're wearing a shirt that's red. + -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics, + "The Good Ship Enterprise," to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop" +% +Once again dread deed is done. +Canon sleeps, +his all-knowing eye shaded +to human chance and circumstance. +Peace reigns anew o'er Pine Valley, +but Canon's sleep is troubled. + +Beware, scant days past the Ides of July. +Impatient hands wait eagerly +to grasp, to hold +scant moments of time +wrested from life in the full +glory of Canon's power; +held captive by his unblinking eye. + +Three golden orbs stand watch; +one each to toll the day, hour, minute +until predestiny decrees his reawakening. +When that feared moment arives, +"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, +It tolls for thee." + -- "I extended the loan on your Camera, at the Pine + Valley Pawn Shop today" +% +Once there was a little nerd who loved to read your mail, +And then yank back the i-access times to get hackers off his tail, +And once as he finished reading from the secretary's spool, +He wrote a rude rejection to her boyfriend (how uncool!) +And this as delivermail did work and he ran his backfstat, +He heard an awful crackling like rat fritters in hot fat, +And hard errors brought the system down 'fore he could even shout! + And the bio bug'll bring yours down too, ef you don't watch out! +And once they was a little flake who'd prowl through the uulog, +And when he went to his blit that night to play at being god, +The ops all heard him holler, and they to the console dashed, +But when they did a ps -ut they found the system crashed! +Oh, the wizards adb'd the dumps and did the system trace, +And worked on the file system 'til the disk head was hot paste, +But all they ever found was this: "panic: never doubt", + And the bio bug'll crash your box too, ef you don't watch out! +When the day is done and the moon comes out, +And you hear the printer whining and the rk's seems to count, +When the other desks are empty and their terminals glassy grey, +And the load is only 1.6 and you wonder if it'll stay, +You must mind the file protections and not snoop around, + Or the bio bug'll getcha and bring the system down! +% +Once upon this midnight incoherent, +While you pondered sentient and crystalline, +Over many a broken and subordinate +Volume of gnarly lore, +While I pestered, nearly singing, +Sudddenly there came a hewing, +As of someone profusely skulking, +Skulking at my chamber door. +% +One bright Sunday morning, in the shadows of the steeple, +By the Relief Office, I seen my people; +As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling, +This land was made for you and me. + +Nobody living can ever stop me, +As I go walking that freedom highway; +Nobody living can ever make me turn back, +This land was made for you and me. + +As I went walking, I saw a sign there, +And on the sign it said: "No Trespassing." +But on the other side, it didn't say nothing, +That side was made for you and me. + -- Woody Guthrie, "This Land Is Your Land" (verses 4, 6, 7) + [If you ever wondered why Arlo was so anti-establishment when his dad + wrote such wonderful patriotic songs, the answer is that you haven't + heard all of Woody's songs] +% +One day, +A mad meta-poet, +With nothing to say, +Wrote a mad meta-poem +That started: "One day, +A mad meta-poet, +With nothing to say, +Wrote a mad meta-poem +That started: "One day, +[...] +sort of close". +Were the words that the poet, +Finally chose, +To bring his mad poem, +To some sort of close". +Were the words that the poet, +Finally chose, +To bring his mad poem, +To some sort of close". +% +One good thing about music, +Well, it helps you feel no pain. +So hit me with music; +Hit me with music now. + -- Bob Marley, "Trenchtown Rock" +% +One pill makes you larger, And if you go chasing rabbits +And one pill makes you small. And you know you're going to fall. +And the ones that mother gives you, Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar +Don't do anything at all. Has given you the call. +Go ask Alice Call Alice +When she's ten feet tall. When she was just small. + +When men on the chessboard When logic and proportion +Get up and tell you where to go. Have fallen sloppy dead, +And you've just had some kind of And the White Knight is talking + mushroom backwards +And your mind is moving low. And the Red Queen's lost her head +Go ask Alice Remember what the dormouse said: +I think she'll know. Feed your head. + Feed your head. + Feed your head. + -- Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit" +% +One reason why George Washington +Is held in such veneration: +He never blamed his problems +On the former Administration. + -- George O. Ludcke +% +One thing about the past. +It's likely to last. + -- Ogden Nash +% +One toke over the line, sweet Mary, +One toke over the line, +Sittin' downtown in a railway station, +One toke over the line. +Waitin' for the train that goes home, +Hopin' that the train is on time, +Sittin' downtown in a railway station, +One toke over the line. +% +Other women cloy +The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry +Where most she satisfies. + -- Antony and Cleopatra +% +Our little systems have their day; +They have their day and cease to be; +They are but broken lights of thee. + -- Tennyson +% +Parsley + is gharsley. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Payeen to a Twang +Derrida +Ore-Ida +potato. + +If you dared, +I'd ask you +to go dig +up your ides under brown- +tubered skies. + +where pitchforked +you will ask +Derrida? +% +Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream, +I wonder how the old folks are tonight, +Her name was Ann, and I'll be damned if I recall her face, +She left me not knowing what to do. + +Carefree Highway, let me slip away on you, +Carefree Highway, you seen better days, +The morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes, +Carefree Highway, let me slip away, slip away, on you... + +Turning back the pages to the times I love best, +I wonder if she'll ever do the same, +Now the thing that I call livin' is just bein' satisfied, +With knowing I got no one left to blame. +Carefree Highway, I got to see you, my old flame... + +Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep, +I wonder if the years have closed her mind, +I guess it must be wanderlust or tryin' to get free, +From the good old faithful feelin' we once knew. + -- Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway" +% +Piping down the valleys wild, +Piping songs of pleasant glee, +On a cloud I saw a child, +And he laughing said to me: +"Pipe a song about a Lamb!" +So I piped with merry cheer. +"Piper, pipe that song again;" +So I piped: he wept to hear. + -- William Blake, "Songs of Innocence" +% +Plagiarize, plagiarize, +Let no man's work evade your eyes, +Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, +Don't shade your eyes, +But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize. +Only be sure to call it research. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Planet Claire has pink hair. +All the trees are red. +No one ever dies there. +No one has a head.... +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + Australians all, let us rejoice, + For we are young and free. + We've golden soil and wealth for toil + Our home is girt by sea. + Our land abounds in nature's gifts + Of beauty rich and rare. + In history's page, let every stage + Advance Australia Fair. + In joyful strains then let us sing, + Advance Australia Fair. + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + God save our Gracious Queen! + Long live our Noble Queen! + God save the Queen! + Send her victorious, + Happy and glorious, + Long to reign o'er us! + God save the Queen! + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + O Canada + Our home and native land + True patriot love + In all thy sons' command + With glowing hearts we see thee rise + The true north strong and free + From far and wide, O Canada + We stand on guard for thee + God keep our land glorious and free + O Canada we stand on guard for thee + O Canada we stand on guard for thee + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + Oh, say can you see by dawn's early light + What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? + Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight + O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? + And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, + Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. + Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Power, like a desolating pestilence, +Pollutes whate'er it touches... + -- Percy Bysshe Shelley +% +Probable-Possible, my black hen, +She lays eggs in the Relative When. +She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now +Because she's unable to postulate How. + -- Frederick Winsor +% + Proposed Country & Western Song Titles +I Can't Get Over You, So I Get Up and Go Around to the Other Side +If You Won't Leave Me Alone, I'll Find Someone Who Will +I Knew That You'd Committed a Sin When You Came Home Late With + Your Socks Outside-in +I'm a Rabbit in the Headlights of Your Love +Don't Kick My Tires If You Ain't Gonna Take Me For a Ride +I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well +I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better +I've Got Red Eyes From Your White Lies and I'm Blue All the Time + -- "Wordplay" +% + Proposed Country & Western Song Titles +I Don't Mind If You Lie to Me, As Long As I Ain't Lyin' Alone +I Wouldn't Take You to a Dog Fight Even If I Thought You Could Win +If You Leave Me, Walk Out Backwards So I'll Think You're Comin' In +Since You Learned to Lip-Sync, I'm At Your Disposal +My John Deere Was Breaking Your Field, While Your Dear John Was + Breaking My Heart +Don't Cry, Little Darlin', You're Waterin' My Beer +Tennis Must Be Your Racket, 'Cause Love Means Nothin' to You +When You Say You Love Me, You're Full of Prunes, 'Cause Living + With You Is the Pits +I Wanted Your Hand in Marriage but All I Got Was the Finger + -- "Wordplay" +% + Proposed Country & Western Song Titles +She Ain't Much to See, but She Looks Good Through the Bottom of a Glass +If Fingerprints Showed Up On Skin, I Wonder Whose I'd Find On You +I'm Ashamed to be Here, but Not Ashamed Enough to Leave +It's Commode Huggin' Time In The Valley +If You Want to Keep the Beer Real Cold, Put It Next to My Ex-wife's Heart +If You Get the Feeling That I Don't Love You, Feel Again +I'm Ashamed To Be Here, But Not Ashamed Enough To Leave +It's the Bottle Against the Bible in the Battle For Daddy's Soul +My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Miss Him +Don't Cut Any More Wood, Baby, 'Cause I'll Be Comin' Home With A Load +I Loved Her Face, But I Left Her Behind For You +% +Put another password in, +Bomb it out, then try again. +Try to get past logging in, +We're hacking, hacking, hacking. + +Try his first wife's maiden name, +This is more than just a game. +It's real fun, but just the same, +It's hacking, hacking, hacking. + -- To the tune of "Music, Music, Music?" +% +rain falls where clouds come +sun shines where clouds go +clouds just come and go + -- Florian Gutzwiller +% +Razors pain you; + Rivers are damp. + Acids stain you, +And drugs cause cramp. + +Guns aren't lawful; + Nooses give. + Gas smells awful-- +You might as well live! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Resume", 1926 +% +Reach into the thoughts of friends, +And find they do not know your name. +Squeeze the teddy bear too tight, +And watch the feathers burst the seams. +Touch the stained glass with your cheek, +And feel its chill upon your blood. +Hold a candle to the night, +And see the darkness bend the flame. +Tear the mask of peace from God, +And hear the roar of souls in hell. +Pluck a rose in name of love, +And watch the petals curl and wilt. +Lean upon the western wind, +And know you are alone. + -- Dru Mims +% +Reclaimer, spare that tree! +Take not a single bit! +It used to point to me, +Now I'm protecting it. +It was the reader's CONS +That made it, paired by dot; +Now, GC, for the nonce, +Thou shalt reclaim it not. +% +Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be +worse in Cleveland. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Remember thee +Ay, thou poor ghost while memory holds a seat +In this distracted globe. Remember thee! +Yea, from the table of my memory +I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, +All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, +That youth and observation copied there. + -- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet" +% +Remove me from this land of slaves, +Where all are fools, and all are knaves, +Where every knave and fool is bought, +Yet kindly sells himself for nought; + -- Jonathan Swift +% +Roland was a warrior, from the land of the midnight sun, +With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done. +The deal was made in Denmark, on a dark and stormy day, +So he set out for Biafra, to join the bloody fray. +Through sixty-six and seven, they fought the Congo war, +With their fingers on their triggers, knee deep in gore. +Days and nights they battled, the Bantu to their knees, +They killed to earn their living, and to help out the Congolese. + Roland the Thompson gunner... +His comrades fought beside him, Van Owen and the rest, +But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best. +So the C.I.A decided, they wanted Roland dead, +That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen, blew off Roland's head. + Roland the headless Thompson gunner... +Roland searched the continent, for the man who'd done him in. +He found him in Mombasa, in a bar room drinking gin, +Roland aimed his Thompson gun, he didn't say a word, +But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg. +The eternal Thompson gunner, still wandering through the night, +Now it's ten years later, but he stills keeps up the fight. +In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Berkeley, +Patty Hearst... heard the burst... of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it. + -- Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" +% +Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill, +He jumped out the window 'cause he couldn't sit still, +Juliet was waiting with a safety net, +Said "don't bury me 'cause I ain't dead yet". + -- Elvis Costello +% +Roses are red; + Violets are blue. +I'm schizophrenic, + And so am I. +% +Saturday night in Toledo Ohio, + Is like being nowhere at all, +All through the day how the hours rush by, + You sit in the park and you watch the grass die. + -- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio" +% +Say it with flowers, +Or say it with mink, +But whatever you do, +Don't say it with ink! + -- Jimmie Durante +% +Say many of cameras focused t'us, +Our middle-aged shots do us justice. +No justice, please, curse ye! +We really want mercy: +You see, 'tis the justice, disgusts us. + -- Thomas H. Hildebrandt +% +Say my love is easy had, + Say I'm bitten raw with pride, +Say I am too often sad -- + Still behold me at your side. + +Say I'm neither brave nor young, + Say I woo and coddle care, +Say the devil touched my tongue -- + Still you have my heart to wear. + +But say my verses do not scan, + And I get me another man! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Fighting Words" +% +Say! You've struck a heap of trouble-- +Bust in business, lost your wife; +No one cares a cent about you, +You don't care a cent for life; +Hard luck has of hope bereft you, +Health is failing, wish you'd die-- +Why, you've still the sunshine left you +And the big blue sky. + -- R. W. Service +% +Science Fiction, Double Feature. +Frank has built and lost his creature. +Darkness has conquered Brad and Janet. +The servants gone to a distant planet. +Wo, oh, oh, oh. +At the late night, double feature, Picture show. +I want to go, oh, oh, oh. +To the late night, double feature, Picture show. + -- Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! +Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. +Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, +Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? +How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise? +Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering +To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, +Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? +Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? +And driven the Hamadryad from the wood +To seek a shelter in some happier star? +Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, +The Elfin from the green grass, and from me +The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? + -- Edgar Allen Poe, "Science, a Sonnet" +% +Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific, +Fain how I pause at your nature specific, +Loftily poised in the ether capacious, +Highly resembling a gem carbonaceous. +Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific, +Fain how I pause at your nature specific. +% +Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug +Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug +And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. +Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all, +Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall +And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. +And we've also found Just flip one switch +When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch +You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble + in a flash. +Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU +Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo," +And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash. + -- To the tune of "As the Caissons go Rolling Along" +% +Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. +She scissored short. Sorely shorn, +Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, +Silently scheming, +Sightlessly seeking +Some savage, spectacular suicide. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Seek for the Sword that was broken: +In Imladris it dwells; +There shall be counsels taken +Stronger than Morgul-spells. + +There shall be shown a token +That Doom is near at hand, +For Isildur's Bane shall waken, +And the Halfling forth shall stand. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +She asked me, "What's your sign?" +I blinked and answered "Neon," +I thought I'd blow her mind... +% +She blinded me with science! +% +She can kill all your files; +She can freeze with a frown. +And a wave of her hand brings the whole system down. +And she works on her code until ten after three. +She lives like a bat but she's always a hacker to me. + -- Apologies to Billy Joel +% +She stood on the tracks +Waving her arms +Leading me to that third rail shock +Quick as a wink +She changed her mind + +She gave me a night +That's all it was +What will it take until I stop +Kidding myself +Wasting my time + +There's nothing else I can do +'Cause I'm doing it all for Leyna +I don't want anyone new +'Cause I'm living it all for Leyna +There's nothing in it for you +'Cause I'm giving it all to Leyna + -- Billy Joel, "All for Leyna" (Glass Houses) +% +SHIFT TO THE LEFT! +SHIFT TO THE RIGHT! +POP UP, PUSH DOWN, +BYTE, BYTE, BYTE! +% +Shift to the left, +Shift to the right, +Mask in, mask out, +BYTE, BYTE, BYTE !!! +% +Since I hurt my pendulum +My life is all erratic. +My parrot who was cordial +Is now transmitting static. +The carpet died, a palm collapsed, +The cat keeps doing poo. +The only thing that keeps me sane +Is talking to my shoe. + -- My Shoe +% +Sing hey! for the bath at close of day +That washes the weary mud away! +A loon is he that will not sing: +O! Water Hot is a noble thing! + + O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain, + and the brook that leaps from hill to plain; + but better than rain or rippling streams + is Water Hot that smokes and steams. + +O! Water cold we may pour at need +down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed; +but better is Beer, if drink we lack, +and Water Hot poured down the back. + + O! Water is fair that leaps on high + in a fountain white beneath the sky; + but never did fountain sound so sweet + as splashing Hot Water with my feet! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear! +O Queen beyond the Western Sea! +O Light to us that wander here +Amid the world of woven trees! + + Gilthoniel! O Elbereth! + Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath! + Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee + In a far land beyond the Sea. + +O stars that in the Sunless Year +With shining hand by her were sown, +In windy fields now bright and clear +We see you silver blossom blown! + + O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! + We still remember, we who dwell + In this far land beneath the trees, + Thy starlight on the Western Seas. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +So much +depends +upon +a red + +wheel +barrow +glazed with + +rain +water +beside +the white +chickens. + -- William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheel Barrow" +% +So, you better watch out! +You better not cry! +You better not pout! +I'm telling you why, +Santa Claus is coming, to town. + +He knows when you've been sleeping, +He know when you're awake. +He knows if you've been bad or good, +He has ties with the CIA. +So... +% +So... so you think you can tell +Heaven from Hell? +Blue skies from pain? Did they get you to trade +Can you tell a green field Your heroes for ghosts? +From a cold steel rail? Hot ashes for trees? +A smile from a veil? Hot air for a cool breeze? +Do you think you can tell? Cold comfort for change? + Did you exchange + A walk on part in a war + For the lead role in a cage? + -- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here" +% +Soldiers who wish to be a hero +Are practically zero, +But those who wish to be civilians, +They run into the millions. +% +Some of them want to use you, +Some of them want to be used by you, +...Everybody's looking for something. + -- Eurythmics +% +Some primal termite knocked on wood. +And tasted it, and found it good. +And that is why your Cousin May +Fell through the parlor floor today. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Some say the world will end in fire, +Some say in ice. +From what I've tasted of desire +I hold with those who favor fire. +But if it had to perish twice, +I think I know enough of hate +To say that for destruction, ice +Is also great +And would suffice. + -- Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice" +% +Sometimes I feel like I'm fading away, +Looking at me, I got nothin' to say. +Don't make me angry with the things games that you play, +Either light up or leave me alone. +% +Sometimes I live in the country, +And sometimes I live in town. +And sometimes I have a great notion, +To jump in the river and drown. +% +Sometimes the light's all shining on me, +Other times I can barely see. +Lately it occurs to me +What a long strange trip it's been. + -- The Grateful Dead, "American Beauty" +% +Speak roughly to your little boy, + And beat him when he sneezes: +He only does it to annoy + Because he knows it teases. + Wow! wow! wow! + +I speak severely to my boy, + And beat him when he sneezes: +For he can thoroughly enjoy + The pepper when he pleases! + Wow! wow! wow! + -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" +% +Speak roughly to your little VAX, + And boot it when it crashes; +It knows that one cannot relax + Because the paging thrashes! + Wow! Wow! Wow! + +I speak severely to my VAX, + And boot it when it crashes; +In spite of all my favorite hacks + My jobs it always thrashes! + Wow! Wow! Wow! +% +Speaking of Godzilla and other things that convey horror: + +With a purposeful grimace and a Mongo-like flair +He throws the spinning disk drives in the air! +And he picks up a Vax and he throws it back down +As he wades through the lab making terrible sounds! +Helpless users with projects due +Scream "My God!" as he stomps on the tape drives, too! + +Oh, no! He says Unix runs too slow! Go, go, DECzilla! +Oh, yes! He's gonna bring up VMS! Go, go, DECzilla!" + +* VMS is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. +* DECzilla is a trademark of Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death, Inc. + -- Curtis Jackson +% +Spring is here, spring is here, +Life is skittles and life is beer. +% +St. Patrick was a gentleman +who through strategy and stealth +drove all the snakes from Ireland. +Here's a toasting to his health -- +but not too many toastings +lest you lose yourself and then +forget the good St. Patrick +and see all those snakes again. +% +Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time, +There's something wrong here, there can be no more denying, +One of us is changing, or maybe we just stopped trying, + +And it's too late, baby, now, it's too late, +Though we really did try to make it, +Something inside has died and I can't hide and I just can't fake it... + +It used to be so easy living here with you, +You were light and breezy and I knew just what to do +Now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool. + +There'll be good times again for me and you, +But we just can't stay together, don't you feel it too? +But I'm glad for what we had and that I once loved you... + +But it's too late baby... +It's too late, now darling, it's too late... + -- Carol King, "Tapestry" +% +Step back, unbelievers! +Or the rain will never come. +Somebody keep the fire burning, someone come and beat the drum. +You may think I'm crazy, you may think that I'm insane, +But I swear to you, before this day is out, + you folks are gonna see some rain! +% +Strange things are done to be number one +In selling the computer The Druids were entrepreneurs, +IBM has their strategem And they built a granite box +Which steadily grows acuter, It tracked the moon, warned of monsoons, +And Honeywell competes like Hell, And forecast the equinox +But the story's missing link Their price was right, their future +Is the system old at Stonemenge sold bright, +By the firm of Druids, Inc. The prototype was sold; + From Stonehenge site their bits and byte + Would ship for Celtic gold. +The movers came to crate the frame; +It weighed a million ton! +The traffic folk thought it a joke The man spoke true, and thus to you +(the wagon wheels just spun); A warning from the ages; +"They'll nay sell that," the foreman Your stock will slip if you can't ship + spat, What's in your brochure's pages. +"Just leave the wild weeds grow; See if it sells without the bells +"It's Druid-kind, over-designed, And strings that ring and quiver; +"And belly up they'll go." Druid repute went down the chute + Because they couldn't deliver. + -- Edward C. McManus, "The Computer at Stonehenge" +% +Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; +The deed there is, but no doer thereof; +Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; +The Path there is, but none who travel it. + -- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values +% +Sun in the night, everyone is together, +Ascending into the heavens, life is forever. + -- Brand X, "Moroccan Roll/Sun in the Night" +% + /\ SUN of them wants to use you, + \\ \ + / \ \\ / SUN of them wants to be used by you, + / / \/ / //\ + \//\ \// / SUN of them wants to abuse you, + / / /\ / + / \\ \ SUN of them wants to be abused ... + \ \\ + \/ + -- Eurythmics +% +Sweet sixteen is beautiful Bess, +And her voice is changing -- from "No" to "Yes". +% +System/3! System/3! +See how it runs! See how it runs! + Its monitor loses so totally! + It runs all its programs in RPG! + It's made by our favorite monopoly! +System/3! +% +T: One big monster, he called TROLL. + He don't rock, and he don't roll; + Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies. + He just Love To Eat Them Roguies. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Take a look around you, tell me what you see, +A girl who thinks she's ordinary lookin' she has got the key. +If you can get close enough to look into her eyes +There's something special right behind the bitterness she hides. + And you're fair game, + You never know what she'll decide, you're fair game, + Just relax, enjoy the ride. +Find a way to reach her, make yourself a fool, +But do it with a little class, disregard the rules. +'Cause this one knows the bottom line, couldn't get a date. +The ugly duckling striking back, and she'll decide her fate. + (chorus) +The ones you never notice are the ones you have to watch. +She's pleasant and she's friendly while she's looking at your crotch. +Try your hand at conversation, gossip is a lie, +And sure enough she'll take you home and make you wanna die. + (chorus) + -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Fair Game" +% +Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting +enough cheese. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred, +Tan me hide when I'm dead. +So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, +It's hanging there on the shed. + +All together now... + Tie me kangaroo down, sport, + Tie me kangaroo down. + Tie me kangaroo down, sport, + Tie me kangaroo down. +% +Tell me why the stars do shine, +Tell me why the ivy twines, +Tell me why the sky's so blue, +And I will tell you just why I love you. + + Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine, + Phototropism makes ivy twine, + Rayleigh scattering makes sky so blue, + Sexual hormones are why I love you. +% +Tell me, O Octopus, I begs, +Is those things arms, or is they legs? +I marvel at thee, Octopus; +If I were thou, I'd call me us. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Terence, this is stupid stuff: +You eat your victuals fast enough; +There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear, +To see the rate you drink your beer. +But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, +It gives a chap the belly-ache. +The cow, the old cow, she is dead; +It sleeps well the horned head: +We poor lads, 'tis our turn now +To hear such tunes as killed the cow. +Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme +Your friends to death before their time. +Moping, melancholy mad: +Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad. + -- A. E. Housman +% +That feeling just came over me. + -- Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler" +% +That money talks, +I'll not deny, +I heard it once, +It said "Good-bye. + -- Richard Armour +% + The Advertising Agency Song + + When your client's hopping mad, + Put his picture in the ad. + If he still should prove refractory, + Add a picture of his factory. +% +The all-softening overpowering knell, +The tocsin of the soul, -- the dinner bell. + -- Lord Byron +% +The bank called to tell me that I'm overdrawn, +Some freaks are burning crosses out on my front lawn, +And I *can't*believe* it, all the Cheetos are gone, + It's just ONE OF THOSE DAYS! + -- Weird Al Yankovic, "One of Those Days" +% +The bank sent our statement this morning, +The red ink was a sight of great awe! +Their figures and mine might have balanced, +But my wife was too quick on the draw. +% +The Bird of Time has but a little way to fly ... +and the bird is on the wing. + -- Omar Khayyam +% +The boy stood on the burning deck, +Eating peanuts by the peck. +His father called him, but he could not go, +For he loved those peanuts so. +% +The camel has a single hump; +The dromedary two; +Or else the other way around. +I'm never sure. Are you? + -- Ogden Nash +% +The carbonyl is polarized, +The delta end is plus. +The nucleophile will thus attack, +The carbon nucleus. +Addition makes an alcohol, +Of types there are but three. +It makes a bond, to correspond, +From C to shining C. + -- Prof. Frank Westheimer, to "America the Beautiful" +% +The common cormorant, or shag, +Lays eggs inside a paper bag; +The reason, you will see, no doubt, +Is to keep the lightning out. +But what these unobservant birds +Have failed to notice is that herds +Of bears may come with buns +And steal the bags to hold the crumbs. +% +The difference between us is not very far, +cruising for burgers in daddy's new car. +% +The eyes of Texas are upon you, +All the livelong day; +The eyes of Texas are upon you, +You cannot get away; +Do not think you can escape them +From night 'til early in the morn; +The eyes of Texas are upon you +'Til Gabriel blows his horn. + -- University of Texas' school song +% +The garden is in mourning; +The rain falls cool among the flowers. +Summer shivers quietly +On its way towards its end. + +Golden leaf after leaf +Falls from the tall acacia. +Summer smiles, astonished, feeble, +In this dying dream of a garden. + +For a long while, yet, in the roses, +She will linger on, yearning for peace, +And slowly +Close her weary eyes. + -- Hermann Hesse, "September" +% +The glances over cocktails +That seemed to be so sweet +Don't seem quite so amorous +Over Shredded Wheat +% +The good (I am convinced, for one) +Is but the bad one leaves undone. +Once your reputation's done +You can live a life of fun. + -- Wilhelm Busch +% +The good life was so elusive +It really got me down +I had to regain some confidence +So I got into camouflage +% +The good time is approaching, +The season is at hand. +When the merry click of the two-base lick +Will be heard throughout the land. +The frost still lingers on the earth, and +Budless are the trees. +But the merry ring of the voice of spring +Is borne upon the breeze. + -- Ode to Opening Day, "The Sporting News", 1886 +% +The grave's a fine and private place, +but none, I think, do there embrace. + -- Andrew Marvell +% +The hope that springs eternal +Springs right up your behind. + -- Ian Drury, "This Is What We Find" +% +The Junior God now heads the roll +In the list of heaven's peers; +He sits in the House of High Control, +And he regulates the spheres. +Yet does he wonder, do you suppose, +If, even in gods divine, +The best and wisest may not be those +Who have wallowed awhile with the swine? + -- Robert W. Service +% +The ladies men admire, I've heard, +Would shudder at a wicked word. +Their candle gives a single light; +They'd rather stay at home at night. +They do not keep awake till three, +Nor read erotic poetry. +They never sanction the impure, +Nor recognize an overture. +They shrink from powders and from paints... +So far, I've had no complaints. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The leaves were long, the grass was green, +The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, +And in the glade a light was seen +Of stars in shadow shimmering. +Tin'uviel was dancing there +To music of a pipe unseen, +And light of stars was in her hair, +And in her raiment glimmering. + +There Beren came from mountains colds, +And lost he wandered under leaves, +And where the Elven-river rolled +He walked alone and sorrowing. +He peered between the hemlock-leaves +And saw in wonder flowers of gold +Upon her mantle and her sleeves, +And her hair like shadow following. + +Enchantment healed his weary feet +That over hills were doomed to roam; +And forth he hastened, strong and fleet, +And grasped at moonbeams glistening. +Through woven woods in Elvenhome +She lightly fled on dancing feet, +And left him lonely still to roam +In the silent forest listening. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +The lights are on, +but you're not home; +Your will +is not your own; +Your heart sweats, +Your teeth grind; +Another kiss +and you'll be mine... + +You like to think that you're immune to the stuff +(Oh Yeah!) +It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough; +You know you're gonna have to face it, +You're addicted to love!" + -- Robert Palmer +% +The little town that time forgot, +Where all the women are strong, +The men are good-looking, +And the children above-average. + -- Prairie Home Companion +% + The Lord and I are in a sheep-shepherd relationship, and I am in +a position of negative need. + He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area. + He conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous +liquid. + He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup. + He switches me on to a positive behavioral format for maximal +prestige of His identity. + It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make +ambulatory progress through the umbragious inter-hill mortality slot, terror +sensations will no be initiated in me, due to para-etical phenomena. + Your pastoral walking aid and quadrupic pickup unit introduce me +into a pleasurific mood state. + You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure +in the context of non-cooperative elements. + You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract. + My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis. + It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational +empathetical and non-ventious capabilities will retain me as their +target-focus for the duration of my non-death period, and I will possess +tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanent, open-ended +time basis. +% +The makers may make +and the users may use, +but the fixers must fix +with but minimal clues +% +The man she had was kind and clean +And well enough for every day, +But oh, dear friends, you should have seen +The one that got away. + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Fisherwoman" +% +The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age, +But that don't bother me none; in my eyes you're everything. +I know I keep you amused, +But I feel I'm being used. +Oh, Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face. + +You took me away from home, +Just to save you from being alone; +You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts. + +I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school, +Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool, +Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band, +That needs a helping hand, +Oh, Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face. + +You made a first-class fool out of me, +But I'm as blind as a fool can be. +You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without. + -- Rod Stewart, "Maggie May" +% +The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, + Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit +Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, + Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. +% +The net of law is spread so wide, +No sinner from its sweep may hide. +Its meshes are so fine and strong, +They take in every child of wrong. +O wondrous web of mystery! +Big fish alone escape from thee! + -- James Jeffrey Roche +% +The night passes quickly when you're asleep +But I'm out shufflin' for something to eat +... +Breakfast at the Egg House, +Like the waffle on the griddle, +I'm burnt around the edges, +But I'm tender in the middle. + -- Adrian Belew +% +The one L lama, he's a priest +The two L llama, he's a beast +And I will bet my silk pyjama +There isn't any three L lllama. + -- O. Nash, to which a fire chief replied that occasionally + his department responded to something like a "three L lllama." +% +The Pig, if I am not mistaken, +Gives us ham and pork and Bacon. +Let others think his heart is big, +I think it stupid of the Pig. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life + The most important poet in the seventeenth century was George +Wither. Alexander Pope called him "wretched Wither" and Dryden said of his +verse that "if they rhymed and rattled all was well". + In our own time, "The Dictionary of National Biography" notes that his +work "is mainly remarkable for its mass, fluidity and flatness. It usually +lacks any genuine literary quality and often sinks into imbecile doggerel". + High praise, indeed, and it may tempt you to savour a typically +rewarding stanza: It is taken from "I loved a lass" and is concerned with +the higher emotions. + She would me "Honey" call, + She'd -- O she'd kiss me too. + But now alas! She's left me + Falero, lero, loo. + Among other details of his mistress which he chose to immortalize +was her prudent choice of footwear. + The fives did fit her shoe. + In 1639 the great poet's life was endangered after his capture by +the Royalists during the English Civil War. When Sir John Denham, the +Royalist poet, heard of Wither's imminent execution, he went to the King and +begged that his life be spared. When asked his reason, Sir John replied, +"Because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the +worst poet in England." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher, + Were each of them once a kiddie. +A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature. + Do I want one? God Forbiddie! + -- Ogden Nash +% +The Rabbits The Cow +Here is a verse about rabbits The cow is of the bovine ilk; +That doesn't mention their habits. One end is moo, the other, milk. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The rain it raineth on the just + And also on the unjust fella, +But chiefly on the just, because + The unjust steals the just's umbrella. + -- Lord Bowen +% +The rhino is a homely beast, +For human eyes he's not a feast. +Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros, +I'll stare at something less prepoceros. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The Road goes ever on and on +Down from the door where it began. +Now far ahead the Road has gone, +And I must follow, if I can, +Pursuing it with eager feet, +Until it joins some larger way +Where many paths and errands meet. +And whither then? I cannot say. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing, +And surly Winter grimly flies. +Now crystal clear are the falling waters, +And bonnie blue are the sunny skies. +Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning, +The ev'ning gilds the oceans's swell: +All creatures joy in the sun's returning, +And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell. + +The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer, +The yellow Autumn presses near; +Then in his turn come gloomy Winter, +Till smiling Spring again appear. +Thus seasons dancing, life advancing, +Old Time and Nature their changes tell; +But never ranging, still unchanging, +I adore my bonnie Bell. + -- Robert Burns, "My Bonnie Bell" +% +The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door. +He said, "I am not fighting for you any more." +The queen knew she had seen his face someplace before, +And slowly she let him inside. + +He said, "I see you now, and you're so very young, +But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won, +And I have this intuition that it's all for your fun. +And now will you tell me why?" + -- Suzanne Vega, "The Queen and The Soldier" +% +The sounds of the nouns are mostly unbound. +In town a noun might wear a gown, +or further down, might dress a clown. +A noun that's sound would never clown, +but unsound nouns jump up and down. +The sound of a noun could distrub the plowing, +and then, my dear, you'd be put in the pound. +But please don't let that get you down, +the renown of your gown is the talk of the town. + -- A. Nonnie Mouse +% +The street preacher looked so baffled +When I asked him why he dressed +With forty pounds of headlines +Stapled to his chest. +But he cursed me when I proved to him +I said, "Not even you can hide. +You see, you're just like me. +I hope you're satisfied." + -- Bob Dylan +% +The sun was shining on the sea, +Shining with all his might: +He did his very best to make +The billows smooth and bright -- +And this was very odd, because it was +The middle of the night. + -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +The Thought Police are here. They've come +To put you under cardiac arrest. +And as they drag you through the door +They tell you that you've failed the test. + -- Buggles, "Living in the Plastic Age" +% +The thrill is here, but it won't last long +You'd better have your fun before it moves along... +% +The trouble with a kitten is that +When it grows up, it's always a cat + -- Ogden Nash. +% +The trouble with you +Is the trouble with me. +Got two good eyes +But we still don't see. + -- Robert Hunter, "Workingman's Dead" +% +The truth you speak has no past and no future. +It is, and that's all it needs to be. +% +The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks +Which practically conceal its sex. +I think it clever of the turtle +In such a fix to be so fertile. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful. +My thoughts aren't too clear, but don't run away. +My girlfriend's a bore; my job is too dutiful. +Hell nobody's perfect, would you like to play? +I feel together today! + -- Jimmy Buffet, "Coconut Telegraph" +% +The wind doth taste so bitter sweet, + Like Jaspar wine and sugar, +It must have blown through someone's feet, + Like those of Caspar Weinberger. + -- P. Opus +% +The wombat lives across the seas, +Among the far Antipodes. +He may exist on nuts and berries, +Or then again, on missionaries; +His distant habitat precludes +Conclusive knowledge of his moods. +But I would not engage the wombat +In any form of mortal combat. + -- "The Wombat" +% +The Worst American Poet + Julia Moore, "the Sweet Singer of Michigan" (1847-1920) was so bad that +Mark Twain said her first book gave him joy for 20 years. + Her verse was mainly concerned with violent death -- the great fire +of Chicago and the yellow fever epidemic proved natural subjects for her pen. + Whether death was by drowning, by fits or by runaway sleigh, the +formula was the same: + Have you heard of the dreadful fate + Of Mr. P. P. Bliss and wife? + Of their death I will relate, + And also others lost their life + (in the) Ashbula Bridge disaster, + Where so many people died. + Even if you started out reasonably healthy in one of Julia's poems, +the chances are that after a few stanzas you would be at the bottom of a +river or struck by lightning. A critic of the day said she was "worse than +a Gatling gun" and in one slim volume counted 21 killed and 9 wounded. + Incredibly, some newspapers were critical of her work, even +suggesting that the sweet singer was "semi-literate". Her reply was +forthright: "The Editors that has spoken in this scandalous manner have went +beyond reason." She added that "literary work is very difficult to do". + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% + The Worst Lines of Verse +For a start, we can rule out James Grainger's promising line: + "Come, muse, let us sing of rats." +Grainger (1721-67) did not have the courage of his convictions and deleted +these words on discovering that his listeners dissolved into spontaneous +laughter the instant they were read out. + No such reluctance afflicted Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70) who was +inspired by the subject of war. + "Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away, + And the grey roof reddened and rang; + Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay + The tip of my ear. Flash! bang!" +By contrast, Cheshire cheese provoked John Armstrong (1709-79): + "... that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste of solid milk..." +While John Bidlake was guided by a compassion for vegetables: + "The sluggard carrot sleeps his day in bed, + The crippled pea alone that cannot stand." +George Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote: + "And I was ask'd and authorized to go + To seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co." +William Balmford explored the possibilities of religious verse: + "So 'tis with Christians, Nature being weak + While in this world, are liable to leak." +And William Wordsworth showed that he could do it if he really tried when +describing a pond: + "I've measured it from side to side; + Tis three feet long and two feet wide." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The young lady had an unusual list, +Linked in part to a structural weakness. +She set no preconditions. +% +The, uh, snowy mountains are like really cold, eh? +And the, um, plains stretch out like my moms girdle, eh? +There's lotsa beers and doughnuts for everyone, eh? +So the last one to be peaceful and everything is a big idiot, +Eh? +So shut yer face up and dry yer mucklucks by the fire, eh? +And dream about girls with their high beams on, eh? +They may be cold, but that's okay! Beer's better that way! +Eh? + -- A, like, Tribute to the Great White North, eh? +Beauty! +% +Then here's to the City of Boston, +The town of the cries and the groans. +Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks, +And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns. + -- Franklin Pierce Adams +% +There are bad times just around the corner, +There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky + And it's no good whining + About a silver lining +For we know from experience that they won't roll by... + -- Noel Coward +% +There are places I'll remember +All my life though some have changed. +Some forever not for better +Some have gone and some remain. +All these places had their moments +With lovers and friends I still recall. +Some are dead and some are living, +In my life I've loved them all. + +But of all these friends and lovers, +There is no one compared with you, +All these memories lose their meaning +When I think of love as something new. +Though I know I'll never lose affection +For people and things that went before, +I know I'll often stop and think about them +In my life I'll love you more. + -- Lennon/McCartney, "In My Life", 1965 +% +There are strange things done in the midnight sun + By the men who moil for gold; +The Arctic trails have their secret tales + That would make your blood run cold; +The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, + But the queerest they ever did see +Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge + I cremated Sam McGee. + -- Robert W. Service +% +There is in certain living souls +A quality of loneliness unspeakable, +So great it must be shared +As company is shared by lesser beings. +Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this +That in immensity +There is one lonelier than you. +% +There is no point in waiting. +The train stopped running years ago. +All the schedules, the brochures, +The bright-colored posters full of lies, +Promise rides to a distant country +That no longer exists. +% +There is something in the pang of change +More than the heart can bear, +Unhappiness remembering happiness. + -- Euripides +% +There once was a Sailor who looked through a glass +And spied a fair mermaid with scales on her... island. +Where seagulls flew over their nest. +She combed the long hair which hung over her... shoulders. +And caused her to tickle and itch. +The sailor cried out "There's a beautiful... mermaid. +A sittin' out there on the rocks." +The crew came a running, all grabbing their... glasses. +And crowded four deep to the rail. +All eager to share in this fine piece of... news. +... +"Throw out a line and we'll lasso her... flippers. +And soon we will certainly find +If mermaids are better before or be... brave +My dear fellows," The captain cried out. +And cursing with spleen. +This song may be dull, but it's certainly clean. + -- Oscar Brand, "A Clean Song" +% +There was a little girl +Who had a little curl +Right in the middle of her forehead. +When she was good, she was very, very good +And when she was bad, she was very, very popular. + -- Max Miller, "The Max Miller Blue Book" +% +There's a lesson that I need to remember +When everything is falling apart +In life, just like in loving +There's such a thing as trying too hard + +You've gotta sing +Like you don't need the money +Love like you'll never get hurt +You've gotta dance +Like nobody's watching +It's gotta come from the heart +If you want it to work. + -- Kathy Mattea +% +There's a thrill in store for all for we're about to toast +The corporation that we represent. +We're here to cheer each pioneer and also proudly boast, +Of that man of men our sterling president +The name of T. J. Watson means +A courage none can stem +And we feel honored to be here to toast the IBM. + -- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook +% +There's amnesia in a hangknot, +And comfort in the ax, +But the simple way of poison will make your nerves relax. + There's surcease in a gunshot, + And sleep that comes from racks, + But a handy draft of poison avoids the harshest tax. +You find rest on the hot squat, +Or gas can give you pax, +But the closest corner chemist has peace in packaged stacks. + There's refuge in the church lot + When you tire of facing facts, + And the smoothest route is poison prescribed by kindly quacks. +Chorus: With an *ugh!* and a groan, and a kick of the heels, + Death comes quiet, or it comes with squeals -- + But the pleasantest place to find your end + Is a cup of cheer from the hand of a friend. + -- Jubal Harshaw, "One For The Road" +% +There's little in taking or giving, + There's little in water or wine: +This living, this living, this living, + Was never a project of mine. +Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is + The gain of the one at the top, +For art is a form of catharsis, + And love is a permanent flop, +And work is the province of cattle, + And rest's for a clam in a shell, +So I'm thinking of throwing the battle -- + Would you kindly direct me to hell? + -- Dorothy Parker +% +They told me you had proven it When they discovered our results + About a month before. Their hair began to curl +The proof was valid, more or less Instead of understanding it + But rather less than more. We'd run the thing through PRL. + +He sent them word that we would try Don't tell a soul about all this + To pass where they had failed For it must ever be +And after we were done, to them A secret, kept from all the rest + The new proof would be mailed. Between yourself and me. + +My notion was to start again + Ignoring all they'd done +We quickly turned it into code + To see if it would run. +% +They went rushing down that freeway, +Messed around and got lost. +They didn't care... they were just dying to get off, +And it was life in the fast lane. + -- Eagles, "Life in the Fast Lane" +% +They wouldn't listen to the fact that I was a genius, +The man said "We got all that we can use", +So I've got those steadily-depressin', low-down, mind-messin', +Working-at-the-car-wash blues. + -- Jim Croce +% +Thinks't thou existence doth depend on time? +It doth; but actions are our epochs; mine +Have made my days and nights imperishable, +Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore, +Innumerable atoms; and one desert, +Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, +But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks, +Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness. +% +"Thirty days hath Septober, +April, June, and no wonder. +all the rest have peanut butter +except my father who wears red suspenders." +% +Thirty white horses on a red hill, +First they champ, +Then they stamp, +Then they stand still. + -- Tolkien +% +This ae nighte, this ae nighte, +Everye nighte and alle, +Fire and sleet and candlelyte, +And Christe receive thy saule. + -- The Lykewake Dirge +% +This here's the wattle, +The emblem of our land. +You can stick it in a bottle; +You can hold it in your hand. +Amen! + -- Monty Python +% +This is for all ill-treated fellows + Unborn and unbegot, +For them to read when they're in trouble + And I am not. + -- A. E. Housman +% +This is the story of the bee +Whose sex is very hard to see + +You cannot tell the he from the she +But she can tell, and so can he + +The little bee is never still +She has no time to take the pill + +And that is why, in times like these +There are so many sons of bees. +% +This is the way the world ends, +This is the way the world ends, +This is the way the world ends, +Not with a bang but with a whimper. + -- T. S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men" +% +This land is my land, and only my land, +I've got a shotgun, and you ain't got one, +If you don't get off, I'll blow your head off, +This land is private property. + -- Apologies to Woody Guthrie +% +This thing all things devours: +Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; +Gnaws iron, bites steel; +Grinds hard stones to meal; +Slays king, ruins town, +And beats high mountain down. +% +Those who sweat in flames of hell, Leaden eared, some thought their bowels +Here's the reason that they fell: Lispeth forth the sweetest vowels. +While on earth they prayed in SAS, These they offered up in praise +PL/1, or other crass, Thinking all this fetid haze +Vulgar tongue. A rapsody sung. + +Some the lord did sorely try Jabber of the mindless horde +Assembling all their pleas in hex. Sequel next did mock the lord +Speech as crabbed as devil's crable Slothful sequel so enfangled +Hex that marked on Tower Babel Its speaker's lips became entangled +The highest rung. In his bung. + +Because in life they prayed so ill +And offered god such swinish swill +Now they sweat in flames of hell +Sweat from lack of APL +Sweat dung! +% +Though I respect that a lot +I'd be fired if that were my job +After killing Jason off and +Countless screaming argonauts + +Bluebird of friendliness +Like guardian angels it's +Always near + +Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch +Who watches over you +Make a little birdhouse in your soul +Not to put too fine a point on it +Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet +Make a little birdhouse in your soul + -- "Birdhouse in your Soul", They Might Be Giants +% +Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, +Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, +Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, +One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne +In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. +One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, +One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them +In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings" +% +Throw away documentation and manuals, +and users will be a hundred times happier. +Throw away privileges and quotas, +and users will do the Right Thing. +Throw away proprietary and site licenses, +and there won't be any pirating. + +If these three aren't enough, +just stay at your home directory +and let all processes take their course. +% +Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day +Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way +Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown +Waiting for someone or something to show you the way + +Tired of lying in the sunshine And then one day you find +Staying home to watch the rain Ten years have got behind you +You are young and life is long No one told you when to run +And there is time to kill today You missed the starting gun + +And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking +And racing around to come up behind you again +The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older +Shorter of breath and one day closer to death + +Every year is getting shorter Hanging on in quiet desperation + is the English way +Never seem to find the time The time is gone, the song is over +Plans that either come to nought Thought I'd something more to say... +Or half a page of scribbled lines + -- Pink Floyd, "Time" +% +Tiger got to hunt, +Bird got to fly; +Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?" + +Tiger got to sleep, +Bird got to land; +Man got to tell himself he understand. + -- The Books of Bokonon +% +Tim and I a hunting went +We found three damsels in a tent, +As they were three, and we were two, +I bucked one and Timbuktu. + -- the only known poem using the word "Timbuktu" +% +Time goes, you say? +Ah no! +Time stays, *we* go. + -- Austin Dobson +% +Time washes clean +Love's wounds unseen. +That's what someone told me; +But I don't know what it means. + -- Linda Ronstadt, "Long Long Time" +% +'Tis the dream of each programmer, +Before his life is done, +To write three lines of APL, +And make the damn things run. +% + To A Quick Young Fox +Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp, +Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice? +Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp-- +Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice. + -- Lazy Dog +% +to be nobody but yourself in a world +which is doing its best night and day +to make you like everybody else +means to fight the hardest battle +any human being can fight and +never stop fighting. + -- e.e. cummings +% +To code the impossible code, This is my quest -- +To bring up a virgin machine, To debug that code, +To pop out of endless recursion, No matter how hopeless, +To grok what appears on the screen, No matter the load, + To write those routines +To right the unrightable bug, Without question or pause, +To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To be willing to hack FORTRAN IV +To mount the unmountable magtape, For a heavenly cause. +To stop the unstoppable crash! And I know if I'll only be true + To this glorious quest, +And the queue will be better for this, That my code will run CUSPy and calm, +That one man, scorned and When it's put to the test. + destined to lose, +Still strove with his last allocation +To scrap the unscrappable kludge! + -- To "The Impossible Dream", from Man of La Mancha +% +To err is human, +To purr feline. + -- Robert Byrne +% +To err is human, to purr feline. +To err is human, two curs canine. +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To everything there is a season, a time for every pupose under heaven: +A time to be born, and a time to die; +A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted; +A time to kill, and a time to heal; +A time to break down, and a time to build up; +A time to weep, and a time to laugh; +A time to mourn, and a time to dance; +A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; +A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; +A time to gain, and a time to lose; +A time to keep, and a time to throw away; +A time to tear, and a time to sew; +A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; +A time to love, and a time to hate; +A time of war, and a time of peace. + Ecclesiastes 3:1-9 +% +To stand and be still, +At the Birkenhead drill, +Is a damned tough bullet to chew. + -- Rudyard Kipling +% +To whom the mornings are like nights, +What must the midnights be! + -- Emily Dickinson (on hacking?) +% +To write a sonnet you must ruthlessly +strip down your words to naked, willing flesh. +Then bind them to a metaphor or three, +and take by force a satisfying mesh. +Arrange them to your will, each foot in place. +You are the master here, and they the slaves. +Now whip them to maintain a constant pace +and rhythm as they stand in even staves. +A word that strikes no pleasure? Cast it out! +What use are words that drive not to the heart? +A lazy phrase? Discard it, shrug off doubt, +and choose more docile words to take its part. +A well-trained sonnet lives to entertain, +by making love directly to the brain. +% +Tobacco is a filthy weed, +That from the devil does proceed; +It drains your purse, it burns your clothes, +And makes a chimney of your nose. + -- B. Waterhouse +% +Too cool to calypso, +Too tough to tango, +Too weird to watusi + -- The Only Ones +% +Troll sat alone on his seat of stone, +And munched and mumbled a bare old bone; +For many a year he had gnawed it near, +For meat was hard to come by. + Done by! Gum by! +In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone, +And meat was hard to come by. + +Up came Tom with his big boots on. +Said he to Troll: "Pray, what is youn? +For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim, +As should be a-lyin in graveyard. + Caveyard! Paveyard! +This many a year has Tim been gone, +And I thought he were lyin' in graveyard." + +"My lad," said Troll, "this bone I stole. +But what be bones that lie in a hole? +Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead, +Afore I found his shinbone. + Tinbone! Thinbone! +He can spare a share for a poor old troll +For he don't need his shinbone." + +Said Tom: "I don't see why the likes o' thee +Without axin' leave should go makin' free +With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin; +So hand the old bone over! + Rover! Trover! +Though dead he be, it belongs to he; +So hand the old bnone over!" + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Try not. +Do. +Or do not. +There is no try. +% +"Twas bergen and the eirie road +Did mahwah into patterson: "Beware the Hopatcong, my son! +All jersey were the ocean groves, The teeth that bite, the nails +And the red bank bayonne. that claw! + Beware the bound brook bird, and shun +He took his belmar blade in hand: The kearney communipaw." +Long time the folsom foe he sought +Till rested he by a bayway tree And, as in nutley thought he stood, +And stood a while in thought. The Hopatcong with eyes of flame, + Came whippany through the englewood, +One, two, one, two, and through And garfield as it came. + and through +The belmar blade went hackensack! "And hast thou slain the Hopatcong? +He left it dead and with it's head Come to my arms, my perth amboy! +He went weehawken back. Hohokus day! Soho! Rahway!" + He caldwell in his joy. +Did mahwah into patterson: +All jersey were the ocean groves, +And the red bank bayonne. + -- Paul Kieffer +% +'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves +Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! +All mimsy were the borogroves The jaws that bite, the claws +And the mome raths outgrabe. that catch! + Beware the Jubjub bird, +He took his vorpal sword in hand And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!" +Long time the manxome foe he sought. +So rested he by the tumtum tree And as in uffish thought he stood +And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberwock, with eyes aflame + Came whuffling through the tulgey wood +One! Two! One! Two! And through and And burbled as it came! + through +The vorpal blade went snicker-snack. "Hast thou slain the Jabberwock? +He left it dead, and took its head, Come to my arms, my beamish boy! +And went galumphing back. Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!" + He chortled in his joy. +'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves +Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. +All mimsy were the borogroves +And the mome raths outgrabe. + -- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky" +% +'Twas bullig, and the slithy brokers +Did buy and gamble in the craze "Beware the Jabberstock, my son! +All rosy were the Dow Jones stokers The cost that bites, the worth +By market's wrath unphased. that falls! + Beware the Econ'mist's word, and shun +He took his forecast sword in hand: The spurious Street o' Walls!" +Long time the Boesk'some foe he sought - +Sake's liquidity, so d'vested he, And as in bearish thought he stood +And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberstock, with clothes of tweed, + Came waffling with the truth too good, +Chip Black! Chip Blue! And through And yuppied great with greed! + and through +The forecast blade went snicker-snack! "And hast thou slain the Jabberstock? +It bit the dirt, and with its shirt, Come to my firm, V.P.ish boy! +He went rebounding back. O big bucks day! Moolah! Good Play!" + He bought him a Mercedes Toy. +'Twas panic, and the slithy brokers +Did gyre and tumble in the Crash +All flimsy were the Dow Jones stokers +And mammon's wrath them bash! + -- Peter Stucki, "Jabberstocky" +% +Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes + Did logzerneg the ifthen block +All kludgy were the function flows + And subroutines adhoc. + +Beware the runtime-bug my friend + squrooneg, the false goto +Beware the infiniteloop + And shun the inprectoo. + -- "OUTCONERR," to the scheme of "Jabberwocky" +% +'Twas midnight on the ocean, Her children all were orphans, +Not a streetcar was in sight, Except one a tiny tot, +So I stepped into a cigar store Who had a home across the way +To ask them for a light. Above a vacant lot. + +The man behind the counter As I gazed through the oaken door +Was a woman, old and gray, A whale went drifting by, +Who used to peddle doughnuts Its six legs hanging in the air, +On the road to Mandalay. So I kissed her goodbye. + +She said "Good morning, stranger", This story has a morale +Her eyes were dry with tears, As you can plainly see, +As she put her head between her feet Don't mix your gin with whiskey +And stood that way for years. On the deep and dark blue sea. + -- Midnight On The Ocean +% +'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks +Did gyre and gimble in their cave +All mimsy was the CS-VAX +And Cory raths outgrabe. + +"Beware the software rot, my son! +The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash! +Beware the broken pipe, and shun +The frumious system crash!" +% +'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house, + Not a program was working not even a browse. +The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care, + Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer. +The users were nestled all snug in their beds, + While visions of inquiries danced in their heads. +When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter, + I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter. +And what to my wondering eyes should appear, + But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear. +More rapid than eagles, his programs they came, + And he whistled and shouted and called them by name; +On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete! + On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete! +His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean, + From Weekends and nights in front of a screen. +A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, + Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread... + -- "Twas the Night before Crisis" +% +'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period + preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And + throughout our place of residence, +Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the + possessors of this potential, including that + species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. +Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward + edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus, +Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an + imminent visitation from an eccentric + philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations + is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ... +% +Twenty two thousand days. +Twenty two thousand days. +It's not a lot. +It's all you've got. +Twenty two thousand days. + -- Moody Blues, "Twenty Two Thousand Days" +% + Two men looked out from the prison bars, + One saw mud-- + The other saw stars. + +Now let me get this right: two prisoners are looking out the window. +While one of them was looking at all the mud -- the other one got hit +in the head. +% +Tyger, Tyger, burning bright Where the hammer? Where the chain? +In the forests of the night, In what furnace was thy brain? +What immortal hand or eye What the anvil? What dread grasp +Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Dare its deadly terrors clasp? + +Burnt in distant deeps or skies When the stars threw down their spears +The cruel fire of thine eyes? And water'd heaven with their tears +On what wings dare he aspire? Dare he laugh his work to see? +What the hand dare seize the fire? Dare he who made the lamb make thee? + +And what shoulder & what art Tyger, Tyger, burning bright +Could twist the sinews of they heart? In the forests of the night, +And when thy heart began to beat What immortal hand or eye +What dread hand & what dread feet Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? + +Could fetch it from the furnace deep +And in thy horrid ribs dare steep +In the well of sanguine woe? +In what clay & in what mould +Were thy eyes of fury roll'd? + -- William Blake, "The Tyger" +% +U: There's a U -- a Unicorn! + Run right up and rub its horn. + Look at all those points you're losing! + UMBER HULKS are so confusing. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Under the wide and heavy VAX +Dig my grave and let me relax +Long have I lived, and many my hacks +And I lay me down with a will. +These be the words that tell the way: +"Here he lies who piped 64K, +Brought down the machine for nearly a day, +And Rogue playing to an awful standstill." +% +Under the wide and starry sky, +Dig my grave and let me lie, +Glad did I live and gladly die, +And laid me down with a will, +And this be the verse that you grave for me, +Here he lies where he longed to be, +Home is the sailor home from the sea, +And the hunter home from the hill. + -- Robert Loius Stevenson, "Requiem" +% +Up against the net, redneck mother, +Mother who has raised your son so well; +He's seventeen and hackin' on a Macintosh, +Flaming spelling errors and raisin' hell... +% +Upon the hearth the fire is red, +Beneath the roof there is a bed; +But not yet weary are our feet, +Still round the corner we may meet +A sudden tree or standing stone +That none have seen but we alone. Still round the corner there may wait + Tree and flower and leaf and grass, A new road or a secret gate, + Let them pass! Let them pass! And though we pass them by today + Hill and water under sky, Tomorrow we may come this way + Pass them by! Pass them by! And take the hidden paths that run + Towards the Moon or to the Sun, +Home is behind, the world ahead, Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe, +And there are many paths to tread Let them go! Let them go! +Through shadows to the edge of night, Sand and stone and pool and dell, +Until the stars are all alight. Fare you well! Fare you well! +Then world behind and home ahead, +We'll wander back to home and bed. + Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, + Away shall fade! Away shall fade! + Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, + And then to bed! And then to bed! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Voiceless it cries, +Wingless flutters, +Toothless bites, +Mouthless mutters. +% +Volcanoes have a grandeur that is grim +And earthquakes only terrify the dolts, +And to him who's scientific +There is nothing that's terrific +In the pattern of a flight of thunderbolts! + -- W. S. Gilbert, "The Mikado" +% +Wad some power the giftie gie us +To see oursels as others see us. + -- R. Burns +% +Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling! +Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; +Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken. +Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Wake up all you citizens, hear your country's call, +Not to arms and violence, But peace for one and all. +Crush out hate and prejudice, fear and greed and sin, +Help bring back her dignity, restore her faith again. + +Work hard for a common cause, don't let our country fall. +Make her proud and strong again, democracy for all. +Yes, make our country strong again, keep our flag unfurled. +Make our country well again, respected by the world. + +Make her whole and beautiful, work from sun to sun. +Stand tall and labor side by side, because there's so much to be done. +Yes, make her whole and beautiful, united strong and free, +Wake up, all you citizens, It's up to you and me. + -- Pansy Myers Schroeder +% +Wanna tell you all a story 'bout a man named Jed, +A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed. +But then one day he was shootin' at some food, +When up through the ground come a bubblin' crude -- oil, that is; + black gold; 'Texas tea' ... + +Well the next thing ya know, old Jed's a millionaire. +The kinfolk said, 'Jed, move away from there!' +They said, 'Californy is the place ya oughta be', +So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly -- Hills, that is; + swimmin' pools; movie stars. +% +Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles +In children's circuses could stay their troubles? +There was a time they could cry over books, +But time has set its maggot on their track. +Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe. +What's never known is safest in this life. +Under the skysigns they who have no arms +Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost +Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best. + -- Dylan Thomas, "Was There A Time" +% +Watching girls go passing by +It ain't the latest thing +I'm just standing in a doorway +I'm just trying to make some sense +Out of these girls passing by A smile relieves the heart that grieves +The tales they tell of men Remember what I said +I'm not waiting on a lady I'm not waiting on a lady +I'm just waiting on a friend I'm just waiting on a friend +... +Don't need a whore +Don't need no booze +Don't need a virgin priest Ooh, making love and breaking hearts +But I need someone I can cry to It is a game for youth +I need someone to protect But I'm not waiting on a lady + I'm just waiting on a friend + I'm just waiting on a friend + -- Rolling Stones, "Waiting on a Friend" +% +We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control. + -- Pink Floyd +% +We don't need no indirection We don't need no compilation +We don't need no flow control We don't need no load control +No data typing or declarations No link edit for external bindings +Hey! did you leave the lists alone? Hey! did you leave that source alone? +Chorus: (Chorus) + Oh No. It's just a pure LISP function call. + +We don't need no side-effecting We don't need no allocation +We don't need no flow control We don't need no special-nodes +No global variables for execution No dark bit-flipping for debugging +Hey! did you leave the args alone? Hey! did you leave those bits alone? +(Chorus) (Chorus) + -- "Another Glitch in the Call", a la Pink Floyd +% +We gotta get out of this place, +If it's the last thing we ever do. + -- The Animals +% +we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love, +we will cry over things we used to laugh & +our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentle +creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then & +in the end a summer with wild winds & +new friends will be. +% +We wish you a Hare Krishna +We wish you a Hare Krishna +We wish you a Hare Krishna +And a Sun Myung Moon! + -- Maxwell Smart +% +We're happy little Vegemites, + As bright as bright can be. +We all all enjoy our Vegemite + For breakfast, lunch and tea. +% +We're Knights of the Round Table +We dance whene'er we're able +We do routines and chorus scenes We're knights of the Round Table +With footwork impeccable Our shows are formidable +We dine well here in Camelot But many times +We eat ham and jam and Spam a lot. We're given rhymes + That are quite unsingable +In war we're tough and able, We're opera mad in Camelot +Quite indefatigable We sing from the diaphragm a lot. +Between our quests +We sequin vests +And impersonate Clark Gable +It's a busy life in Camelot. +I have to push the pram a lot. + -- Monty Python +% +We've tried each spinning space mote +And reckoned its true worth: +Take us back again to the homes of men +On the cool, green hills of Earth. + +The arching sky is calling +Spacemen back to their trade. +All hands! Standby! Free falling! +And the lights below us fade. +Out ride the sons of Terra, +Far drives the thundering jet, +Up leaps the race of Earthmen, +Out, far, and onward yet-- + +We pray for one last landing +On the globe that gave us birth; +Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies +And the cool, green hills of Earth. + -- Robert A. Heinlein, 1941 +% +Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends! +We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside! +There behind the glass there's a real blade of grass, +Be careful as you pass, move along, move along. +Come inside, the show's about to start, +Guaranteed to blow your head apart. +Rest assured, you'll get your money's worth, +Greatest show, in heaven, hell or earth! +You gotta see the show! It's a dynamo! +You gotta see the show! It's rock 'n' roll! + -- ELP, "Karn Evil 9" (1st Impression, Part 2) +% +Well I looked at my watch and it said a quarter to five, +The headline screamed that I was still alive, +I couldn't understand it, I thought I died last night. +I dreamed I'd been in a border town, +In a little cantina that the boys had found, +I was desperate to dance, just to dig the local sounds. +When along came a senorita, +She looked so good that I had to meet her, +I was ready to approach her with my English charm, +When her brass knuckled boyfriend grabbed me by the arm, +And he said, grow some funk of your own, amigo, +Grow some funk of your own. +We no like to with the gringo fight, +But there might be a death in Mexico tonite. +... +Take my advice, take the next flight, +And grow some funk, grow your funk at home. + -- Elton John, "Grow Some Funk of Your Own" +% +Well, fancy giving money to the Government! +Might as well have put it down the drain. +Fancy giving money to the Government! +Nobody will see the stuff again. +Well, they've no idea what money's for -- +Ten to one they'll start another war. +I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'! +Fancy giving money to the Government! + -- A. P. Herbert +% +Well, I don't know where they come from but they sure do come, +I hope they comin' for me! +And I don't know how they do it but they sure do it good, +I hope they doin' it for free! +They give me cat scratch fever... cat scratch fever! +First time that I got it I was just ten years old, +Got it from the kitty next door... +I went to see the doctor and he gave me the cure, +I think I got it some more! +Got a bad scratch fever... + -- Ted Nugent, "Cat Scratch Fever" +% +Well, my daddy left home when I was three, +And he didn't leave much for Ma and me, +Just and old guitar an'a empty bottle of booze. +Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid, +But the meanest thing that he ever did, +Was before he left he went and named me Sue. +... +But I made me a vow to the moon and the stars, +I'd search the honkey tonks and the bars, +And kill the man that give me that awful name. +It was Gatlinburg in mid-July, +I'd just hit town and my throat was dry, +Thought I'd stop and have myself a brew, +At an old saloon on a street of mud, +Sitting at a table, dealing stud, +Sat that dirty (bleep) that named me Sue. +... +Now, I knew that snake was my own sweet Dad, +From a wornout picture that my Mother had, +And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye... + -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue" +% +Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail, + And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail; +I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues, + I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. + +If you think that it's nice that you get what you C, + Then go : illogical statement with your whole family, +'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views. + I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. + +On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze, + But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze. +Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse, + I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. + -- Core Dumped Blues +% +Well, some take delight in the carriages a-rolling, +And some take delight in the hurling and the bowling, +But I take delight in the juice of the barley, +And courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early. +% +Well, we're big rock singers, we've got golden fingers, +And we're loved everywhere we go. +We sing about beauty, and we sing about truth, +At ten thousand dollars a show. +We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills, +But the thrill we've never known, +Is the thrill that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, +On the cover of the Rolling Stone. + +I got a freaky old lady, name of Cole King Katie, +Who embroiders on my jeans. +I got my poor old gray-haired daddy, +Drivin' my limousine. +Now it's all designed, to blow our minds, +But our minds won't be really be blown; +Like the blow that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, +On the cover of the Rolling Stone. + +We got a lot of little, teen-aged, blue-eyed groupies, +Who'll do anything we say. +We got a genuine Indian guru, that's teachin' us a better way. +We got all the friends that money can buy, +So we never have to be alone. +And we keep gettin' richer, but we can't get our picture, +On the cover of the Rolling Stone. + -- Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show + [As a note, they eventually DID make the cover of RS. Ed.] +% +What awful irony is this? +We are as gods, but know it not. +% +What did ya do with your burden and your cross? +Did you carry it yourself or did you cry? +You and I know that a burden and a cross, +Can only be carried on one man's back. + -- Louden Wainwright III +% +What happens to a dream deferred? +Does it dry up +Like a raisin in the sun? +Or fester like a sore -- +And then run? +Does it stink like rotten meat? +Or crust and sugar over -- +Like a syrupy sweet? + +Maybe it just sags +Like a heavy load. + +Or does it explode? + -- Langston Hughes +% +What has roots as nobody sees, +Is taller than trees, +Up, up it goes, +And yet never grows? +% +What pains others pleasures me, +At home am I in Lisp or C; +There i couch in ecstasy, +'Til debugger's poke i flee, +Into kernel memory. +In system space, system space, there shall i fare-- +Inside of a VAX on a silicon square. +% +What segment's this, that, laid to rest +On FHA0, is sleeping? +What system file, lay here a while This, this is "acct.run," +While hackers around it were weeping? Accounting file for everyone. + Dump, dump it and type it out, + The file, the highseg of login. +Why lies it here, on public disk +And why is it now unprotected? +A bug in incant, made it thus. Mount, mount all your DECtapes now +And copy the file somehow, somehow. The problem has not been corrected. + Dump, dump it and type it out, + The file, the highseg of login. + -- to Greensleeves +% +What we Are is God's gift to us. +What we Become is our gift to God. +% +What with chromodynamics and electroweak too +Our Standardized Model should please even you, +Tho' once you did say that of charm there was none +It took courage to switch as to say Earth moves not Sun. +Yet your state of the union penultimate large +Is the last known haunt of the Fractional Charge, +And as you surf in the hot tub with sourdough roll +Please ponder the passing of your sole Monopole. +Your Olympics were fun, you should bring them all back +For transsexual tennis or Anamalon Track, +But Hollywood movies remain sinfully crude +Whether seen on the telly or Remotely Viewed. +Now fasten your sunbelts, for you've done it once more, +You said it in Leipzig of the thing we adore, +That you've built an incredible crystalline sphere +Whose German attendants spread trembling and fear +Of the death of our theory by Particle Zeta +Which I'll bet is not there say your article, later. + -- Sheldon Glashow, Physics Today, December, 1984 +% +What's love but a second-hand emotion? + -- Tina Turner +% +What, still alive at twenty-two, +A clean upstanding chap like you? +Sure, if your throat 'tis hard to slit, +Slit your girl's, and swing for it. +Like enough, you won't be glad, +When they come to hang you, lad: +But bacon's not the only thing +That's cured by hanging from a string. +So, when the spilt ink of the night +Spreads o'er the blotting pad of light, +Lads whose job is still to do +Shall whet their knives, and think of you. + -- Hugh Kingsmill +% +When a lion meets another with a louder roar, +the first lion thinks the last a bore. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +When I think about myself, +I almost laugh myself to death, +My life has been one great big joke, Sixty years in these folks' world +A dance that's walked The child I works for calls me girl +A song that's spoke, I say "Yes ma'am" for working's sake. +I laugh so hard I almost choke Too proud to bend +When I think about myself. Too poor to break, + I laugh until my stomach ache, + When I think about myself. +My folks can make me split my side, +I laughed so hard I nearly died, +The tales they tell, sound just like lying, +They grow the fruit, +But eat the rind, +I laugh until I start to crying, +When I think about my folks. + -- Maya Angelou +% +When in panic, fear and doubt, +Drink in barrels, eat, and shout. +% +When in this world the headlines read +Of those whose hearts are filled with greed +Who rob and steal from those who need +The cry goes up with blinding speed for Underdog (UNDERDOG!) +Underdog (UNDERDOG!) +Speed of lightning, roar of thunder +Fighting all who rob or plunder +Underdog (ah-ah-ah-ah) +Underdog +UNDERDOG! +% +When in trouble or in doubt, +run in circles, scream and shout. +% +When license fees are too high, +users do things by hand. +When the management is too intrusive, +users lose their spirit. + +Hack for the user's benefit. +Trust them; leave them alone. +% +When love is gone, there's always justice. +And when justice is gone, there's always force. +And when force is gone, there's always Mom. +Hi, Mom! + -- Laurie Anderson +% +When my fist clenches crack it open, +Before I use it and lose my cool. +When I smile tell me some bad news, +Before I laugh and act like a fool. + +And if I swallow anything evil, +Put you finger down my throat. +And if I shiver please give me a blanket, +Keep me warm let me wear your coat + +No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, + to be the sad man. +Behind blue eyes. +No one knows what its like to be hated, + to be fated, +To telling only lies. + -- The Who +% +When oxygen Tech played Hydrogen U. +The Game had just begun, when Hydrogen scored two fast points +And Oxygen still had none +Then Oxygen scored a single goal +And thus it did remain, At Hydrogen 2 and Oxygen 1 +Called because of rain. +% +When someone makes a move We'll send them all we've got, +Of which we don't approve, John Wayne and Randolph Scott, +Who is it that always intervenes? Remember those exciting fighting scenes? +U.N. and O.A.S., To the shores of Tripoli, +They have their place, I guess, But not to Mississippoli, +But first, send the Marines! What do we do? We send the Marines! + +For might makes right, Members of the corps +And till they've seen the light, All hate the thought of war: +They've got to be protected, They'd rather kill them off by + peaceful means. +All their rights respected, Stop calling it aggression-- +Till somebody we like can be elected. We hate that expression! + We only want the world to know + That we support the status quo; + They love us everywhere we go, + So when in doubt, send the Marines! + -- Tom Lehrer, "Send The Marines" +% +When the Guru administers, the users +are hardly aware that he exists. +Next best is a sysop who is loved. +Next, one who is feared. +And worst, one who is despised. + +If you don't trust the users, +you make them untrustworthy. + +The Guru doesn't talk, he hacks. +When his work is done, +the users say, "Amazing: +we implemented it, all by ourselves!" +% +When the leaders speak of peace +The common folk know +That war is coming +When the leaders curse war +The mobilization order is already written out. + +Every day, to earn my daily bread +I go to the market where lies are bought +Hopefully +I take my place among the sellers. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "Hollywood" +% +When users see one GUI as beautiful, +other user interfaces become ugly. +When users see some programs as winners, +other programs become lossage. + +Pointers and NULLs reference each other. +High level and assembler depend on each other. +Double and float cast to each other. +High-endian and low-endian define each other. +While and until follow each other. + +Therefore the Guru +programs without doing anything +and teaches without saying anything. +Warnings arise and he lets them come; +processes are swapped and he lets them go. +He has but doesn't possess, +acts but doesn't expect. +When his work is done, he deletes it. +That is why it lasts forever. +% +When you and I are far apart +Can sorrow break your tender heart? +I love you darling, yes I do; +Sleep is so sweet when I dream of you; +All you are is a blossoming rose. +Night is here so I must close. +With care read the first word of each line. +You will find a question of mine. + -- Yours hopefully, The VAX. +% +When you find yourself in danger, +When you're threatened by a stranger, +When it looks like you will take a lickin'... + +There is one thing you should learn, +When there is no one else to turn to, + Caaaall for Super Chicken!! (**bwuck-bwuck-bwuck-bwuck**) + Caaaall for Super Chicken!! +% +When you get what you want in your struggle for self +And the world makes you king for a day, +Just go to a mirror and look at yourself +And see what that man has to say. + For it isn't your father or mother or wife + Whose judgement upon you must pass; + The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life + Is the one staring back from the glass. +Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum +And call you a wonderful guy, +But the man in the glass says you're only a bum +If you can't look him straight in the eye. + He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest, + For he's with you clear up to the end, + And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test + If the man in the glass is your friend. +You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life +And get pats on the back as you pass, +But your final reward will be heartaches and tears +If you've cheated the man in the glass. +% +When you meet a master swordsman, +show him your sword. +When you meet a man who is not a poet, +do not show him your poem. + -- Rinzai, ninth century Zen master +% +When you overesteem great hackers, +more users become cretins. +When you develop encryption, +more users become crackers. + +The Guru leads +by emptying user's minds +and increasing their quotas, +by weakening their ambition +and toughening their resolve. +When users lack knowledge and desire, +management will not try to interfere. + +Practice not-looping, +and everything will fall into place. +% +When you're a Yup +You're a Yup all the way +From your first slice of Brie +To your last Cabernet. + +When you're a Yup +You're not just a dreamer +You're making things happen +You're driving a Beamer. +% +When you're away, I'm restless, lonely, +Wretched, bored, dejected; only +Here's the rub, my darling dear +I feel the same when you are near. + -- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away" +% +Whenever Richard Cory went downtown, + We people on the pavement looked at him: +He was a gentleman from sole to crown, + Clean-favored, and imperially slim. +And he was always quietly arrayed, + And he was always human when he talked; +But still he fluttered pulses when he said, + "Good morning," and he glittered when he walked. +And he was rich -- yes, richer than a king -- + And admirably schooled in every grace: +In fine, we thought that he was everything + To make us wish that we were in his place. +So on we worked, and waited for the light, + And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; +And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, + Went home and put a bullet through his head. + -- E. A. Robinson, "Richard Cory" +% +WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE + Oh, dear, where can the matter be + When it's converted to energy? + There is a slight loss of parity. + Johnny's so long at the fair. +% +Where's the man could ease a heart +Like a satin gown? + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Satin Dress" +% +Where, oh, where, are you tonight? +Why did you leave me here all alone? +I searched the world over, and I thought I'd found true love. +You met another, and *PPHHHLLLBBBBTTT*, you wuz gone. + +Gloom, despair and agony on me. +Deep dark depression, excessive misery. +If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. +Oh, gloom, despair and agony on me. + -- Hee Haw +% +Whether weary or unweary, O man, do not rest, +Do not cease your single-handed struggle. +Go on, do not rest. + -- An old Gujarati hymn +% +Whether you can hear it or not, +The Universe is laughing behind your back. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, +The fate of empires and the fall of kings; +While quacks of State must each produce his plan, +And even children lisp the Rights of Man; +Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, +The Rights of Woman merit some attention. + -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman", 26/10 1792 +% +While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, +As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. + -- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to hardware interrupts.] + +And now I see with eye serene +The very pulse of the machine. + -- William Wordsworth, "She Was a Phantom of Delight" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to software interrupts.] +% +While walking down a crowded +City street the other day, +I heard a little urchin +To a comrade turn and say, +"Say, Chimmey, lemme tell youse, +I'd be happy as a clam +If only I was de feller dat +Me mudder t'inks I am. + +"She t'inks I am a wonder, My friends, be yours a life of toil +An' she knows her little lad Or undiluted joy, +Could never mix wit' nuttin' You can learn a wholesome lesson +Dat was ugly, mean or bad. From that small, untutored boy. +Oh, lot o' times I sit and t'ink Don't aim to be an earthly saint +How nice, 'twould be, gee whiz! With eyes fixed on a star: +If a feller was de feller Just try to be the fellow that +Dat his mudder t'inks he is." Your mother thinks you are. + -- Will S. Adkin, "If I Only Was the Fellow" +% +Whip it, baby. +Whip it right. +Whip it, baby. +Whip it all night! +% +Who does not love wine, women, and song, +Remains a fool his whole life long. + -- Johann Heinrich Voss +% +Who loves not wisely but too well +Will look on Helen's face in hell, +But he whose love is thin and wise +Will view John Knox in Paradise. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +Who made the world I cannot tell; +'Tis made, and here am I in hell. +My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, +I never soiled with such a deed. + -- A. E. Housman +% +Who to himself is law no law doth need, +offends no law, and is a king indeed. + -- George Chapman +% +Why are you watching +The washing machine? +I love entertainment +So long as it's clean. + +Professor Doberman: + While the preceding poem is unarguably a change from the guarded +pessimism of "The Hound of Heaven," it cannot be regarded as an unqualified +improvement. Obscurity is of value only when it tends to clarify the poetic +experience. As much as one is compelled to admire the poem's technique, one +must question whether its byplay of complex literary allusions does not in +fact distract from the unity of the whole. In the final analysis, one +receives the distinct impression that the poem's length could safely have +been reduced by a factor of eight or ten without sacrificing any of its +meaning. It is to be hoped that further publication of this poem can be +suspended pending a thorough investigation of its potential subversive +implications. +% +With/Without - and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about? + -- Pink Floyd +% +Woke up this mornin' an' I had myself a beer, +Yeah, Ah woke up this mornin' an' I had myself a beer +The future's uncertain and the end is always near. + -- Jim Morrison, "Roadhouse Blues" +% +Woke up this morning, don't believe what I saw. +Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore. +Seems I'm not alone in being alone. +Hundred billion castaways looking for a call. + -- The Police, "Message in a Bottle" +% +Yea from the table of my memory +I'll wipe away all trivial fond records. + -- Hamlet +% +Yes me, I got a bottle in front of me. +And Jimmy has a frontal lobotomy. +Just different ways to kill the pain the same. +But I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, +Than to have to have a frontal lobotomy. +I might be drunk but at least I'm not insane. + -- Randy Ansley M.D. (Dr. Rock) +% +Yesterday upon the stair +I met a man who wasn't there. +He wasn't there again today -- +I think he's from the CIA. +% +"You are old, Father William," the young man said, + "All your papers these days look the same; +Those William's would be better unread -- + Do these facts never fill you with shame?" + +"In my youth," Father William replied to his son, + "I wrote wonderful papers galore; +But the great reputation I found that I'd won, + Made it pointless to think any more." +% +"You are old, father William," the young man said, + "And your hair has become very white; +And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- + Do you think, at your age, it is right?" + +"In my youth," father William replied to his son, + "I feared it might injure the brain; +But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, + Why, I do it again and again." + +"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, + And have grown most uncommonly fat; +Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- + Pray what is the reason of that?" + +"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, + "I kept all my limbs very supple +By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box -- + Allow me to sell you a couple?" +% +"You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers + That your lectures bore people to death. +Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year -- + Don't you think that you should save your breath?" + +"I have answered three questions and that is enough," + Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs! +Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? + Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!" +% +"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak + For anything tougher than suet; +Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -- + Pray, how did you manage to do it?" + +"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, + And argued each case with my wife; +And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, + Has lasted the rest of my life." + +"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose + That your eye was as steady as ever; +Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- + What made you so awfully clever?" + +"I have answered three questions, and that is enough," + Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! +Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? + Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" +% +"You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run, + And there isn't one language you like; +Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none -- + Have you thought about taking a hike?" + +"Since I never write programs," his father replied, + "Every language looks equally bad; +Yet the people keep paying to read all my books + And don't realize that they've been had." +% +"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, + And make errors few people could bear; +You complain about everyone's English but yours -- + Do you really think this is quite fair?" + +"I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared, + "But my stature these days is so great +That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared, + And to stop me it's now far too late." +% +You can grovel with a lover, you can grovel with a friend, +You can grovel with your boss, and it never has to end. + +(chorus) Grovel, grovel, grovel, every night and every day, + Grovel, grovel, grovel, in your own peculiar way. + +You can grovel in a hallway, you can grovel in a park, +You can grovel in an alley with a mugger after dark. +(chorus) + +You can grovel with your uncle, you can grovel with your aunt, +You can grovel with your Apple, even though you say you can't. +(chorus) +% +You go down to the pickup station, + craving warmth and beauty; +You settle for less than fascination -- + a few drinks later you're not so choosy. +And the closing lights strip off the shadows + on this strange new flesh you've found -- +Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf + you hurry to the blackness + and the blankets to lay down an impression + and your loneliness. + -- Joni Mitchell +% +You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues, +And you know it don't come easy ... +I don't ask for much, I only want trust, +And you know it don't come easy ... +% +You know my heart keeps tellin' me, +You're not a kid at thirty-three, +You play around you lose your wife, +You play too long, you lose your life. +Some gotta win, some gotta lose, +Goodtime Charlie's got the blues. +% +You may be right, I may be crazy, +But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for! + -- Billy Joel +% +You will find me drinking gin +In the lowest kind of inn, +Because I am a rigid Vegetarian. + -- G. K. Chesterton +% +You'll always be, +What you always were, +Which has nothing to do with, +All to do, with her. + -- Company +% +Your wise men don't know how it feels +To be thick as a brick. + -- Jethro Tull, "Thick As A Brick" +% +Your worship is your furnaces +which, like old idols, lost obscenes, +have molten bowels; your vision is +machines for making more machines. + -- Gordon Bottomley, 1874 +% +Yours is not to reason why, +Just to Sail Away. +And when you find you have to throw +Your Legacy away; +Remember life as was it is, +And is as it were; +Chasing sounds across the galaxy +'Till silence is but a blur. + -- QYX. +% +We found you hiding +We found you lying +Choking on the dirt and sand. + +Your former glories +And all the stories +Dragged and washed with eager hands. + -- ``Cities in Dust'', "Tinderbox", Siouxsie & the Banshees. +% diff --git a/fortunes/sports b/fortunes/sports new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40310c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/sports @@ -0,0 +1,814 @@ +A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. +Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. +The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it +had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably atop a nice +firm tuft of grass. + -- Donald A. Metz +% +A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in +the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the +rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between +the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be +penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such +uncontrollable physical phenomena. + -- Donald A. Metz +% + A boy scout troop went on a hike. Crossing over a stream, one of +the boys dropped his wallet into the water. Suddenly a carp jumped, grabbed +the wallet and tossed it to another carp. Then that carp passed it to +another carp, and all over the river carp appeared and tossed the wallet back +and forth. + "Well, boys," said the Scout leader, "you've just seen a rare case +of carp-to-carp walleting." +% +A couple of young fellers were fishing at their special pond off the +beaten track when out of the bushes jumped the Game Warden. Immediately, +one of the boys threw his rod down and started running through the woods +like the proverbial bat out of hell, and hot on his heels ran the Game +Warden. After about a half mile the fella stopped and stooped over with +his hands on his thighs, whooping and heaving to catch his breath as the +Game Warden finally caught up to him. + "Let's see yer fishin' license, boy," the Warden gasped. The +man pulled out his wallet and gave the Game Warden a valid fishing +license. + "Well, son", snarled the Game Warden, "You must be about as dumb +as a box of rocks! You didn't have to run if you have a license!" + "Yes, sir," replied his victim, "but, well, see, my friend back +there, he don't have one!" +% +A gambler's biggest thrill is winning a bet. +His next biggest thrill is losing a bet. +% +A new 'chutist had just jumped from the plane at 10,000 feet, and soon +discovered that all his lines were hopelessly tangled. At about 5,000 feet, +still struggling, he noticed someone coming up from the ground at about the +same speed as he was going towards the ground. As they passed each other at +3,000 feet, the 'chutist yells, "HEY! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PARACHUTES?" + The reply came, fading towards the end, "NO! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING +ABOUT COLEMAN STOVES?" +% +A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore. + -- Yogi Berra +% +A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as +"you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if +the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants +to make a travesty of the game. + -- Donald A. Metz +% + A ranger was walking through the forest and encountered a hunter +carrying a shotgun and a dead loon. "What in the world do you think you're +doing? Don't you know that the loon is on the endagered species list?" + Instead of answering, the hunter showed the ranger his game bag, +which contained twelve more loons. + "Why would you shoot loons?", the ranger asked. + "Well, my family eats them and I sell the plumage." + "What's so special about a loon? What does it taste like?" + "Oh, somewhere between an American Bald Eagle and a Trumpeter Swan." +% + Accidentally Shot + + Colonel Gray, of Petaluma, came near losing his life a few days ago, +in a singular manner. A gentleman with whom he was hunting attempted to +bring down a dove, but instead of doing so put the load of shot through the +Colonel's hat. One shot took effect in his forehead. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, April 20, 1861 +% +"Ain't that something what happened today. One of us got traded to +Kansas City." + -- Casey Stengel, informing outfielder Bob Cerv he'd + been traded. +% +All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely +than others. + -- Alan Truscott +% +Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, +today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. + -- Dave Barry +% +Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been +reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the +day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable +interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on +pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, +and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. +Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous +material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the +management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion +the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping." + -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959) +% +Anxious after the delay, Gruber doesn't waste any time getting the Koenig +[a modified Porsche] up to speed, and almost immediately we are blowing off +Alfas, Fiats, and Lancias full of excited Italians. These people love fast +cars. But they love sport too and no passing encounter goes unchallenged. +Nothing serious, just two wheels into your lane as you're bearing down on +them at 130-plus -- to see if you're paying attention. + -- Road & Track article about driving two absurdly fast + cars across Europe. +% +[Babe] Ruth made a big mistake when he gave up pitching. + -- Tris Speaker, 1921 +% +Bill Dickey is learning me his experience. + -- Yogi Berra in his rookie season. +% +Brandy Davis, an outfielder and teammate of mine with the Pittsburgh Pirates, +is my choice for team captain. Cincinnati was beating us 3-1, and I led +off the bottom of the eighth with a walk. The next hitter banged a hard +single to right field. Feeling the wind at my back, I rounded second and +kept going, sliding safely into third base. + With runners at first and third, and home-run hitter Ralph Kiner at +bat, our manager put in the fast Brandy Davis to run for the player at first. +Even with Kiner hitting and a change to win the game with a home run, Brandy +took off for second and made it. Now we had runners at second and third. + I'm standing at third, knowing I'm not going anywhere, and see Brandy +start to take a lead. All of a sudden, here he comes. He makes a great slide +into third, and I scream, "Brandy, where are you going?" He looks up, and +shouts, "Back to second if I can make it." + -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" +% +Check me if I'm wrong, Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers... +they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key! +% +College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty +played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees +played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, +and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. + -- H. L. Mencken +% + COONDOG MEMORY + (heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago) + +Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as +old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot. +For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and +is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to +try out ol' Sis here. So I turned her out south of the house and she made +two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set +back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods, +come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air, +run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had +something treed. We went over there with our flashlights and shone them +up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my +neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she +stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it. So I pulled off my +coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon +skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up. +Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow +was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the +air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the +Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back. Now, this dog +is for sale. + -- News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly +% +Dallas Cowboys Official Schedule + + Sept 14 Pasadena Junior High + Sept 21 Boy Scout Troop 049 + Sept 28 Blind Academy + Sept 30 World War I Veterans + Oct 5 Brownie Scout Troop 041 + Oct 12 Sugarcreek High Cheerleaders + Oct 26 St. Thomas Boys Choir + Nov 2 Texas City Vet Clinic + Nov 9 Korean War Amputees + Nov 15 VA Hospital Polio Patients +% +Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really over- +whelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may +not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, +or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants +(unless struck by a boomerang). + -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc. +% +Don't let go of what you've got hold of, until you have hold of something else. + -- First Rule of Wing Walking +% +Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. + +Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of +side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath +-- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved. + -- Steve Rubenstein +% +Ever feel like life was a game and you had the wrong instruction book? +% +Ever feel like you're the head pin on life's bowling alley, and everyone's +rolling strikes? +% +Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. + -- Snoopy +% +Failed Attempts To Break Records + In September 1978 Mr. Terry Gripton, of Stafford, failed to break +the world shouting record by two and a half decibels. "I am not surprised +he failed," his wife said afterwards. "He's really a very quiet man and +doesn't even shout at me." + In August of the same year Mr. Paul Anthony failed to break the +record for continuous organ playing by 387 hours. + His attempt at the Golden Fish Fry Restaurant in Manchester ended +after 36 hours 10 minutes, when he was accused of disturbing the peace. +"People complained I was too noisy," he said. + In January 1976 Mr. Barry McQueen failed to walk backwards across +the Menai Bridge playing the bagpipes. "It was raining heavily and my +drone got waterlogged," he said. + A TV cameraman thwarted Mr. Bob Specas' attempt to topple 100,000 +dominoes at the Manhattan Center, New York on 9 June 1978. 97,500 dominoes +had been set up when he dropped his press badge and set them off. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +Flying is the second greatest feeling you can have. The greatest feeling? +Landing... Landing is the greatest feeling you can have. +% +Football builds self-discipline. What else would induce a spectator to +sit out in the open in subfreezing weather? +% +Football combines the two worst features of American life. +It is violence punctuated by committee meetings. + -- George F. Will, "Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball" +% +Football is a game designed to keep coalminers off the streets. + -- Jimmy Breslin +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #15 + + "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." + And while you're at it, throw in a couple of those Dallas + Cowboy cheerleaders. +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #14 + The Baby Ruth candy bar was not named after George Herman "The Babe" +Ruth, but after the oldest daughter of President Grover Cleveland. +% +From 0 to "what seems to be the problem officer" in 8.3 seconds. + -- Ad for the new VW Corrado +% +George's friend Sam had a dog who could recite the Gettysburg Address. "Let +me buy him from you," pleaded George after a demonstration. + "Okay," agreed Sam. "All he knows is that Lincoln speech anyway." + At his company's Fourth of July picnic, George brought his new pet +and announced that the animal could recite the entire Gettysburg Address. +No one believed him, and they proceeded to place bets against the dog. +George quieted the crowd and said, "Now we'll begin!" Then he looked at +the dog. The dog looked back. No sound. "Come on, boy, do your stuff." +Nothing. A disappointed George took his dog and went home. + "Why did you embarrass me like that in front of everybody?" George +yelled at the dog. "Do you realize how much money you lost me?" + "Don't be silly, George," replied the dog. "Think of the odds we're +gonna get on Labor Day." +% +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 me a fish and I will eat today. + +Teach me to fish and I will eat forever. +% +Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. +% +Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he makes us +all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean famous for +its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses probably stirs +romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you have never met any +wild horses in person. In person, they are like enormous hooved rats. They +amble up to your camp site, and their attitude is: "We're wild horses. +We're going to eat your food, knock down your tent and poop on your shoes. +We're protected by federal law, just like Richard Nixon." + -- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob" +% +HARVARD: +Quarterback: + Sophomore Dave Strewzinski... likes to pass. And pass he does, with +a record 86 attempts (three completions) in 87 plays.... Though Strewzinksi +has so far failed to score any points for the Crimson, his jackrabbit speed +has made him the least sacked quarterback in the Ivy league. +Wide Receiver: + The other directional signal in Harvard's offensive machine is senior +Phil Yip, who is very fast. Yip is so fast that he has set a record for being +fast. Expect to see Yip elude all pursuers and make it into the endzone five +or six times, his average for a game. Yip, nicknamed "fumblefingers" and "you +asshole" by his teammates, hopes to carry the ball with him at least one of +those times. +YALE: +Defense: + On the defensive side, Yale boasts the stingiest line in the Ivies. +Primarily responsible are seniors Izzy "Shylock" Bloomberg and Myron +Finklestein, the tightest ends in recent Eli history. Also contributing to +the powerful defense is junior tackle Angus MacWhirter, a Scotsman who rounds +out the offensive ethnic joke. Look for these three to shut down the opening +coin toss. + -- Harvard Lampoon 1988 Program Parody, distributed at The Game +% +Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. + -- W. C. Fields +% +How can you think and hit at the same time? + -- Yogi Berra +% +I always turn to the sports pages first, which record people's accomplishments. +The front page has nothing but man's failures. + -- Chief Justice Earl Warren +% +I believe that professional wrestling is clean and everything else in +the world is fixed. + -- Frank Deford, sports writer +% +I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling. + -- Florence Henderson +% +I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do will encounter +quick retribution. All will be suspended, and I don't care if it wrecks +the National League for five years. This is the United States of America +and one citizen has as much right to play as another. + -- Ford Frick, National League President, reacting to a + threatened strike by some Cardinal players in 1947 if + Jackie Robinson took the field against St. Louis. The + Cardinals backed down and played. +% +I guess I've been so wrapped up in playing the game that I never took +time enough to figure out where the goal line was -- what it meant to +win -- or even how you won. + -- Cash McCall +% +I guess the Little League is even littler than we thought. + -- D. Cavett +% +I just know I'm a better manager when I have Joe DiMaggio in center field. + -- Casey Stengel +% +I like your game but we have to change the rules. +% +I never met a man I didn't want to fight. + -- Lyle Alzado, professional football lineman +% +I realize that today you have a number of top female athletes such as +Martina Navratilova who can run like deer and bench-press Chevrolet +trucks. But to be brutally frank, women as a group have a long way to +go before they reach the level of intensity and dedication to sports +that enables men to be such incredible jerks about it. + -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" +% +I went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good that +it took seven others to beat him! +% +I would be batting the big feller if they wasn't ready with the other one, +but a left-hander would be the thing if they wouldn't have knowed it already +because there is more things involved than could come up on the road, even +after we've been home a long while. + -- Casey Stengel +% +I would rather say that a desire to drive fast sports cars is what sets +man apart from the animals. +% +I'd rather push my Harley than ride a rice burner. +% +I'm a lucky guy, and I'm happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to +thank everyone for making this night necessary. + -- Yogi Berra at a dinner in his honor +% +I'm glad we don't have to play in the shade. + -- Golfer Bobby Jones on being told that it was 105 degrees + in the shade. +% +I've only got 12 cards. +% +If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. +The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a position +in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of +gravity supercedes the law of golf. + -- Donald A. Metz +% +If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a good attitude. +If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment to playing the +game right. If it plays the game right, it will win -- unless, of +course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no manager can make +goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry? + -- Sparky Anderson +% +If people concentrated on the really important things in life, +there'd be a shortage of fishing poles. + -- Doug Larson +% +If swimming is so good for your figure, how come whales look the +way they do? +% + If you do your best the rest of the way, that takes care of +everything. When we get to October 2, we'll add up the wins, and then +we'll either all go into the playoffs, or we'll all go home and play golf. + Both those things sound pretty good to me. + -- Sparky Anderson +% +If you don't know what game you're playing, don't ask what the score is. +% +If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're +the sucker. +% +If you want to see card tricks, you have to expect to take cards. + -- Harry Blackstone +% +If you're carrying a torch, put it down. The Olympics are over. +% +In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground +with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call +this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf. +% +In Brooklyn, we had such great pennant races, it made the World Series +just something that came later. + -- Walter O'Malley, Dodgers owner +% +It gets late early out there. + -- Yogi Berra +% +It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another -- +but which one? Differences are crucial. + -- Lazarus Long +% +It's like deja vu all over again. + -- Yogi Berra +% +It's not whether you win or lose but how you played the game. + -- Grantland Rice +% +It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you look playing the game. +% +Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo. +% +Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee: + (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc + straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this + force is technically termed "car suck"). + (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive + than "Watch this!" + (3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly + proportional to the cost of hitting it. For instance, a + Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or + a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy. + (4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the + cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the + Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you + in the head and knock you silly. +% +Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it was a bet you wouldn't take it. + -- Tom Stoppard, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" +% +Life is a game of bridge -- and you've just been finessed. +% +Life is a game. In order to have a game, something has to be more +important than something else. If what already is, is more important +than what isn't, the game is over. So, life is a game in which what +isn't, is more important than what is. Let the good times roll. + -- Werner Erhard +% +Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string. +% +Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us +to pay income taxes, too? + -- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox +% +Love means nothing to a tennis player. +% +Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, +dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man +picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and +whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire. + +What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as +mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. + -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" +% +MARTA SAYS THE INTERESTING thing about fly-fishing is that it's two lives +connected by a thin strand. + +Come on, Marta, grow up. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +MARTA WAS WATCHING THE FOOTBALL GAME with me when she said, "You know most +of these sports are based on the idea of one group protecting its +territory from invasion by another group." + +"Yeah," I said, trying not to laugh. Girls are funny. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% + Max told his friend that he'd just as soon not go hiking in the hills. +Said he, "I'm an anti-climb Max." + [So is that punchline.] +% +Most people's favorite way to end a game is by winning. +% +My first baseman is George "Catfish" Metkovich from our 1952 Pittsburgh +Pirates team, which lost 112 games. After a terrible series against the +New York Giants, in which our center fielder made three throwing errors +and let two balls get through his legs, manager Billy Meyer pleaded, "Can +somebody think of something to help us win a game?" + "I'd like to make a suggestion," Metkovich said. "On any ball hit +to center field, let's just let it roll to see if it might go foul." + -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" +% +My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +Nadia Comaneci, simple perfection. + -- '76 Olympics +% +Never play pool with anyone named "Fats". +% +NEWS FLASH!! +Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West German pole-vault +champion. +% +Nothing increases your golf score like witnesses. +% +Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game: you can win +or you can lose or it can rain. + -- Casey Stengel +% +"Oh, he [a big dog] hunts with papa," she said. "He says Don Carlos [the +dog] is good for almost every kind of game. He went duck hunting one time +and did real well at it. Then Papa bought some ducks, not wild ducks but, +you know, farm ducks. And it got Don Carlos all mixed up. Since the +ducks were always around the yard with nobody shooting at them he knew he +wasn't supposed to kill them, but he had to do something. So one morning +last spring, when the ground was still soft, he took all the ducks and +buried them." "What do you mean, buried them?" "Oh, he didn't hurt them. +He dug little holes all over the yard and picked up the ducks in his mouth +and put them in the holes. Then he covered them up with mud except for +their heads. He did thirteen ducks that way and was digging a hole for +another one when Tony found him. We talked about it for a long time. Papa +said Don Carlos was afraid the ducks might run away, and since he didn't +know how to build a cage he put them in holes. He's a smart dog." + -- R. Bradford, "Red Sky At Morning" +% +On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the +same moment -- halftime. +% +Once there was this conductor see, who had a bass problem. You see, during +a portion of Beethovan's Ninth Symphony in which there are no bass violin +parts, one of the bassists always passed a bottle of scotch around. So, +to remind himself that the basses usually required an extra cue towards the +end of the symphony, the conductor would fasten a piece of string around the +page of the score before the bass cue. As the basses grew more and more +inebriated, two of them fell asleep. The conductor grew quite nervous (he +was very concerned about the pitch) because it was the bottom of the ninth; +the score was tied and the basses were loaded with two out. +% +One thought driven home is better than three left on base. +% +One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him. +% +Our [softball] team usually puts the other woman at second base, where the +maximum possible number of males can get there on short notice to help out +in case of emergency. As far as I can tell, our second basewoman is a pretty +good baseball player, better than I am, anyway, but there's no way to know +for sure because if the ball gets anywhere near her, a male comes barging +over from, say, right field, to deal with it. She's been on the team for +three seasons now, but the males still don't trust her. They know, deep in +their souls, that if she had to choose between catching a fly ball and saving +an infant's life, she probably would elect to save the infant's life, without +ever considering whether there were men on base. + -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" +% +P-K4 +% +Pedro Guerrero was playing third base for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1984 +when he made the comment that earns him a place in my Hall of Fame. Second +baseman Steve Sax was having trouble making his throws. Other players were +diving, screaming, signaling for a fair catch. At the same time, Guerrero, +at third, was making a few plays that weren't exactly soothing to manager +Tom Lasorda's stomach. Lasorda decided it was time for one of his famous +motivational meetings and zeroed in on Guerrero: "How can you play third +base like that? You've gotta be thinking about something besides baseball. +What is it?" + "I'm only thinking about two things," Guerrero said. "First, `I +hope they don't hit the ball to me.'" The players snickered, and even +Lasorda had to fight off a laugh. "Second, `I hope they don't hit the ball +to Sax.'" + -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" +% +Repel them. Repel them. Induce them to relinquish the spheroid. + -- Indiana University football cheer +% +Reporter: "What would you do if you found a million dollars?" +Yogi Berra: "If the guy was poor, I would give it back." +% +Rick: "How can you close me up? On what grounds?" +Renault: "I'm shocked! Shocked! To find that gambling is going on here." +Croupier (handing money to Renault): "Your winnings, sir." +Renault:"Oh. Thank you very much." + -- Casablanca +% +Rube Walker: "Hey, Yogi, what time is it?" +Yogi Berra: "You mean now?" +% +Ruth made a great mistake when he gave up pitching. Working once a week, +he might have lasted a long time and become a great star. + -- Tris Speaker, commenting on Babe Ruth's plan to change + from being a pitcher to an outfielder. + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +Sailing is fun, but scrubbing the decks is aardvark. + -- Heard on Noahs' ark +% +San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the +people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When +they boo you, you know they mean *you*. Music, that's what it is to me. +One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo. + -- George Halas, professional football coach +% +Several years ago, an international chess tournament was being held in a +swank hotel in New York. Most of the major stars of the chess world were +there, and after a grueling day of chess, the players and their entourages +retired to the lobby of the hotel for a little refreshment. In the lobby, +some players got into a heated argument about who was the brightest, the +fastest, and the best chess player in the world. The argument got quite +loud, as various players claimed that honor. At that point, a security +guard in the lobby turned to another guard and commented, "If there's +anything I just can't stand, it's chess nuts boasting in an open foyer." +% +Show me a good loser in professional sports and I'll show you an idiot. +Show me a good sportsman and I'll show you a player I'm looking to trade. + -- Leo Durocher +% +So I'm ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face. + -- Yogi Berra +% +Son, someday a man is going to walk up to you with a deck of cards on which +the seal is not yet broken. And he is going to offer to bet you that he can +make the Ace of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ears. +But son, do not bet this man, for you will end up with a ear full of cider. + -- Sky Masterson's Father +% +Support Bingo, keep Grandma off the streets. +% +Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else. +% +Ten of the meanest cons in the state pen met in the corner of the yard to +shoot some craps. The stakes were enormous, the tension palpable. + When his turn came to shoot, Dutsky nervously plunked down his +entire wad, shook the dice and rolled. A smile crossed his face as a +seven showed up, but it quickly changed to horror as third die slipped out +of his sleeve and fell to the ground with the two others. No one said a +word. Finally, Killer Lucci picked up the third die, put it in his pocket +and handed the others to Dutsky. + "Roll 'em," Lucci said. "Your point is thirteen." +% +Texas A&M football coach Jackie Sherrill went to the office of the Dean +of Academics because he was concerned about his players' mental abilities. +"My players are just too stupid for me to deal with them", he told the +unbelieving dean. At this point, one of his players happened to enter +the dean's office. "Let me show you what I mean", said Sherrill, and he +told the player to run over to his office to see if he was in. "OK, Coach", +the player replied, and was off. "See what I mean?" Sherrill asked. +"Yeah", replied the dean. "He could have just picked up this phone and +called you from here." +% +That's the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows +returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on a ball. + -- Bill Veeck +% +The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show off +this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his next +hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the duck fell, +the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the duck and returned +it to his master. + "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly. + "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim." +% +The Fastest Defeat In Chess + The big name for us in the world of chess is Gibaud, a French chess +master. + In Paris during 1924 he was beaten after only four moves by a +Monsieur Lazard. Happily for posterity, the moves are recorded and so +chess enthusiasts may reconstruct this magnificent collapse in the comfort +of their own homes. + Lazard was black and Gibaud white: + 1: P-Q4, Kt-KB3 + 2: Kt-Q2, P-K4 + 3: PxP, Kt-Kt5 + 4: P-KR3, Kt-K6 + White then resigns on realizing that a fifth move would involve +either a Q-KR5 check or the loss of his queen. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The fellow sat down at a bar, ordered a drink and asked the bartender if he +wanted to hear a dumb-jock joke. + "Hey, buddy," the bartender replied, "you see those two guys next to +you? They used to be with the Chicago Bears. The two dudes behind you made +the U.S. Olympic wrestling team. And for your information, I used to play +center at Notre Dame." + "Forget it," the customer said. "I don't want to explain it five +times." +% +The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the +biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regard to +them were fishermen. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +THE OLD POOL SHOOTER had won many a game in his life. But now it was time +to hang up the cue. When he did, all the other cues came crashing go the floor. + +"Sorry," he said with a smile. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +The one sure way to make a lazy man look respectable is to put a fishing +rod in his hand. +% + The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball... +You've got to start way down, at the bottom, when you're six or seven years +old. You can't wait until you're fifteen or sixteen. You've got to let it +grow up with you, and if you're successful and you try hard enough, you're +bound to come out on top, just like these boys have come to the top now. + -- Babe Ruth, in his 1948 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium +% +The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter +swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the +batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The +center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute his +eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it. + -- Dizzy Dean +% +The real problem with hunting elephants is carrying the decoys. +% +The surest way to remain a winner is to win once, and then not play any more. +% +The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie +Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said +to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his decision +to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride." +% +The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable +that I assume it must be evil. + -- Heywood Broun +% +The whole of life is futile unless you consider it as a sporting proposition. +% +There's a couple of million dollars worth of baseball talent on the loose, +ready for the big leagues, yet unsigned by any major league. There are +pitchers who would win 20 games a season ... and outfielders [who] could +hit .350, infielders who could win recognition as stars, and there's at +least one catcher who at this writing is probably superior to Bill Dickey, +Josh Gibson. Only one thing is keeping them out of the big leagues, the +pigmentation of their skin. They happen to be colored. + -- Shirley Povich, 1941 +% +They also surf who only stand on waves. +% +To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit, +call it the target. +% +Trust everybody, but cut the cards. + -- Finlay Peter Dunne, "Mr. Dooley's Philosophy" +% + Two brothers, Mort and Bill, like to sail. While Bill has a great +deal of experience, he certainly isn't the rigger Mort is. +% +Two golfers were being held up as the twosome of women in front of them +whiffed shots, hunted for lost balls and stood over putts for what seemed +like hours. + "I'll ask if we can play through," Bill said as he strode toward +the women. Twenty yards from the green, however, he turned on his heel +and went back to where his companion was waiting. + "Can't do it," he explained, sheepishly. "One of them's my wife +and the other's my mistress!" + "I'll ask," said Jim. He started off, only to turn and come back +before reaching the green. + "What's wrong?" Bill asked. + "Small world, isn't it?" +% +We was playin' the Homestead Grays in the city of Pitchburgh. Josh [Gibson] +comes up in the last of the ninth with a man on and us a run behind. Well, +he hit one. The Grays waited around and waited around, but finally the +empire rules it ain't comin' down. So we win. The next day, we was disputin' +the Grays in Philadelphia when here come a ball outta the sky right in the +glove of the Grays' center fielder. The empire made the only possible call. +"You're out, boy!" he says to Josh. "Yesterday, in Pitchburgh." + -- Satchel Paige +% +When he got in trouble in the ring, [Ali] imagined a door swung open and +inside he could see neon, orange, and green lights blinking, and bats +blowing trumpets and alligators blowing trombones, and he could hear snakes +screaming. Weird masks and actors' clothes hung on the wall, and if he +stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing +himself to destruction. + -- George Plimpton +% +When I'm gone, boxing will be nothing again. The fans with the cigars and +the hats turned down'll be there, but no more housewives and little men in +the street and foreign presidents. It's goin' to be back to the fighter who +comes to town, smells a flower, visits a hospital, blows a horn and says +he's in shape. Old hat. I was the onliest boxer in history people asked +questions like a senator. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +When in doubt, lead trump. +% +Winning isn't everything, but losing isn't anything. +% +Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. + -- Vince Lombardi +% +Woman: "Is Yoo-Hoo hyphenated?" +Yogi Berra: "No, ma'am, its not even carbonated." +% diff --git a/fortunes/startrek b/fortunes/startrek new file mode 100644 index 0000000..768c145 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/startrek @@ -0,0 +1,826 @@ +A father doesn't destroy his children. + -- Lt. Carolyn Palamas, "Who Mourns for Adonais?", + stardate 3468.1. +% +A little suffering is good for the soul. + -- Kirk, "The Corbomite Maneuver", stardate 1514.0 +% +A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and +licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away. + -- Dr. Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown +% +A princess should not be afraid -- not with a brave knight to protect her. + -- McCoy, "Shore Leave", stardate 3025.3 +% +A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even +his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive. + -- Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown +% +A Vulcan can no sooner be disloyal than he can exist without breathing. + -- Kirk, "The Menagerie", stardate 3012.4 +% +A woman should have compassion. + -- Kirk, "Catspaw", stardate 3018.2 +% +Actual war is a very messy business. Very, very messy business. + -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0 +% +After a time, you may find that "having" is not so pleasing a thing, +after all, as "wanting." It is not logical, but it is often true. + -- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 +% +Ahead warp factor one, Mr. Sulu. +% +All your people must learn before you can reach for the stars. + -- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion", stardate 3259.2 +% +Another Armenia, Belgium ... the weak innocents who always seem to be +located on a natural invasion route. + -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3198.4 +% +Another dream that failed. There's nothing sadder. + -- Kirk, "This side of Paradise", stardate 3417.3 +% +Another war ... must it always be so? How many comrades have we lost +in this way? ... Obedience. Duty. Death, and more death ... + -- Romulan Commander, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% +... bacteriological warfare ... hard to believe we were once foolish +enough to play around with that. + -- McCoy, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown +% +Beam me up, Scotty! +% +Beam me up, Scotty! It ate my phaser! +% +Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here! +% + "Beauty is transitory." + "Beauty survives." + -- Spock and Kirk, "That Which Survives", stardate unknown +% +Behind every great man, there is a woman -- urging him on. + -- Harry Mudd, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +Blast medicine anyway! We've learned to tie into every organ in the +human body but one. The brain! The brain is what life is all about. + -- McCoy, "The Menagerie", stardate 3012.4 +% +Bones: "The man's DEAD, Jim!" +% +But Captain -- the engines can't take this much longer! +% +But it's real. And if it's real it can be affected ... we may not be able +to break it, but, I'll bet you credits to Navy Beans we can put a dent in it. + -- deSalle, "Catspaw", stardate 3018.2 +% +"Can you imagine how life could be improved if we could do away with +jealousy, greed, hate ..." + +"It can also be improved by eliminating love, tenderness, sentiment -- +the other side of the coin" + -- Dr. Roger Corby and Kirk, "What are Little Girls Made Of?", + stardate 2712.4 +% +Captain's Log, star date 21:34.5... +% +Change is the essential process of all existence. + -- Spock, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", stardate 5730.2 +% +Compassion -- that's the one things no machine ever had. Maybe it's +the one thing that keeps men ahead of them. + -- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% +Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to +serve under them. Captain, a starship also runs on loyalty to one +man. And nothing can replace it or him. + -- Spock, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4 +% +Conquest is easy. Control is not. + -- Kirk, "Mirror, Mirror", stardate unknown +% +Dammit Jim, I'm an actor, not a doctor. +% +Death, when unnecessary, is a tragic thing. + -- Flint, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5843.7 +% +Death. Destruction. Disease. Horror. That's what war is all about. +That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. + -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0 +% +Deflector shields just came on, Captain. +% +Do you know about being with somebody? Wanting to be? If I had the +whole universe, I'd give it to you, Janice. When I see you, I feel +like I'm hungry all over. Do you know how that feels? + -- Charlie Evans, "Charlie X", stardate 1535.8 +% +Do you know the one -- "All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer +her by ..." You could feel the wind at your back, about you ... the +sounds of the sea beneath you. And even if you take away the wind and +the water, it's still the same. The ship is yours ... you can feel her +... and the stars are still there. + -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4 +% +[Doctors and Bartenders], We both get the same two kinds of customers +-- the living and the dying. + -- Dr. Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown +% +Each kiss is as the first. + -- Miramanee, Kirk's wife, "The Paradise Syndrome", + stardate 4842.6 +% +EARL GREY PROFILES + +NAME: Jean-Luc Perriwinkle Picard +OCCUPATION: Starship Big Cheese +AGE: 94 +BIRTHPLACE: Paris, Terra Sector +EYES: Grey +SKIN: Tanned +HAIR: Not much +LAST MAGAZINE READ: + Lobes 'n' Probes, the Ferengi-Betazoid Sex Quarterly +TEA: Earl Grey. Hot. + +EARL GREY NEVER VARIES. +% +Earth -- mother of the most beautiful women in the universe. + -- Apollo, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1 +% +Either one of us, by himself, is expendable. Both of us are not. + -- Kirk, "The Devil in the Dark", stardate 3196.1 +% +Emotions are alien to me. I'm a scientist. + -- Spock, "This Side of Paradise", stardate 3417.3 +% +Even historians fail to learn from history -- they repeat the same mistakes. + -- John Gill, "Patterns of Force", stardate 2534.7 +% +Every living thing wants to survive. + -- Spock, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% + "Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth." + "Or by misleading the innocent." + -- Spock and McCoy, "And The Children Shall Lead", + stardate 5029.5. +% +Extreme feminine beauty is always disturbing. + -- Spock, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5818.4 +% +Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected. + -- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5 +% +Fascinating, a totally parochial attitude. + -- Spock, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% +First study the enemy. Seek weakness. + -- Romulan Commander, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% +Four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running man. + -- Klingon Soldier, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% + "... freedom ... is a worship word..." + "It is our worship word too." + -- Cloud William and Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown +% +Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, +"Today I will be brilliant." + -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% + "Get back to your stations!" + "We're beaming down to the planet, sir." + -- Kirk and Mr. Leslie, "This Side of Paradise", + stardate 3417.3 +% +Hailing frequencies open, Captain. +% +He's dead, Jim. + -- McCoy, "The Devil in the Dark", stardate 3196.1 +% +History tends to exaggerate. + -- Col. Green, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 +% +Humans do claim a great deal for that particular emotion (love). + -- Spock, "The Lights of Zetar", stardate 5725.6 +% +I am pleased to see that we have differences. May we together become +greater than the sum of both of us. + -- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 +% +I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to +any question. + -- Spock, "This Side of Paradise", stardate 3417.3 +% +I object to intellect without discipline; I object to power without +constructive purpose. + -- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5 +% +I realize that command does have its fascination, even under +circumstances such as these, but I neither enjoy the idea of command +nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists, and I will do whatever +logically needs to be done. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2812.7 +% + "I think they're going to take all this money that we spend now on war +and death --" + "And make them spend it on life." + -- Edith Keeler and Kirk, "The City on the Edge of Forever", + stardate unknown. +% +I thought my people would grow tired of killing. But you were right, +they see it is easier than trading. And it has its pleasures. I feel +it myself. Like the hunt, but with richer rewards. + -- Apella, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 +% +"I'm a doctor, not a mechanic." + -- "The Doomsday Machine", when asked if he had heard of + the idea of a doomsday machine. +"I'm a doctor, not an escalator." + -- "Friday's Child", when asked to help the very pregnant + Ellen up a steep incline. +"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer." + -- Devil in the Dark", when asked to patch up the Horta. +"I'm a doctor, not an engineer." + -- "Mirror, Mirror", when asked by Scotty for help in + Engineering aboard the ISS Enterprise. +"I'm a doctor, not a coalminer." + -- "The Empath", on being beneath the surface of Minara 2. +"I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist." + -- "City on the Edge of Forever", on Edith Keeler's remark + that Kirk talked strangely. +"I'm no magician, Spock, just an old country doctor." + -- "The Deadly Years", to Spock while trying to cure the + aging effects of the rogue comet near Gamma Hydra 4. +"What am I, a doctor or a moonshuttle conductor?" + -- "The Corbomite Maneuver", when Kirk rushed off from a + physical exam to answer the alert. +% +I'm a soldier, not a diplomat. I can only tell the truth. + -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3198.9 +% +I'm frequently appalled by the low regard you Earthmen have for life. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +I've already got a female to worry about. Her name is the Enterprise. + -- Kirk, "The Corbomite Maneuver", stardate 1514.0 +% +If a man had a child who'd gone anti-social, killed perhaps, he'd still +tend to protect that child. + -- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% +If I can have honesty, it's easier to overlook mistakes. + -- Kirk, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9 +% +If some day we are defeated, well, war has its fortunes, good and bad. + -- Commander Kor, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7 +% +If there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. + -- Spock, "This Side of Paradise", stardate 3417.7 +% +Immortality consists largely of boredom. + -- Zefrem Cochrane, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% +In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death -- even vegetarians. + -- Spock, "Wolf in the Fold", stardate 3615.4 +% +Insufficient facts always invite danger. + -- Spock, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9 +% +Insults are effective only where emotion is present. + -- Spock, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1 +% +Intuition, however illogical, is recognized as a command prerogative. + -- Kirk, "Obsession", stardate 3620.7 +% +Is not that the nature of men and women -- that the pleasure is in the +learning of each other? + -- Natira, the High Priestess of Yonada, "For the World is + Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", stardate 5476.3. +% +Is truth not truth for all? + -- Natira, "For the World is Hollow and I have Touched + the Sky", stardate 5476.4. +% +It [being a Vulcan] means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which is +logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for +personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be. + -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 +% +It is a human characteristic to love little animals, especially if +they're attractive in some way. + -- McCoy, "The Trouble with Tribbles", stardate 4525.6 +% +It is more rational to sacrifice one life than six. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +It is necessary to have purpose. + -- Alice #1, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +It is undignified for a woman to play servant to a man who is not hers. + -- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 +% +It would be illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable. + -- Spock, "The Enterprise Incident", stardate 5027.3 +% +It would be illogical to kill without reason. + -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 +% +It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. + -- Yarnek of Excalbia, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 +% + "It's hard to believe that something which is neither seen nor felt can +do so much harm." + "That's true. But an idea can't be seen or felt. And that's what kept +the Troglytes in the mines all these centuries. A mistaken idea." + -- Vanna and Kirk, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5819.0 +% +Killing is stupid; useless! + -- McCoy, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 +% +Killing is wrong. + -- Losira, "That Which Survives", stardate unknown +% +Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack. +% +Klingon phaser attack from front!!!!! +100% Damage to life support!!!! +% +Knowledge, sir, should be free to all! + -- Harry Mudd, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +Landru! Guide us! + -- A Beta 3-oid, "The Return of the Archons", stardate 3157.4 +% +Leave bigotry in your quarters; there's no room for it on the bridge. + -- Kirk, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% + "Life and death are seldom logical." + "But attaining a desired goal always is." + -- McCoy and Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2821.7 +% +Live long and prosper. + -- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 +% + "Logic and practical information do not seem to apply here." + "You admit that?" + "To deny the facts would be illogical, Doctor" + -- Spock and McCoy, "A Piece of the Action", stardate unknown +% +Lots of people drink from the wrong bottle sometimes. + -- Edith Keeler, "The City on the Edge of Forever", + stardate unknown +% +Love sometimes expresses itself in sacrifice. + -- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3220.3 +% +Madness has no purpose. Or reason. But it may have a goal. + -- Spock, "The Alternative Factor", stardate 3088.7 +% +Many Myths are based on truth + -- Spock, "The Way to Eden", stardate 5832.3 +% +Men of peace usually are [brave]. + -- Spock, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 +% +Men will always be men -- no matter where they are. + -- Harry Mudd, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1329.8 +% +Military secrets are the most fleeting of all. + -- Spock, "The Enterprise Incident", stardate 5027.4 +% +Mind your own business, Spock. I'm sick of your halfbreed interference. +% +Most legends have their basis in facts. + -- Kirk, "And The Children Shall Lead", stardate 5029.5 +% +Murder is contrary to the laws of man and God. + -- M-5 Computer, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% +No more blah, blah, blah! + -- Kirk, "Miri", stardate 2713.6 +% +No one can guarantee the actions of another. + -- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% +No one may kill a man. Not for any purpose. It cannot be condoned. + -- Kirk, "Spock's Brain", stardate 5431.6 +% + "No one talks peace unless he's ready to back it up with war." + "He talks of peace if it is the only way to live." + -- Colonel Green and Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", + stardate 5906.5. +% +No one wants war. + -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7 +% +No problem is insoluble. + -- Dr. Janet Wallace, "The Deadly Years", stardate 3479.4 +% +Not one hundred percent efficient, of course ... but nothing ever is. + -- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% +Oblivion together does not frighten me, beloved. + -- Thalassa (in Anne Mulhall's body), "Return to Tomorrow", + stardate 4770.3. +% +Oh, that sound of male ego. You travel halfway across the galaxy and +it's still the same song. + -- Eve McHuron, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1330.1 +% +On my planet, to rest is to rest -- to cease using energy. To me, it +is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass, using energy, +instead of saving it. + -- Spock, "Shore Leave", stardate 3025.2 +% +One does not thank logic. + -- Sarek, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 +% +One of the advantages of being a captain is being able to ask for +advice without necessarily having to take it. + -- Kirk, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.2 +% +Only a fool fights in a burning house. + -- Kank the Klingon, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% +Our missions are peaceful -- not for conquest. When we do battle, it +is only because we have no choice. + -- Kirk, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5 +% +Our way is peace. + -- Septimus, the Son Worshiper, "Bread and Circuses", + stardate 4040.7. +% +Pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled. + -- Spock, "Operation -- Annihilate!" stardate 3287.2 +% +Peace was the way. + -- Kirk, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate unknown +% +Phasers locked on target, Captain. +% +Power is danger. + -- The Centurion, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% +Prepare for tomorrow -- get ready. + -- Edith Keeler, "The City On the Edge of Forever", + stardate unknown +% +Punishment becomes ineffective after a certain point. Men become insensitive. + -- Eneg, "Patterns of Force", stardate 2534.7 +% +Respect is a rational process + -- McCoy, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +Romulan women are not like Vulcan females. We are not dedicated to +pure logic and the sterility of non-emotion. + -- Romulan Commander, "The Enterprise Incident", + stardate 5027.3 +% +Schshschshchsch. + -- The Gorn, "Arena", stardate 3046.2 +% +She won' go Warp 7, Cap'n! The batteries are dead! +% +Sometimes a feeling is all we humans have to go on. + -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.9 +% +Sometimes a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor. + -- Dr. Phillip Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), + stardate unknown. +% +Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. +Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life +and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before. + -- Captain James T. Kirk +% +Spock: The odds of surviving another attack are 13562190123 to 1, Captain. +% +Spock: We suffered 23 casualties in that attack, Captain. +% +Star Trek Lives! +% +Suffocating together ... would create heroic camaraderie. + -- Khan Noonian Singh, "Space Seed", stardate 3142.8 +% +Superior ability breeds superior ambition. + -- Spock, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9 +% + "That unit is a woman." + "A mass of conflicting impulses." + -- Spock and Nomad, "The Changeling", stardate 3541.9 +% +The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank. + -- Scotty +% + "The combination of a number of things to make existence worthwhile." + "Yes, the philosophy of 'none,' meaning 'all.'" + -- Spock and Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 +% +The face of war has never changed. Surely it is more logical to heal +than to kill. + -- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 +% +The games have always strengthened us. Death becomes a familiar +pattern. We don't fear it as you do. + -- Proconsul Marcus Claudius, "Bread and Circuses", + stardate 4041.2 +% + "The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity." + "And in the way our differences combine to create meaning and beauty." + -- Dr. Miranda Jones and Spock, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?", + stardate 5630.8 +% +The heart is not a logical organ. + -- Dr. Janet Wallace, "The Deadly Years", stardate 3479.4 +% +The idea of male and female are universal constants. + -- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% +The joys of love made her human and the agonies of love destroyed her. + -- Spock, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5842.8 +% +The man on tops walks a lonely street; the "chain" of command is often a noose. +% +The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play. + -- Kirk, "Shore Leave", stardate 3025.8 +% +The only solution is ... a balance of power. We arm our side with exactly +that much more. A balance of power -- the trickiest, most difficult, +dirtiest game of them all. But the only one that preserves both sides. + -- Kirk, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 +% +The people of Gideon have always believed that life is sacred. That +the love of life is the greatest gift ... We are incapable of +destroying or interfering with the creation of that which we love so +deeply -- life in every form from fetus to developed being. + -- Hodin of Gideon, "The Mark of Gideon", stardate 5423.4 +% +... The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when they get +to know each other. + -- Kirk, "Elaan of Troyius", stardate 4372.5 +% + "The release of emotion is what keeps us health. Emotionally healthy." + "That may be, Doctor. However, I have noted that the healthy release +of emotion is frequently unhealthy for those closest to you." + -- McCoy and Spock, "Plato's Stepchildren", stardate 5784.3 +% +The sight of death frightens them [Earthers]. + -- Kras the Klingon, "Friday's Child", stardate 3497.2 +% +The sooner our happiness together begins, the longer it will last. + -- Miramanee, "The Paradise Syndrome", stardate 4842.6 +% +... The things love can drive a man to -- the ecstasies, the +miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious +failures and the glorious victories. + -- McCoy, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5843.7 +% +There are always alternatives. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +There are certain things men must do to remain men. + -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4929.4 +% +There are some things worth dying for. + -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7 +% +There comes to all races an ultimate crisis which you have yet to face +.... One day our minds became so powerful we dared think of ourselves as gods. + -- Sargon, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3 +% +There is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder. + -- Spock, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.9 +% +There is an old custom among my people. When a woman saves a man's +life, he is grateful. + -- Nona, the Kanuto witch woman, "A Private Little War", + stardate 4211.8. +% +There is an order of things in this universe. + -- Apollo, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1 +% +There's a way out of any cage. + -- Captain Christopher Pike, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), + stardate unknown. +% +There's another way to survive. Mutual trust -- and help. + -- Kirk, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% +There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is +nothing good in war. Except its ending. + -- Abraham Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 +% +There's nothing disgusting about it [the Companion]. It's just another +life form, that's all. You get used to those things. + -- McCoy, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% + "There's only one kind of woman ..." + "Or man, for that matter. You either believe in yourself or you don't." + -- Kirk and Harry Mudd, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1330.1 +% +This cultural mystique surrounding the biological function -- you +realize humans are overly preoccupied with the subject. + -- Kelinda the Kelvan, "By Any Other Name", stardate 4658.9 +% +Those who hate and fight must stop themselves -- otherwise it is not stopped. + -- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% +Time is fluid ... like a river with currents, eddies, backwash. + -- Spock, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0 +% +To live is always desirable. + -- Eleen the Capellan, "Friday's Child", stardate 3498.9 +% +Too much of anything, even love, isn't necessarily a good thing. + -- Kirk, "The Trouble with Tribbles", stardate 4525.6 +% +Totally illogical, there was no chance. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +Uncontrolled power will turn even saints into savages. And we can all +be counted on to live down to our lowest impulses. + -- Parmen, "Plato's Stepchildren", stardate 5784.3 +% +Violence in reality is quite different from theory. + -- Spock, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5818.4 +% +Virtue is a relative term. + -- Spock, "Friday's Child", stardate 3499.1 +% +Vulcans believe peace should not depend on force. + -- Amanda, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.3 +% +Vulcans do not approve of violence. + -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 +% +Vulcans never bluff. + -- Spock, "The Doomsday Machine", stardate 4202.1 +% +Vulcans worship peace above all. + -- McCoy, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3 +% +Wait! You have not been prepared! + -- Mr. Atoz, "Tomorrow is Yesterday", stardate 3113.2 +% +War is never imperative. + -- McCoy, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% +War isn't a good life, but it's life. + -- Kirk, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 +% +[War] is instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human +beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we +can stop it. We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going +to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to +kill today! + -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0 +% +Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with. +% +We do not colonize. We conquer. We rule. There is no other way for us. + -- Rojan, "By Any Other Name", stardate 4657.5 +% +We fight only when there is no other choice. We prefer the ways of +peaceful contact. + -- Kirk, "Spectre of the Gun", stardate 4385.3 +% +We have found all life forms in the galaxy are capable of superior +development. + -- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion", stardate 3211.7 +% +We have phasers, I vote we blast 'em! + -- Bailey, "The Corbomite Maneuver", stardate 1514.2 +% + "We have the right to survive!" + "Not by killing others." + -- Deela and Kirk, "Wink of An Eye", stardate 5710.5 +% +We Klingons believe as you do -- the sick should die. Only the strong +should live. + -- Kras, "Friday's Child", stardate 3497.2 +% +We'll pivot at warp 2 and bring all tubes to bear, Mr. Sulu! +% +We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. +But when it comes to your job -- that's different. And it always will +be different. + -- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4 +% +Well, Jim, I'm not much of an actor either. +% + "What happened to the crewman?" + "The M-5 computer needed a new power source, the crewman merely got in +the way." + -- Kirk and Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer", + stardate 4731.3. +% +What kind of love is that? Not to be loved; never to have shown love. + -- Commissioner Nancy Hedford, "Metamorphosis", + stardate 3219.8 +% + "What terrible way to die." + "There are no good ways." + -- Sulu and Kirk, "That Which Survives", stardate unknown +% +When a child is taught ... its programmed with simple instructions -- +and at some point, if its mind develops properly, it exceeds the sum of +what it was taught, thinks independently. + -- Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer", + stardate 4731.3. +% +When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, +building, creating; you even forget how to repair the machines left +behind by your ancestors. You just sit living and reliving other lives +left behind in the thought records. + -- Vina, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown +% +Where there's no emotion, there's no motive for violence. + -- Spock, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.1 +% +Witch! Witch! They'll burn ya! + -- Hag, "Tomorrow is Yesterday", stardate unknown +% +Without facts, the decision cannot be made logically. You must rely on +your human intuition. + -- Spock, "Assignment: Earth", stardate unknown +% +Without followers, evil cannot spread. + -- Spock, "And The Children Shall Lead", stardate 5029.5 +% +Without freedom of choice there is no creativity. + -- Kirk, "The return of the Archons", stardate 3157.4 +% +Women are more easily and more deeply terrified ... generating more +sheer horror than the male of the species. + -- Spock, "Wolf in the Fold", stardate 3615.4 +% +Women professionals do tend to over-compensate. + -- Dr. Elizabeth Dehaver, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", + stardate 1312.9. +% +Worlds are conquered, galaxies destroyed -- but a woman is always a woman. + -- Kirk, "The Conscience of the King", stardate 2818.9 +% +Yes, it is written. Good shall always destroy evil. + -- Sirah the Yang, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown +% +You are an excellent tactician, Captain. You let your second in +command attack while you sit and watch for weakness. + -- Khan Noonian Singh, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9 +% +You can't evaluate a man by logic alone. + -- McCoy, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +You canna change the laws of physics, Captain; I've got to have thirty minutes! +% +You Earth people glorified organized violence for forty centuries. But +you imprison those who employ it privately. + -- Spock, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.1 +% +You go slow, be gentle. It's no one-way street -- you know how you +feel and that's all. It's how the girl feels too. Don't press. If +the girl feels anything for you at all, you'll know. + -- Kirk, "Charlie X", stardate 1535.8 +% +You humans have that emotional need to express gratitude. "You're +welcome," I believe, is the correct response. + -- Spock, "Bread and Circuses", stardate 4041.2 +% +You say you are lying. But if everything you say is a lie, then you are +telling the truth. You cannot tell the truth because everything you say +is a lie. You lie, you tell the truth ... but you cannot, for you lie. + -- Norman the android, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +You speak of courage. Obviously you do not know the difference between +courage and foolhardiness. Always it is the brave ones who die, the soldiers. + -- Kor, the Klingon Commander, "Errand of Mercy", + stardate 3201.7 +% +You! What PLANET is this! + -- McCoy, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0 +% +You'll learn something about men and women -- the way they're supposed +to be. Caring for each other, being happy with each other, being good +to each other. That's what we call love. You'll like that a lot. + -- Kirk, "The Apple", stardate 3715.6 +% +You're dead, Jim. + -- McCoy, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 +% +You're dead, Jim. + -- McCoy, "The Tholian Web", stardate unknown +% +You're too beautiful to ignore. Too much woman. + -- Kirk to Yeoman Rand, "The Enemy Within", stardate unknown +% +Youth doesn't excuse everything. + -- Dr. Janice Lester (in Kirk's body), "Turnabout Intruder", + stardate 5928.5. +% +There's coffee in that nebula! + -- Capt. Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager, "The Cloud" +% +Dismissed. That's a Star Fleet expression for, "Get out." + -- Capt. Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager, "The Cloud" +% diff --git a/fortunes/tao b/fortunes/tao new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19c22a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/tao @@ -0,0 +1,1241 @@ +The Way + +The Way that can be experienced is not true; +The world that can be constructed is not real. +The Way manifests all that happens and may happen; +The world represents all that exists and may exist. +To experience without abstraction is to sense the world; +To experience with abstraction is to know the world. +These two experiences are indistinguishable; +Their construction differs but their effect is the same. +Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way, +Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Abstraction + +When beauty is abstracted +Then ugliness has been implied; +When good is abstracted +Then evil has been implied. +So alive and dead are abstracted from nature, +Difficult and easy abstracted from progress, +Long and short abstracted from contrast, +High and low abstracted from depth, +Song and speech abstracted from melody, +After and before abstracted from sequence. +The sage experiences without abstraction, +And accomplishes without action; +He accepts the ebb and flow of things, +Nurtures them, but does not own them, +And lives, but does not dwell. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Without Action + +Not praising the worthy prevents contention, +Not esteeming the valuable prevents theft, +Not displaying the beautiful prevents desire. +In this manner the sage governs people: +Emptying their minds, +Filling their bellies, +Weakening their ambitions, +And strengthening their bones. +If people lack knowledge and desire +Then they can not act; +If no action is taken +Harmony remains. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Limitless + +The Way is a limitless vessel; +Used by the self, it is not filled by the world; +It cannot be cut, knotted, dimmed or stilled; +Its depths are hidden, ubiquitous and eternal; +I don't know where it comes from; +It comes before nature. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Nature + +Nature is not kind; +It treats all things impartially. +The Sage is not kind, +And treats all people impartially. +Nature is like a bellows, +Empty, yet never ceasing its supply. +The more it moves, the more it yields; +So the sage draws upon experience +And cannot be exhausted. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Experience + +Experience is a riverbed, +Its source hidden, forever flowing: +Its entrance, the root of the world, +The Way moves within it: +Draw upon it; it will not run dry. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Complete + +Nature is complete because it does not serve itself. +The sage places himself after and finds himself before, +Ignores his desire and finds himself content. +He is complete because he does not serve himself. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Water + +The best of man is like water, +Which benefits all things, and does not contend with them, +Which flows in places that others disdain, +Where it is in harmony with the Way. +So the sage: +Lives within nature, +Thinks within the deep, +Gives within impartiality, +Speaks within trust, +Governs within order, +Crafts within ability, +Acts within opportunity. +He does not contend, and none contend against him. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Retire + +Fill a cup to its brim and it is easily spilled; +Temper a sword to its hardest and it is easily broken; +Amass the greatest treasure and it is easily stolen; +Claim credit and honour and you easily fall; +Retire once your purpose is achieved - this is natural. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Harmony + +Embracing the Way, you become embraced; +Breathing gently, you become newborn; +Clearing your mind, you become clear; +Nurturing your children, you become impartial; +Opening your heart, you become accepted; +Accepting the world, you embrace the Way. +Bearing and nurturing, +Creating but not owning, +Giving without demanding, +This is harmony. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Tools + +Thirty spokes meet at a nave; +Because of the hole we may use the wheel. +Clay is moulded into a vessel; +Because of the hollow we may use the cup. +Walls are built around a hearth; +Because of the doors we may use the house. +Thus tools come from what exists, +But use from what does not. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Substance + +Too much colour blinds the eye, +Too much music deafens the ear, +Too much taste dulls the palate, +Too much play maddens the mind, +Too much desire tears the heart. +In this manner the sage cares for people: +He provides for the belly, not for the senses; +He ignores abstraction and holds fast to substance. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Self + +Both praise and blame cause concern, +For they bring people hope and fear. +The object of hope and fear is the self - +For, without self, to whom may fortune and disaster occur? +Therefore, +Who distinguishes himself from the world may be given the world, +But who regards himself as the world may accept the world. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Mystery + +Looked at but cannot be seen - it is beneath form; +Listened to but cannot be heard - it is beneath sound; +Held but cannot be touched - it is beneath feeling; +These depthless things evade definition, +And blend into a single mystery. +In its rising there is no light, +In its falling there is no darkness, +A continuous thread beyond description, +Lining what does not exist; +Its form formless, +Its image nothing, +Its name silence; +Follow it, it has no back, +Meet it, it has no face. +Attend the present to deal with the past; +Thus you grasp the continuity of the Way, +Which is its essence. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Enlightenment + +The enlightened possess understanding +So profound they can not be understood. +Because they cannot be understood +I can only describe their appearance: +Cautious as one crossing thin ice, +Undecided as one surrounded by danger, +Modest as one who is a guest, +Unbounded as melting ice, +Genuine as unshaped wood, +Broad as a valley, +Seamless as muddy water. +Who stills the water that the mud may settle, +Who seeks to stop that he may travel on, +Who desires less than what may transpire, +Decays, but will not renew. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Decay and Renewal + +Empty the self completely; +Embrace perfect peace. +The world will rise and move; +Watch it return to rest. +All the flourishing things +Will return to their source. +This return is peaceful; +It is the flow of nature, +An eternal decay and renewal. +Accepting this brings enlightenment, +Ignoring this brings misery. +Who accepts nature's flow becomes all-cherishing; +Being all-cherishing he becomes impartial; +Being impartial he becomes magnanimous; +Being magnanimous he becomes natural; +Being natural he becomes one with the Way; +Being one with the Way he becomes immortal: +Though his body will decay, the Way will not. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Rulers + +The best rulers are scarcely known by their subjects; +The next best are loved and praised; +The next are feared; +The next despised: +They have no faith in their people, +And their people become unfaithful to them. +When the best rulers achieve their purpose +Their subjects claim the achievement as their own. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Hypocrisy + +When the Way is forgotten +Duty and justice appear; +Then knowledge and wisdom are born +Along with hypocrisy. +When harmonious relationships dissolve +Then respect and devotion arise; +When a nation falls to chaos +Then loyalty and patriotism are born. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Simplify + +If we could discard knowledge and wisdom +Then people would profit a hundredfold; +If we could discard duty and justice +Then harmonious relationships would form; +If we could discard artifice and profit +Then waste and theft would disappear. +Yet such remedies treat only symptoms +And so they are inadequate. +People need personal remedies: +Reveal your naked self and embrace your original nature; +Bind your self-interest and control your ambition; +Forget your habits and simplify your affairs. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Wandering + +What is the difference between assent and denial? +What is the difference between beautiful and ugly? +What is the difference between fearsome and afraid? +The people are merry as if at a magnificent party +Or playing in the park at springtime, +But I am tranquil and wandering, +Like a newborn before it learns to smile, +Alone, with no true home. +The people have enough and to spare, +Where I have nothing, +And my heart is foolish, +Muddled and cloudy. +The people are bright and certain, +Where I am dim and confused; +The people are clever and wise, +Where I am dull and ignorant; +Aimless as a wave drifting over the sea, +Attached to nothing. +The people are busy with purpose, +Where I am impractical and rough; +I do not share the peoples' cares +But I am fed at nature's breast. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Accept + +Harmony is only in following the Way. +The Way is without form or quality, +But expresses all forms and qualities; +The Way is hidden and implicate, +But expresses all of nature; +The Way is unchanging, +But expresses all motion. +Beneath sensation and memory +The Way is the source of all the world. +How can I understand the source of the world? +By accepting. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Home + +Accept and you become whole, +Bend and you straighten, +Empty and you fill, +Decay and you renew, +Want and you acquire, +Fulfill and you become confused. +The sage accepts the world +As the world accepts the Way; +He does not display himself, so is clearly seen, +Does not justify himself, so is recognized, +Does not boast, so is credited, +Does not pride himself, so endures, +Does not contend, so none contend against him. +The ancients said, "Accept and you become whole", +Once whole, the world is as your home. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Words + +Nature says only a few words: +High wind does not last long, +Nor does heavy rain. +If nature's words do not last +Why should those of man? +Who accepts harmony, becomes harmonious. +Who accepts loss, becomes lost. +For who accepts harmony, the Way harmonizes with him, +And who accepts loss, the Way cannot find. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Indulgence + +Straighten yourself and you will not stand steady; +Display yourself and you will not be clearly seen; +Justify yourself and you will not be respected; +Promote yourself and you will not be believed; +Pride yourself and you will not endure. +These behaviours are wasteful, indulgent, +And so they attract disfavour; +Harmony avoids them. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Beneath Abstraction + +There is a mystery, +Beneath abstraction, +Silent, depthless, +Alone, unchanging, +Ubiquitous and liquid, +The mother of nature. +It has no name, but I call it "the Way"; +It has no limit, but I call it "limitless". +Being limitless, it flows away forever; +Flowing away forever, it returns to my self: +The Way is limitless, +So nature is limitless, +So the world is limitless, +And so I am limitless. +For I am abstracted from the world, +The world from nature, +Nature from the Way, +And the Way from what is beneath abstraction. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Calm + +Gravity is the source of lightness, +Calm, the master of haste. +A lone traveller will journey all day, watching over his +belongings; +Only safe in his own bed may he lose them in sleep. +So the captain of a great vessel should not act lightly or hastily. +Acting lightly, he loses sight of the world, +Acting hastily, he loses control of himself. +The captain can not treat his great ship as a small boat; +Rather than glitter like jade +He must stand like stone. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Perfection + +The perfect traveller leaves no trail to be followed; +The perfect speaker leaves no question to be answered; +The perfect accountant leaves no working to be completed; +The perfect container leaves no lock to be closed; +The perfect knot leaves no end to be ravelled. +So the sage nurtures all men +And abandons no one. +He accepts everything +And rejects nothing. +He attends to the smallest details. +For the strong must guide the weak; +The weak are raw material to the strong. +If the guide is not respected, +Or the material is not cared for, +Confusion will result, no matter how clever one is. +This is the secret of perfection: +When raw wood is carved, it becomes a tool; +When a man is employed, he becomes a tool; +The perfect carpenter leaves no wood to be carved. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Becoming + +Using the male, being female, +Being the entrance of the world, +You embrace harmony +And become as a newborn. +Using strength, being weak, +Being the root of the world, +You complete harmony +And become as unshaped wood. +Using the light, being dark, +Being the world, +You perfect harmony +And return to the Way. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Ambition + +Those who wish to change the world +According with their desire +Cannot succeed. +The world is shaped by the Way; +It cannot be shaped by the self. +Trying to change it, you damage it; +Trying to possess it, you lose it. +So some will lead, while others follow. +Some will be warm, others cold +Some will be strong, others weak. +Some will get where they are going +While others fall by the side of the road. +So the sage will be neither extravagant nor violent. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Violence + +Powerful men are well advised not to use violence, +For violence has a habit of returning; +Thorns and weeds grow wherever an army goes, +And lean years follow a great war. +A general is well advised +To achieve nothing more than his orders: +Not to take advantage of his victory. +Nor to glory, boast or pride himself; +To do what is dictated by necessity, +Not by choice. +For even the strongest force will weaken with time, +And then its violence will return, and kill it. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Armies + +Armies are tools of violence; +They cause men to hate and fear. +The sage will not join them. +His purpose is creation; +Their purpose is destruction. +Weapons are tools of violence, +Not of the sage; +He uses them only when there is no choice, +And then calmly, and with tact, +For he finds no beauty in them. +Whoever finds beauty in weapons +Delights in the slaughter of men; +And who delights in slaughter +Cannot content himself with peace. +So slaughters must be mourned +And conquest celebrated with a funeral. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Shapes + +The Way has no true shape, +And therefore none can control it. +If a ruler could control the Way +All things would follow +In harmony with his desire, +And sweet rain would fall, +Effortlessly slaking every thirst. +The Way is shaped by use, +But then the shape is lost. +Do not hold fast to shapes +But let sensation flow into the world +As a river courses down to the sea. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Virtues + +Who understands the world is learned; +Who understands the self is enlightened. +Who conquers the world has strength; +Who conquers the self has harmony; +Who is determined has purpose. +Who is contented has wealth; +Who defends his home may long endure; +Who surrenders his home may long survive it. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Control + +The Way flows and ebbs, creating and destroying, +Implementing all the world, attending to the tiniest details, +Claiming nothing in return. +It nurtures all things, +Though it does not control them; +It has no intention, +So it seems inconsequential. +It is the substance of all things; +Though it does not control them; +It has no exception, +So it seems all-important. +The sage would not control the world; +He is in harmony with the world. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Peace + +If you offer music and food +Strangers may stop with you; +But if you accord with the Way +All the people of the world will keep you +In safety, health, community, and peace. +The Way lacks art and flavour; +It can neither be seen nor heard, +But its benefit cannot be exhausted. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Opposition + +To reduce someone's influence, first expand it; +To reduce someone's force, first increase it; +To overthrow someone, first exalt them; +To take from someone, first give to them. +This is the subtlety by which the weak overcome the strong: +Fish should not leave their depths, +And swords should not leave their scabbards. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Tranquillity + +The Way takes no action, but leaves nothing undone. +When you accept this +The world will flourish, +In harmony with nature. +Nature does not possess desire; +Without desire, the heart becomes quiet; +In this manner the whole world is made tranquil. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Ritual + +Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted; +Closely held beliefs are not easily released; +So ritual enthralls generation after generation. +Harmony does not care for harmony, and so is naturally attained; +But ritual is intent upon harmony, and so can not attain it. +Harmony neither acts nor reasons; +Love acts, but without reason; +Justice acts to serve reason; +But ritual acts to enforce reason. +When the Way is lost, there remains harmony; +When harmony is lost, there remains love; +When love is lost, there remains justice; +And when justice is lost, there remains ritual. +Ritual is the end of compassion and honesty, +The beginning of confusion; +Belief is a colourful hope or fear, +The beginning of folly. +The sage goes by harmony, not by hope; +He dwells in the fruit, not the flower; +He accepts substance, and ignores abstraction. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Support + +In mythical times all things were whole: +All the sky was clear, +All the earth was stable, +All the mountains were firm, +All the riverbeds were full, +All of nature was fertile, +And all the rulers were supported. +But, losing clarity, the sky tore; +Losing stability, the earth split; +Losing strength, the mountains sank; +Losing water, the riverbeds cracked; +Losing fertility, nature disappeared; +And losing support, the rulers fell. +Rulers depend upon their subjects, +The noble depend upon the humble; +So rulers call themselves orphaned, hungry and alone, +To win the people's support. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Motion and Use + +The motion of the Way is to return; +The use of the Way is to accept; +All things come from the Way, +And the Way comes from nothing. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Following + +When the great man learns the Way, he follows it with diligence; +When the common man learns the Way, he follows it on occasion; +When the mean man learns the Way, he laughs out loud; +Those who do not laugh, do not learn at all. +Therefore it is said: +Who understands the Way seems foolish; +Who progresses on the Way seems to fail; +Who follows the Way seems to wander. +For the finest harmony appears plain; +The brightest truth appears coloured; +The richest character appears incomplete; +The bravest heart appears meek; +The simplest nature appears inconstant. +The square, perfected, has no corner; +Music, perfected, has no melody; +Love, perfected, has no climax; +Art, perfected, has no meaning. +The Way can be neither sensed nor known: +It transmits sensation and transcends knowledge. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Mind + +The Way bears sensation, +Sensation bears memory, +Sensation and memory bear abstraction, +And abstraction bears all the world; +Each thing in the world bears feeling and doing, +And, imbued with mind, harmony with the Way. +As others have taught, so do I teach, +"Who loses harmony opposes nature"; +This is the root of my teaching. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Overcoming + +Water overcomes the stone; +Without substance it requires no opening; +This is the benefit of taking no action. +Yet benefit without action, +And experience without abstraction, +Are practiced by very few. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Contentment + +Health or reputation: which is held dearer? +Health or possessions: which has more worth? +Profit or loss: which is more troublesome? +Great love incurs great expense, +And great wealth incurs great fear, +But contentment comes at no cost. +For who knows when to stop +Does not continue into danger, +And so may long endure. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Quiet + +Great perfection seems incomplete, +But does not decay; +Great abundance seems empty, +But does not fail. +Great truth seems contradictory; +Great cleverness seems stupid; +Great eloquence seems awkward. +As spring overcomes the cold, +And autumn overcomes the heat, +So calm and quiet overcome the world. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Horses + +When a nation follows the Way, +Horses bear manure through its fields; +When a nation ignores the Way, +Horses bear soldiers through its streets. +There is no greater mistake than following desire; +There is no greater disaster than forgetting contentment; +There is no greater sickness than seeking attainment; +But one who is content to satisfy his needs +Finds that contentment endures. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Knowing + +Without taking a step outdoors +You know the whole world; +Without taking a peep out the window +You know the colour of the sky. +The more you experience, +The less you know. +The sage wanders without knowing, +Looks without seeing, +Accomplishes without acting. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Inaction + +The follower of knowledge learns as much as he can every day; +The follower of the Way forgets as much as he can every day. +By attrition he reaches a state of inaction +Wherein he does nothing, but nothing remains undone. +To conquer the world, accomplish nothing; +If you must accomplish something, +The world remains beyond conquest. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +People + +The sage does not distinguish between himself and the world; +The needs of other people are as his own. +He is good to those who are good; +He is also good to those who are not good, +Thereby he is good. +He trusts those who are trustworthy; +He also trusts those who are not trustworthy, +Thereby he is trustworthy. +The sage lives in harmony with the world, +And his mind is the world's mind. +So he nurtures the worlds of others +As a mother does her children. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Death + +Men flow into life, and ebb into death. +Some are filled with life; +Some are empty with death; +Some hold fast to life, and thereby perish, +For life is an abstraction. +Those who are filled with life +Need not fear tigers and rhinos in the wilds, +Nor wear armour and shields in battle; +The rhinoceros finds no place in them for its horn, +The tiger no place for its claw, +The soldier no place for a weapon, +For death finds no place in them. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Nurture + +The Way bears all things; +Harmony nurtures them; +Nature shapes them; +Use completes them. +Each follows the Way and honours harmony, +Not by law, +But by being. +The Way bears, nurtures, shapes, completes, +Shelters, comforts, and makes a home for them. +Bearing without possessing, +Nurturing without taming, +Shaping without forcing, +This is harmony. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Clarity + +The origin of the world is its mother; +Understand the mother, and you understand the child; +Embrace the child, and you embrace the mother, +Who will not perish when you die. +Reserve your judgments and words +And you maintain your influence; +Speak your mind and take positions +And nothing will save you. +As observing detail is clarity, +So maintaining flexibility is strength; +Use the light but shed no light, +So that you do yourself no harm, +But embrace clarity. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Difficult Paths + +With but a small understanding +One may follow the Way like a main road, +Fearing only to leave it; +Following a main road is easy, +Yet people delight in difficult paths. +When palaces are kept up +Fields are left to weeds +And granaries empty; +Wearing fine clothes, +Bearing sharp swords, +Glutting with food and drink, +Hoarding wealth and possessions - +These are the ways of theft, +And far from the Way. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Cultivate Harmony + +Cultivate harmony within yourself, and harmony becomes real; +Cultivate harmony within your family, and harmony becomes fertile; +Cultivate harmony within your community, and harmony becomes +abundant; +Cultivate harmony within your culture, and harmony becomes +enduring; +Cultivate harmony within the world, and harmony becomes ubiquitous. +Live with a person to understand that person; +Live with a family to understand that family; +Live with a community to understand that community; +Live with a culture to understand that culture; +Live with the world to understand the world. +How can I live with the world? +By accepting. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Soft Bones + +Who is filled with harmony is like a newborn. +Wasps and snakes will not bite him; +Hawks and tigers will not claw him. +His bones are soft yet his grasp is sure, +For his flesh is supple; +His mind is innocent yet his body is virile, +For his vigour is plentiful; +His song is long-lasting yet his voice is sweet, +For his grace is perfect. +But knowing harmony creates abstraction, +And following abstraction creates ritual. +Exceeding nature creates calamity, +And controlling nature creates violence. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Impartiality + +Who understands does not preach; +Who preaches does not understand. +Reserve your judgments and words; +Smooth differences and forgive disagreements; +Dull your wit and simplify your purpose; +Accept the world. +Then, +Friendship and enmity, +Profit and loss, +Honour and disgrace, +Will not affect you; +The world will accept you. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Conquer with Inaction + +Do not control the people with laws, +Nor violence nor espionage, +But conquer them with inaction. +For: +The more morals and taboos there are, +The more cruelty afflicts people; +The more guns and knives there are, +The more factions divide people; +The more arts and skills there are, +The more change obsoletes people; +The more laws and taxes there are, +The more theft corrupts people. +Yet take no action, and the people nurture eachother; +Make no laws, and the people deal fairly with eachother; +Own no interest, and the people cooperate with eachother; +Express no desire, and the people harmonize with eachother. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +No End + +When government is lazy and informal +The people are kind and honest; +When government is efficient and severe +The people are discontented and deceitful. +Good fortune follows upon disaster; +Disaster lurks within good fortune; +Who can say how things will end? +Perhaps there is no end. +Honesty is ever deceived; +Kindness is ever seduced; +Men have been like this for a long time. +So the sage is firm but not cutting, +Pointed but not piercing, +Straight but not rigid, +Bright but not blinding. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Restraint + +Manage a great nation as you would cook a delicate fish. +To govern men in accord with nature +It is best to be restrained; +Restraint makes agreement easy to attain, +And easy agreement builds harmonious relationships; +With sufficient harmony no resistance will arise; +When no resistance arises, then you possess the heart of the +nation, +And when you possess the nation's heart, your influence will long +endure: +Deeply rooted and firmly established. +This is the method of far sight and long life. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Demons + +When you use the Way to conquer the world, +Your demons will lose their power to harm. +It is not that they lose their power as such, +But that they will not harm others; +Because they will not harm others, +You will not harm others: +When neither you nor your demons can do harm, +You will be at peace with them. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Submission + +A nation is like a hierarchy, a marketplace, and a maiden. +A maiden wins her husband by submitting to his advances; +Submission is a means of union. +So when a large country submits to a small country +It will adopt the small country; +When a small country submits to a large country +It will be adopted by the large country; +The one submits and adopts; +The other submits and is adopted. +It is in the interest of a large country to unite and gain service, +And in the interest of a small country to unite and gain patronage; +If both would serve their interests, +Both must submit. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Sin + +The Way is the fate of men, +The treasure of the saint, +And the refuge of the sinner. +Fine words are often borrowed, +And great deeds are often appropriated; +Therefore, when a man falls, do not abandon him, +And when a man gains power, do not honour him; +Only remain impartial and show him the Way. +Why should someone appreciate the Way? +The ancients said, "By it, those who seek may easily find, +And those who regret may easily absolve" +So it is the most precious gift. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Difficulty + +Practice no-action; +Attend to do-nothing; +Taste the flavorless, +Magnify the small, +Multiply the few, +Return love for hate. +Deal with the difficult while it is yet easy; +Deal with the great while it is yet small; +The difficult develops naturally from the easy, +And the great from the small; +So the sage, by dealing with the small, +Achieves the great. +Who finds it easy to promise finds it hard to be trusted; +Who takes things lightly finds things difficult; +The sage recognizes difficulty, and so has none. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Care at the Beginning + +What lies still is easy to grasp; +What lies far off is easy to anticipate; +What is brittle is easy to shatter; +What is small is easy to disperse. +Yet a tree broader than a man can embrace is born of a tiny shoot; +A dam greater than a river can overflow starts with a clod of +earth; +A journey of a thousand miles begins at the spot under one's feet. +Therefore deal with things before they happen; +Create order before there is confusion. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Care at the End + +He who acts, spoils; +He who grasps, loses. +People often fail on the verge of success; +Take care at the end as at the beginning, +So that you may avoid failure. +The sage desires no-desire, +Values no-value, +Learns no-learning, +And returns to the places that people have forgotten; +He would help all people to become natural, +But then he would not be natural. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Subtlety + +The ancients did not seek to rule people with knowledge, +But to help them become natural. +It is difficult for knowledgeable people to become natural. +To use law to control a nation weakens the nation. +But to use nature to control a nation strengthens the nation. +Understanding these two paths is understanding subtlety; +Subtlety runs deep, ranges wide, +Resolves confusion and preserves peace. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Lead by Following + +The river carves out the valley by flowing beneath it. +Thereby the river is the master of the valley. +In order to master people +One must speak as their servant; +In order to lead people +One must follow them. +So when the sage rises above the people, +They do not feel oppressed; +And when the sage stands before the people, +They do not feel hindered. +So the popularity of the sage does not fail, +He does not contend, and no one contends against him. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Unimportance + +All the world says, +"I am important; +I am separate from all the world. +I am important because I am separate, +Were I the same, I could never be important." +Yet here are three treasures +That I cherish and commend to you: +The first is compassion, +By which one finds courage. +The second is restraint, +By which one finds strength. +And the third is unimportance, +By which one finds influence. +Those who are fearless, but without compassion, +Powerful, but without restraint, +Or influential, yet important, +Cannot endure. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Compassion + +Compassion is the finest weapon and best defence. +If you would establish harmony, +Compassion must surround you like a fortress. +Therefore, +A good soldier does not inspire fear; +A good fighter does not display aggression; +A good conqueror does not engage in battle; +A good leader does not exercise authority. +This is the value of unimportance; +This is how to win the cooperation of others; +This to how to build the same harmony that is in nature. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Ambush + +There is a saying among soldiers: +It is easier to lose a yard than take an inch. +In this manner one may deploy troops without marshalling them, +Bring weapons to bear without exposing them, +Engage the foe without invading them, +And exhaust their strength without fighting them. +There is no worse disaster than misunderstanding your enemy; +To do so endangers all of my treasures; +So when two well matched forces oppose eachother, +The general who maintains compassion will win. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Individuality + +My words are easy to understand +And my actions are easy to perform +Yet no other can understand or perform them. +My words have meaning; my actions have reason; +Yet these cannot be known and I cannot be known. +We are each unique, and therefore valuable; +Though the sage wears coarse clothes, his heart is jade. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Limitation + +Who recognizes his limitations is healthy; +Who ignores his limitations is sick. +The sage recognizes this sickness as a limitation. +And so becomes immune. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Revolution + +When people have nothing more to lose, +Then revolution will result. +Do not take away their lands, +And do not destroy their livelihoods; +If your burden is not heavy then they will not shirk it. +The sage maintains himself but exacts no tribute, +Values himself but requires no honours; +He ignores abstraction and accepts substance. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Fate + +Who is brave and bold will perish; +Who is brave and subtle will benefit. +The subtle profit where the bold perish +For Fate does not honour daring. +And even the sage dares not tempt fate. +Fate does not attack, yet all things are conquered by it; +It does not ask, yet all things answer to it; +It does not call, yet all things meet it; +It does not plan, yet all things are determined by it. +Fate's net is vast and its mesh is coarse, +Yet none escape it. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Execution + +If people were not afraid of death, +Then what would be the use of an executioner? +If people were only afraid of death, +And you executed everyone who did not obey, +No one would dare to disobey you. +Then what would be the use of an executioner? +People fear death because death is an instrument of fate. +When people are killed by execution rather than by fate, +This is like carving wood in the place of a carpenter. +Those who carve wood in place of a carpenter +Often injure their hands. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Rebellion + +When rulers take grain so that they may feast, +Their people become hungry; +When rulers take action to serve their own interests, +Their people become rebellious; +When rulers take lives so that their own lives are maintained, +Their people no longer fear death. +When people act without regard for their own lives +They overcome those who value only their own lives. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Flexibility + +A newborn is soft and tender, +A crone, hard and stiff. +Plants and animals, in life, are supple and succulent; +In death, withered and dry. +So softness and tenderness are attributes of life, +And hardness and stiffness, attributes of death. +Just as a sapless tree will split and decay +So an inflexible force will meet defeat; +The hard and mighty lie beneath the ground +While the tender and weak dance on the breeze above. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Need + +Is the action of nature not unlike drawing a bow? +What is higher is pulled down, and what is lower is raised up; +What is taller is shortened, and what is thinner is broadened; +Nature's motion decreases those who have more than they need +And increases those who need more than they have. +It is not so with Man. +Man decreases those who need more than they have +And increases those who have more than they need. +To give away what you do not need is to follow the Way. +So the sage gives without expectation, +Accomplishes without claiming credit, +And has no desire for ostentation. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Yielding + +Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water, +Yet nothing can better overcome the hard and strong, +For they can neither control nor do away with it. +The soft overcomes the hard, +The yielding overcomes the strong; +Every person knows this, +But no one can practice it. +Who attends to the people would control the land and grain; +Who attends to the state would control the whole world; +Truth is easily hidden by rhetoric. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Reconciliation + +When conflict is reconciled, some hard feelings remain; +This is dangerous. +The sage accepts less than is due +And does not blame or punish; +For harmony seeks agreement +Where justice seeks payment. +The ancients said: "nature is impartial; +Therefore it serves those who serve all." + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +Utopia + +Let your community be small, with only a few people; +Keep tools in abundance, but do not depend upon them; +Appreciate your life and be content with your home; +Sail boats and ride horses, but don't go too far; +Keep weapons and armour, but do not employ them; +Let everyone read and write, +Eat well and make beautiful things. +Live peacefully and delight in your own society; +Dwell within cock-crow of your neighbours, +But maintain your independence from them. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% +The Sage + +Honest people use no rhetoric; +Rhetoric is not honesty. +Enlightened people are not cultured; +Culture is not enlightenment. +Content people are not wealthy; +Wealth is not contentment. +So the sage does not serve himself; +The more he does for others, the more he is satisfied; +The more he gives, the more he receives. +Nature flourishes at the expense of no one; +So the sage benefits all men and contends with none. + -- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching" +% diff --git a/fortunes/translate-me b/fortunes/translate-me new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5110f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/translate-me @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ +A fellow bought a new car, a Nissan, and was quite happy with his purchase. +He was something of an animist, however, and felt that the car really ought +to have a name. This presented a problem, as he was not sure if the name +should be masculine or feminine. + After considerable thought, he settled on an naming the car either +Belchazar or Beaumadine, but remained in a quandry about the final choice. + "Is a Nissan male or female?" he began asking his friends. Most of +them looked at him pecularly, mumbled things about urgent appointments, and +went on their way rather quickly. + He finally broached the question to a lady he knew who held a black +belt in judo. She thought for a moment and answered "Feminine." + The swiftness of her response puzzled him. "You're sure of that?" he +asked. + "Certainly," she replied. "They wouldn't sell very well if they were +masculine." + "Unhhh... Well, why not?" + "Because people want a car with a reputation for going when you want +it to. And, if Nissan's are female, it's like they say... `Each Nissan, she +go!'" + + [No, we WON'T explain it; go ask someone who practices an oriental + martial art. (Tai Chi Chuan probably doesn't count.) Ed.] +% +Aliquid melius quam pessimum optimum non est. +% +Ego sum ens omnipotens. +% +Hodie natus est radici frater. + +[ Unto the root is born a brother ] +% +Honi soit la vache qui rit. +% +Klatu barada nikto. +% +Mieux vaut tard que jamais! + +[ Better late than never ] +% +Quid me anxius sum? + +[ What? Me, worry? ] +% +semper en excretus +% +SEMPER UBI SUB UBI!!!! + +[ Always wear underwater ] +% +sillema sillema nika su +% +Tout choses sont dites deja, mais comme personne n'ecoute, il faut +toujours recommencer. + -- A. Gide + +[ All things have already been said, but since no one listens, one + must always start again. ] +% diff --git a/fortunes/wisdom b/fortunes/wisdom new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d84b4eb --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/wisdom @@ -0,0 +1,1654 @@ +(1) Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. +(2) If your stomach antagonizes you, pacify it with cool thoughts. +(3) Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move. +(4) Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society, as + the social ramble ain't restful. +(5) Avoid running at all times. +(6) Don't look back, something might be gaining on you. + -- S. Paige, c. 1951 +% +A clash of doctrine is not a disaster -- it is an opportunity. +% +A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such +a speed, if feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the +sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will +know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance. + -- Stanislaw Lem +% +A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should +be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved. + -- R. A. Heinlein +% +A halted retreat +Is nerve-wracking and dangerous. +To retain people as men -- and maidservants +Brings good fortune. +% +A lifetime isn't nearly long enough to figure out what it's all about. +% +A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I +believe everything positively stinks. + -- Lew Col +% +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 who cannot seduce men cannot save them either. + -- Soren Kierkegaard +% +A master was asked the question, "What is the Way?" by a curious monk. + "It is right before your eyes," said the master. + "Why do I not see it for myself?" + "Because you are thinking of yourself." + "What about you: do you see it?" + "So long as you see double, saying `I don't', and `you do', and so +on, your eyes are clouded," said the master. + "When there is neither `I' nor `You', can one see it?" + "When there is neither `I' nor `You', +who is the one that wants to see it?" +% +A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out on +loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed loudly inside +the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom do you believe," +asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?" +% +A priest advised Voltaire on his death bed to renounce the devil. +Replied Voltaire, "This is no time to make new enemies." +% +A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? + And the Master answered: + It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. +It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. + It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City +to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns +have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness. + And that is Fate? said the priest. + Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master. + That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know +what Freight was too. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. +If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space. + -- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars +% +A Scholar asked his Master, "Master, would you advise me of a proper +vocation?" + The Master replied, "Some men can earn their keep with the power of +their minds. Others must use their strong backs, legs and hands. This is +the same in nature as it is with man. Some animals acquire their food easily, +such as rabbits, hogs and goats. Other animals must fiercely struggle for +their sustenance, like beavers, moles and ants. So you see, the nature of +the vocation must fit the individual. + "But I have no abilities, desires, or imagination, Master," the +scholar sobbed. + Queried the Master... "Have you thought of becoming a salesperson?" +% +A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr. W. H." +% +A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing +that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker +watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm +myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself +and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?" +"To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process +to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed. +% +Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, +Or what's a heaven for ? + -- Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto" +% +All hope abandon, ye who enter here! + -- Dante Alighieri +% +All men know the utility of useful things; +but they do not know the utility of futility. + -- Chuang-tzu +% +All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies. + -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr. +% +All of us should treasure his Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a +Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, +tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: +"Just lie down on the floor and keep calm." + -- Robert Wilson, "John Dillinger Died for You" +% +An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of these eyes +we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as possible. + -- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann" +% +An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. +% + An older student came to Otis and said, "I have been to see a +great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures. +I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights seeking enlightenment. +I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered, but +I have not been enlightened. What should I do?" + Otis replied, "Give up suffering." + -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" +% +And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the +hour of separation. + -- Kahlil Gibran +% +Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this +big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- +nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy +cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go +over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're +going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do +all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. I know it; I know it's crazy, +but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy. + -- J. D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye" +% + Approaching the gates of the monastery, Hakuin found Ken the Zen +preaching to a group of disciples. + "Words..." Ken orated, "they are but an illusory veil obfuscating +the absolute reality of --" + "Ken!" Hakuin interrupted. "Your fly is down!" + Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon Ken, and he +vaporized. + On the way to town, Hakuin was greeted by an itinerant monk imbued +with the spirit of the morning. + "Ah," the monk sighed, a beatific smile wrinkling across his cheeks, +"Thou art That..." + "Ah," Hakuin replied, pointing excitedly, "And Thou art Fat!" + Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the monk, +and he vaporized. + Next, the Governor sought the advice of Hakuin, crying: "As our +enemies bear down upon us, how shall I, with such heartless and callow +soldiers as I am heir to, hope to withstand the impending onslaught?" + "US?" snapped Hakuin. + Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the +Governor, and he vaporized. + Then, a redneck went up to Hakuin and vaporized the old Master with +his shotgun. "Ha! Beat ya' to the punchline, ya' scrawny li'l geek!" +% +Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's +incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here." + -- Muad'dib, "Dune" +% +As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp +the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at +a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off. + -- Joseph Brodsky +% +At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all +my soul. At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my +ignorance upon the shore. + -- Kahlil Gibran +% +At the end of your life there'll be a good rest, and no further activities +are scheduled. +% +At the foot of the mountain, thunder: +The image of Providing Nourishment. +Thus the superior man is careful of his words +And temperate in eating and drinking. +% +Beauty is one of the rare things which does not lead to doubt of God. + -- Jean Anouilh +% + Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and + took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of +his followers. + One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and +there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing. + "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his +commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your +Purpose in Life, anyway?" + Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The +Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.) + Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened. + Primarily because nobody understood Chinese. + -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" +% +Before you ask more questions, think about whether you really want to +know the answers. + -- Gene Wolfe, "The Claw of the Conciliator" +% +Brahma said: Well, after hearing ten thousand explanations, a fool is no +wiser. But an intelligent man needs only two thousand five hundred. + -- The Mahabharata +% +By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +Catharsis is something I associate with pornography and crossword puzzles. + -- Howard Chaykin +% +Certainly the game is rigged. + +Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win. + -- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love" +% +Chance is perhaps the work of God when He did not want to sign. + -- Anatole France +% + Chapter 1 + +The story so far: + + In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot +of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. + -- Douglas Adams, HHGG #2, (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe). +% + "Cheshire-Puss," she began, "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. + "I don't care much where--" said Alice. + "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat. +% +Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances. + -- Herodotus +% +Coincidences are spiritual puns. + -- G. K. Chesterton +% +Death is a spirit leaving a body, sort of like a shell leaving the nut behind. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. +% +Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. + -- R. Geis +% +Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. +% +Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'. +% +Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down. +% +Death is only a state of mind. + +Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else. +% +Depart not from the path which fate has assigned you. +% +Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't help +the rabbit. + -- R. E. Shay +% +Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, +don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck. + -- Joseph Heller, "God Knows" +% +Disease can be cured; fate is incurable. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Ditat Deus. + [God enriches] +% +Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. +% +Do not despair of life. You have no doubt force enough to overcome your +obstacles. Think of the fox prowling through wood and field in a winter night +for something to satisfy his hunger. Notwithstanding cold and hounds and +traps, his race survives. I do not believe any of them ever committed suicide. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Do not seek death; death will find you. But seek the road which makes death +a fulfillment. + -- Dag Hammarskjold +% +Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive. +% +Do what you can to prolong your life, in the hope that someday you'll +learn what it's for. +% + "Do you think there's a God?" + "Well, ____SOMEbody's out to get me!" + -- Calvin and Hobbs +% +Do your part to help preserve life on Earth -- by trying to preserve your own. +% +Don't abandon hope. Your Captain Midnight decoder ring arrives tomorrow. +% +Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. +% +Don't go to bed with no price on your head. + -- Baretta +% +Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them. +% +Don't kid yourself. Little is relevant, and nothing lasts forever. +% +Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. +% +Don't make a big deal out of everything; just deal with everything. +% +Don't stop to stomp ants when the elephants are stampeding. +% +Don't take life seriously, you'll never get out alive. +% +Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. + -- Paul Tillich, German theologian. +% +Down with categorical imperative! +% +Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate +and captain of your soul. +% +During the voyage of life, remember to keep an eye out for a fair wind; batten +down during a storm; hail all passing ships; and fly your colors proudly. +% +Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. My advice to you is to have +nothing whatever to do with it. + -- W. Somerset Maugham, his last words +% +Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down. + -- Woody Allen +% +Each man is his own prisoner, in solitary confinement for life. +% +Each of us bears his own Hell. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +Either I'm dead or my watch has stopped. + -- Groucho Marx's last words +% +Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect +that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers +and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the +essential death in which its subject's roots are plunged. The natural +inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued +forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters. + -- Henry James Sr., writing to his sons Henry and William +% +Every person, all the events in your life are there because you have +drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Everything ends badly. Otherwise it wouldn't end. +% +Everything in this book may be wrong. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Everything is possible. Pass the word. + -- Rita Mae Brown, "Six of One" +% +Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last. + -- Marcus Aurelius +% +Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay. +% +Facts are the enemy of truth. + -- Don Quixote +% +Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. + -- Sir Walter Raleigh +% +Faith goes out through the window when beauty comes in at the door. +% +Faith is under the left nipple. + -- Martin Luther +% +Fill what's empty, empty what's full, scratch where it itches. + -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth +% +... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter. +"I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers +words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. +He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see +them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. +Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he +knows them in the naming. + -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light" +% +For fast-acting relief, try slowing down. +% +For good, return good. +For evil, return justice. +% +For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in +despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the +implacable grandeur of this life. + -- Albert Camus +% +For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH! +% +Force has no place where there is need of skill. + -- Herodotus +% +FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #2 + Never goose a wolverine. +% +FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #23 + Don't cut off a police car when making an illegal U-turn. +% +From listening comes wisdom and from speaking repentance. +% +From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first. + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death. + -- Miyamoto Musashi, 1645 +% +Getting into trouble is easy. + -- D. Winkel and F. Prosser +% +Getting there is only half as far as getting there and back. +% +Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief. + -- William Faulkner +% +God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to +change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. +% +God instructs the heart, not by ideas, but by pains and contradictions. + -- De Caussade +% +God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. + -- Alfred Jarry +% +God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. + -- Paul Valery +% +Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. + -- George Saunders' dying words +% +Goodbye, cool world. +% +Got a dictionary? I want to know the meaning of life. +% +Great acts are made up of small deeds. + -- Lao Tsu +% +**** GROWTH CENTER REPAIR SERVICE + +For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of +being genuine all the time? Would you like to learn how to be a little +phony again? Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid +people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to +feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms +beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a +feeling? Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all? Come to us. We +promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential. +% +Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion. +% +Happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have. +% +Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. + -- Oscar Levant +% +Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. + -- Socrates +% +He has shown you, o man, what is good. And what does the Lord ask of you, +but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly before your God? +% +He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap. +% +He knows not how to know who knows not also how to unknow. + -- Sir Richard Burton +% +He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book. + -- B. Franklin +% +He thought of Musashi, the Sword Saint, standing in his garden more than +three hundred years ago. "What is the 'Body of a rock'?" he was asked. +In answer, Musashi summoned a pupil of his and bid him kill himself by +slashing his abdomen with a knife. Just as the pupil was about to comply, +the Master stayed his hand, saying, "That is the 'Body of a rock'." + -- Eric Van Lustbader +% +He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hopes for +the human condition is a fool. + -- Albert Camus +% +He who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant. Teach him. +He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him. +He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him. +% +He who knows nothing, knows nothing. +But he who knows he knows nothing knows something. +And he who knows someone whose friend's wife's brother knows nothing, + he knows something. Or something like that. +% +He who knows others is wise. +He who knows himself is enlightened. + -- Lao Tsu +% +He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. + -- Lao Tsu +% +He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know. + -- Lao Tsu +% + ...He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither +does he hate it. Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to +combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is +self-propagating. + -- Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose" +% +Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: +if you're alive, it isn't. +% +How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our +thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another +in the waking state? + -- Plato +% +I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today. + -- William Allen White +% +I didn't believe in reincarnation in any of my other lives. I don't see why +I should have to believe in it in this one. + -- Strange de Jim +% +I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or +whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. + -- Chuang-tzu +% +I do not seek the ignorant; the ignorant seek me -- I will instruct them. +I ask nothing but sincerity. If they come out of habit, they become tiresome. + -- I Ching +% +"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very +reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment." + -- Gotama Buddha +% +I hate dying. + -- Dave Johnson +% +I have a simple philosophy: + + Fill what's empty. + Empty what's full. + Scratch where it itches. + -- A. R. Longworth +% +I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. +That would be dishonest. +% +I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!! +% +I know not how I came into this, shall I call it a dying life or a +living death? + -- St. Augustine +% + "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of +that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put +more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it +might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not +otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be +otherwise.'" + -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" +% +If a guru falls in the forest with no one to hear him, was he really a +guru at all? + -- Strange de Jim, "The Metasexuals" +% +If a man has a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his +reverence for all of life. + -- Albert Schweitzer +% +If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. +Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble; that's +as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for +you'll see a lot of it and you had better be on speaking terms with it. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. +% +If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I +would relax, I would limber up, I would be sillier than I have been this +trip. I know of very few things I would take seriously. I would be crazier. +I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets. I'd +travel and see. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. +You see, I am one of those people who lives prophylactically and sensibly +and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I have had my moments and, +if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to +have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many +years ahead each day. I have been one of those people who never go anywhere +without a thermometer, a hotwater bottle, a gargle, a raincoat and a parachute. +If I had it to do over again, I would go places and do things and travel +lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start bare-footed +earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play hooky +more. I probably wouldn't make such good grades, but I'd learn more. I would +ride on more merry-go-rounds. I'd pick more daisies. +% +If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women +you've got in the house. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +If men are not afraid to die, +it is of no avail to threaten them with death. + +If men live in constant fear of dying, +And if breaking the law means a man will be killed, +Who will dare to break the law? + +There is always an official executioner. +If you try to take his place, +It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. +If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, + you will only hurt your hand. + -- Tao Te Ching, "Lao Tsu, #74" +% +If something has not yet gone wrong then it would ultimately have been +beneficial for it to go wrong. +% +If the master dies and the disciple grieves, the lives of both have +been wasted. +% +If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads. + -- Anatole France +% +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 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 there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing +of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur +of this life. + -- Albert Camus +% +If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. +% +If we don't survive, we don't do anything else. + -- John Sinclair +% +If you are not for yourself, who will be for you? +If you are for yourself, then what are you? +If not now, when? +% +If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything. +% +If you find a solution and become attached to it, the solution may become +your next problem. +% +If you fool around with something long enough, it will eventually break. +% +If you have to hate, hate gently. +% +If you have to think twice about it, you're wrong. +% +If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away. +% +If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat. + -- Simone de Beauvoir +% +If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. + -- Maslow +% +If you put it off long enough, it might go away. +% +If you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it. +% +If you wait long enough, it will go away... after having done its damage. +If it was bad, it will be back. +% +If you want divine justice, die. + -- Nick Seldon +% +If your aim in life is nothing, you can't miss. +% +If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do +have a problem. + -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" +% +Illusion is the first of all pleasures. + -- Voltaire +% +Immortality -- a fate worse than death. + -- Edgar A. Shoaff +% +In dwelling, be close to the land. +In meditation, delve deep into the heart. +In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. +In speech, be true. +In work, be competent. +In action, be careful of your timing. + -- Lao Tsu +% +In order to discover who you are, first learn who everybody else is; +you're what's left. +% +In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. +It is not always an easy sacrifice. +% +In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart. + -- Anne Frank +% +In the long run we are all dead. + -- John Maynard Keynes +% +In the next world, you're on your own. +% +Indeed, the first noble truth of Buddhism, usually translated as +`all life is suffering,' is more accurately rendered `life is filled +with a sense of pervasive unsatisfactoriness.' + -- M. D. Epstein +% +Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better. + -- Edgar W. Howe +% +Intellect annuls Fate. +So far as a man thinks, he is free. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations. +% +It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is +lightly greased. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +It is Fortune, not Wisdom, that rules man's life. +% +It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, +that makes life blessed. + -- Goethe +% +It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live +at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result +is the only thing that makes the result come true. + -- William James +% +It is only with the heart one can see clearly; what is essential is +invisible to the eye. + -- The Fox, 'The Little Prince" +% +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 so stupid of modern civilisation to have given up believing in the +devil when he is the only explanation of it. + -- Ronald Knox, "Let Dons Delight" +% +It is through symbols that man consciously or unconsciously lives, works +and has his being. + -- Thomas Carlyle +% +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's easier to take it apart than to put it back together. + -- Washlesky +% +It's hard to drive at the limit, but it's harder to know where the limits are. + -- Stirling Moss +% +It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things. +% + "It's today!" said Piglet. + "My favorite day," said Pooh. +% +It's very inconvenient to be mortal -- you never know when everything may +suddenly stop happening. +% +Joshu: What is the true Way? +Nansen: Every way is the true Way. +J: Can I study it? +N: The more you study, the further from the Way. +J: If I don't study it, how can I know it? +N: The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen. + It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown. Do + not seek it, study it, or name it. To find yourself on it, open + yourself as wide as the sky. +% +Just remember, wherever you go, there you are. + -- Buckaroo Bonzai +% +Kindness is the beginning of cruelty. + -- Muad'dib [Frank Herbert, "Dune"] +% +Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around us in awareness. + -- James Thurber +% +Life can be so tragic -- you're here today and here tomorrow. +% +Life exists for no known purpose. +% +Life is a grand adventure -- or it is nothing. + -- Helen Keller +% +Life is knowing how far to go without crossing the line. +% +Life is like a 10 speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use. + -- C. Schultz +% +Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Life is the childhood of our immortality. + -- Goethe +% +Life is the living you do, Death is the living you don't do. + -- Joseph Pintauro +% +Life is the urge to ecstasy. +% +Life may have no meaning, or, even worse, it may have a meaning of which +you disapprove. +% +Life only demands from you the strength you possess. +Only one feat is possible -- not to have run away. + -- Dag Hammarskjold +% +Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. + -- Thomas J. Kopp +% +Like, if I'm not for me, then fer shure, like who will be? And if, y'know, +if I'm not like fer anyone else, then hey, I mean, what am I? And if not +now, like I dunno, maybe like when? And if not Who, then I dunno, maybe +like the Rolling Stones? + -- Rich Rosen (Rabbi Valiel's paraphrase of famous quote + attributed to Rabbi Hillel.) +% +Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is +published around the world -- even if what is published is not true. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Living in the complex world of the future is somewhat like having bees +live in your head. But, there they are. +% +Loneliness is a terrible price to pay for independence. +% +Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and +long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his +pain and his aloneness without regret? + -- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet" +% +Man's reach must exceed his grasp, for why else the heavens? +% +[Maturity consists in the discovery that] there comes a critical moment +where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand +more and more that there is something which cannot be understood. + -- S. Kierkegaard +% +Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly. An aide once asked him +how he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just last week. +The great man replied that it was because this week he knew better. +% + Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, +and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the +graduate school mountain but there in the sandbox at nursery school. + These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't +hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. +Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt someone. +Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good +for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint +and sing and dance and play and work some every day. + Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for +traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the +little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and +nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and +hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup -- they all +die. So do we. + And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you +learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in +there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and +politics and sane living. + Think of what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world +-- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with +our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other +nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own +messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into +the world it is best to hold hands and stick together. + -- Robert Fulghum, "All I ever really needed to know I learned + in kindergarten" +% +Murphy was an optimist. +% +Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work. +% +Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. + -- Lao Tsu +% +My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior +spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive +with our frail and feeble mind. + -- Albert Einstein +% +My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. + -- Christopher Morley +% +Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant said +"My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next time he +goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone might steal it." +% +Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the villagers +gathered around to hear what had passed. "At this time," said Nasrudin, "I +only want to say that the King spoke to me." All the villagers but the +stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news. The remaining villager +asked, "What did the King say to you?" "What he said -- and quite distinctly, +for everyone to hear -- was 'Get out of my way!'" The simpleton was overjoyed; +he had heard words actually spoken by the King, and seen the very man they +were spoken to. +% +Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to serve +him. Nasrudin said, "First things first. Did you see me walk into your +shop?" + "Of course." + "Have you ever seen me before?" + "Never." + "Then how do you know it was me?" +% +Nasrudin walked into a teahouse and declaimed, "The moon is more useful +than the sun." + "Why?", he was asked. + "Because at night we need the light more." +% +Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liver pie. +Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece of meat from his +hand. As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it, "Foolish bird! You +have the liver, but what can you do with it without the recipe?" +% +Ninety percent of everything is crap. + -- Theodore Sturgeon +% +Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. +The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much. + -- Augustine +% +No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the +Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, +Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if +a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes +me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know +for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. + -- John Donne, "No Man is an Iland" +% +No matter where I go, the place is always called "here". +% +No use getting too involved in life -- you're only here for a limited time. +% +Nobody ever ruined their eyesight by looking at the bright side of something. +% +Nonsense and beauty have close connections. + -- E. M. Forster +% +Normal times may possibly be over forever. +% +Not every question deserves an answer. +% +Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. +% +Nothing is as simple as it seems at first + Or as hopeless as it seems in the middle + Or as finished as it seems in the end. +% +Nothing is but what is not. +% +Nothing is ever a total loss; it can always serve as a bad example. +% +Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. + -- Michel de Montaigne +% +Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all. + -- Arthur Balfour +% +Of all men's miseries, the bitterest is this: +to know so much and have control over nothing. + -- Herodotus +% +Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in. + -- H. R. Haldeman +% + Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great +crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs +and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and +resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature +said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall +let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." + The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current +you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will +die quicker than boredom!" + But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at +once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet, in time, +as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the +bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. + And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See +a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come +to save us all!" And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more +Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go. +Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. + But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the +rocks, making legends of a Saviour. + -- Richard Bach +% +Once you've tried to change the world you find it's a whole bunch easier +to change your mind. +% + One day it was announced that the young monk Kyogen had reached +an enlightened state. Much impressed by this news, several of his peers +went to speak with him. + "We have heard that you are enlightened. Is this true?" his fellow +students inquired. + "It is", Kyogen answered. + "Tell us", said a friend, "how do you feel?" + "As miserable as ever", replied the enlightened Kyogen. +% +One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell the +truth. A gallows was erected in front of the city gates. A herald announced, +"Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to a question +which will be put to him." Nasrudin was first in line. The captain of the +guard asked him, "Where are you going? Tell the truth -- the alternative +is death by hanging." + "I am going," said Nasrudin, "to be hanged on that gallows." + "I don't believe you." + "Very well, if I have told a lie, then hang me!" + "But that would make it the truth!" + "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth." +% +One learns to itch where one can scratch. + -- Ernest Bramah +% +One meets his destiny often on the road he takes to avoid it. +% +One monk said to the other, "The fish has flopped out of the net! How will it +live?" The other said, "When you have gotten out of the net, I'll tell you." +% +Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying. + -- Baba Ram Dass +% +Only those who leisurely approach that which the masses are busy about +can be busy about that which the masses take leisurely. + -- Lao Tsu +% +Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much better. + -- Laurie Anderson +% +Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but +when there is no longer anything to take away. + -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery +% +Perhaps the biggest disappointments were the ones you expected anyway. +% +Philosophy will clip an angel's wings. + -- John Keats +% +Push where it gives and scratch where it itches. +% +Reality always seems harsher in the early morning. +% +Reality does not exist -- yet. +% +Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth? + -- Patrick Sky +% +Reality is for people who lack imagination. +% +Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity. + -- Alvy Ray Smith +% +Reality is just a crutch for people who can't handle science fiction. +% +Reality is nothing but a collective hunch. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". + -- Philip K. Dick +% +Remember, Grasshopper, falling down 1000 stairs begins by tripping over +the first one. + -- Confusion +% +Rule of Life #1 -- Never get separated from your luggage. +% +Seeing is believing. You wouldn't have seen it if you hadn't believed it. +% +Since everything in life is but an experience perfect in being what it is, +having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well +burst out in laughter. + -- Long Chen Pa +% +So little time, so little to do. + -- Oscar Levant +% +Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. + -- Seneca +% +Sometimes you get an almost irresistible urge to go on living. +% +Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is by +no means the only 'certain' standard. If you mistake what is relative for +something certain, you have strayed far from the ultimate truth. + -- Chuang Tzu +% +Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; +The deed there is, but no doer thereof; +Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; +The Path there is, but none who travel it. + -- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values +% +Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes +a-begging. + -- Martin Luther +% +Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to +your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms, +and they'll call you crazy. + -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul" +% +That that is is that that is not is not. +% +That, that is, is. +That, that is not, is not. +That, that is, is not that, that is not. +That, that is not, is not that, that is. +% +The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth. + -- A. Camus +% +The best you get is an even break. + -- Franklin Adams +% +"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain." + -- G. Fitch +% +The chief cause of problems is solutions. + -- Eric Sevareid +% +The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions. + -- Alfred Adler +% +The days are all empty and the nights are unreal. +% +The door is the key. +% +The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, +the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its +own capacity. ... Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god +of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god +of the center. Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together +what they could do to repay his kindness. They had noticed that, whereas +everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and +so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes +in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died. + -- Chuang Tzu +% +The farther you go, the less you know. + -- Lao Tsu, "Tao Te Ching" +% +The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions. + -- Maurice Chapelain, "Main courante" +% +The first requisite for immortality is death. + -- Stanislaw Lem +% +The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves. + -- Sophocles +% +The longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of the gate. + -- Marcus Terentius Varro +% +The major sin is the sin of being born. + -- Samuel Beckett +% +The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice +and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the +master calls a butterfly. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and +robbers there will be. + -- Lao Tsu +% +The more you complain, the longer God lets you live. +% +The moss on the tree does not fear the talons of the hawk. +% +The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably +not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions. +% +The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal. +The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may +experience it as such. Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and +thinking: all the rest of the world is slow, gradual and stupid. Whoever +could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very +swift. Thinking of oneself gives little happiness. If, however, one feels +much happiness in this, it is because at bottom one is not thinking of +oneself but of one's ideal. This is far, and only the swift shall reach +it and are delighted. + -- Nietzsche +% +The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, +and the pessimist knows it. + -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" +% +Yet creeds mean very little, Coth answered the dark god, still speaking +almost gently. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all +possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. + -- James Cabell, "The Silver Stallion" +% +The Poems, all three hundred of them, may be summed up in one of their phrases: +"Let our thoughts be correct". + -- Confucius +% +The price of success in philosophy is triviality. + -- C. Glymour. +% +The questions remain the same. The answers are eternally variable. +% +The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but +that's the way to bet. + -- Damon Runyon +% +The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, +but not when it misses. + -- Francis Bacon +% +The savior becomes the victim. +% +The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. +% +The state of innocence contains the germs of all future sin. + -- Alexandre Arnoux, "Etudes et caprices" +% +The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height +but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble +than to be walked upon. + -- Franz Kafka +% +The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The truth is what is; what should be is a dirty lie. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it. + -- Stanley Kubrick +% +The truth you speak has no past and no future. It is, and that's all it +needs to be. +% +The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. +It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. +You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +There are no accidents whatsoever in the universe. + -- Baba Ram Dass +% +There are no winners in life, only survivors. +% +There are ten or twenty basic truths, and life is the process of +discovering them over and over and over. + -- David Nichols +% +There is more to life than increasing its speed. + -- Mahatma Gandhi +% +There is no comfort without pain; thus we define salvation through suffering. + -- Cato +% +There is no cure for birth and death other than to enjoy the interval. + -- George Santayana +% +There is no sin but ignorance. + -- Christopher Marlowe +% +There is nothing which cannot be answered by means of my doctrine," said +a monk, coming into a teahouse where Nasrudin sat. + "And yet just a short time ago, I was challenged by a scholar with +an unanswerable question," said Nasrudin. + "I could have answered it if I had been there." + "Very well. He asked, 'Why are you breaking into my house in +the middle of the night?'" +% +There's only one everything. +% +To get something clean, one has to get something dirty. +To get something dirty, one does not have to get anything clean. +% +To give happiness is to deserve happiness. +% +To give of yourself, you must first know yourself. +% +To have died once is enough. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +To lead people, you must follow behind. + -- Lao Tsu +% +Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always. + -- Albert Schweitzer +% +Truth is hard to find and harder to obscure. +% +Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy +of him that brought her birth. + -- Milton +% +Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate. The first man said, +"This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." The second man said, +"He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to his chambers, and spent an hour +trying to bite his own ear. He succeeded only in falling over and bruising +his forehead. Returning to the courtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the +man whose ear was bitten. If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and +the case is dismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it +and must pay three silver pieces." +% +Two men were sitting over coffee, contemplating the nature of things, +with all due respect for their breakfast. "I wonder why it is that +toast always falls on the buttered side," said one. + "Tell me," replied his friend, "why you say such a thing. Look +at this." And he dropped his toast on the floor, where it landed on the +dry side. + "So, what have you to say for your theory now?" + "What am I to say? You obviously buttered the wrong side." +% +Waste not fresh tears over old griefs. + -- Euripides +% +We can embody the truth, but we cannot know it. + -- Yates +% +We have nowhere else to go... this is all we have. + -- Margaret Mead +% +We have only two things to worry about: That things will never get +back to normal, and that they already have. +% +We have reason to be afraid. This is a terrible place. + -- John Berryman +% +We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, +content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +We're all in this alone. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +We're mortal -- which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful -- +but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and +then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for? + -- Ensign Flandry +% +"We're not talking about the same thing," he said. "For you the world is +weird because if you're not bored with it you're at odds with it. For me +the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, +unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must accept +responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous +desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted to convince you that you must +learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a +short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it." + -- Don Juan +% + Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines +of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them... + Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced +only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely, +able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed, +undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no longer +inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished. +All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important, +became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships +not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads strung on a string of their own +meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by +all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming +all others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem, +destroying Subject-Object by becoming them. + Time passed, unheeded. + Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and +Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes. + -- Wayfarer +% +Well, you know, no matter where you go, there you are. + -- Buckaroo Banzai +% +"Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool is no +wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand five hundred." + -- The Mahabharata. +% +What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. + -- Nietzsche +% +What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing +to compare it with. +% +What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? + -- Ursula K. LeGuin +% +What we Are is God's gift to us. +What we Become is our gift to God. +% +Whatever occurs from love is always beyond good and evil. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. + -- Gandhi +% +When it's dark enough you can see the stars. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, +% +When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that is +metaphysics. + -- Voltaire +% +When the wind is great, bow before it; +when the wind is heavy, yield to it. +% +When you are young, you enjoy a sustained illusion that sooner or later +something marvelous is going to happen, that you are going to transcend +your parents' limitations... At the same time, you feel sure that in all +the wilderness of possibility; in all the forests of opinion, there is a +vital something that can be known -- known and grasped. That we will +eventually know it, and convert the whole mystery into a coherent +narrative. So that then one's true life -- the point of everything -- +will emerge from the mist into a pure light, into total comprehension. +But it isn't like that at all. But if it isn't, where did the idea come +from, to torture and unsettle us? + -- Brian Aldiss, "Helliconia Summer" +% +When you die, you lose a very important part of your life. + -- Brooke Shields +% +Who does not trust enough will not be trusted. + -- Lao Tsu +% +Wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know. + -- J. Winter Smith +% +Wisdom is rarely found on the best-seller list. +% +[Wisdom] is a tree of life to those laying +hold of her, making happy each one holding her fast. + -- Proverbs 3:18, NSV +% +With listening comes wisdom, with speaking repentance. +% +Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. + -- Socrates, quoting Plato + [Huh? That's like Johnson quoting Boswell] +% + Work Hard. + Rock Hard. + Eat Hard. + Sleep Hard. + Grow Big. + Wear Glasses If You Need 'Em. + -- The Webb Wilder Credo +% +Yes, but which self do you want to be? +% +You are never given a wish without also being given the +power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. + -- R. Bach, "Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for + the Advanced Soul" +% +You can always pick up your needle and move to another groove. + -- Tim Leary +% +You can get *anywhere* in ten minutes if you drive fast enough. +% +You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks. +% +You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. + -- Jeannette Rankin +% +You can observe a lot just by watching. + -- Yogi Berra +% +You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. +% +You can't get there from here. +% +You can't mend a wristwatch while falling from an airplane. +% +You can't push on a string. +% +You can't run away forever, +But there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start. + -- Jim Steinman, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" +% +"You can't survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten." + -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and + Over and Over" +% +You can't take it with you -- especially when crossing a state line. +% +You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads +lead down. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "The Cyberiad" +% +You have all eternity to be cautious in when you're dead. + -- Lois Platford +% +You have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are. +If you want to get anywhere, you'll have to run much faster. + -- Lewis Carroll +% + "You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you +any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you +fit to hear his view of things?" + "Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming +you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by +imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, +if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as +potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, +and you may feel free to kick his ass." + -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" +% +You will always find something in the last place you look. +% +"You would do well not to imagine profundity," he said. "Anything that seems +of momentous occasion should be dwelt upon as though it were of slight note. +Conversely, trivialities must be attended to with the greatest of care. +Because death is momentous, give it no thought; because victory is important, +give it no thought; because the method of achievement and discovery is less +momentous than the effect, dwell always upon the method. You will strengthen +yourself in this way." + -- Jessica Salmonson, "The Swordswoman" +% +Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life. +% +Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart, what is true. +% +Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being +true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the +mark of a fake messiah. The simplest questions are the most profound. +Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What +are you doing? Think about these once in awhile and watch your answers +change. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Your picture of the world often changes just before you get it into focus. +% +Your wig steers the gig. + -- Lord Buckley +% +You may be marching to the beat of a different drummer, but you're +still in the parade. +% +The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. + -- Muriel Rukeyser +% +Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. + -- Jean-Paul Sartre +% +There is a secret person undamaged within every individual. + -- Paul Shepard +% +We are governed not by armies and police but by ideas. + -- Mona Caird, 1892 +% +The first rule of all intelligent tinkering is to keep all the parts. + -- Aldo Leopold, quoted in Donald Wurster's "Nature's Economy" +% +You must be the change you wish to see in the world. + -- Mahatma Gandhi +% +No people are all bad, just as none are all good. +Tecumseh, (Shawnee) to his nephew Spemica Lawba 1790 +% +My reason tells me that land cannot be sold - nothing can be sold but +such things as can be carried away. Black Hawk, (Saulk) +% +Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the +earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his +children? Tecumseh, (Shawnee) +% +Free yourself from negative influence. Negative thoughts are the old +habits that gnaw at the roots of the soul. +Moses Shongo, (Seneca) +% +...everything on this earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure +it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence. +Mourning Dove, (Salish 1888-1936) +% +"Der bestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir" +that is +"The starry sky above me, and the Moral Law inside me." + -- The epigraph on Kant's tombstone. +% +The words fly away, the writings remain. +% +I am what you will be; I was what you are. +% +The people rule. +% +Perhaps the remembrance of these things will prove a source of future +pleasure. + -- Virgil +% +Anyone who understands everything that comes out of fortune probably +has a problem +% +If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. + -- Anatole France +% +"Few sins are less forgivable in polite society than offering poor + people products they actively seek." + -- Katherine Mangu-Ward, "Education for Profit", Reason Magazine, July 2008 +% +Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be +truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do +great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. +Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. +And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years +roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% diff --git a/fortunes/work b/fortunes/work new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0692c96 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/work @@ -0,0 +1,2725 @@ +(1) Office employees will daily sweep the floors, dust the + furniture, shelves, and showcases. +(2) Each day fill lamps, clean chimneys, and trim wicks. + Wash the windows once a week. +(3) Each clerk will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of + coal for the day's business. +(4) Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to your + individual taste. +(5) This office will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. except + on the Sabbath, on which day we will remain closed. Each + employee is expected to spend the Sabbath by attending + church and contributing liberally to the cause of the Lord. + -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage + Works, 1872 +% +(6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting + purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church. +(7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the + office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible + and other good books. +(8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly + sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years, + so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters. +(9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink + in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets + shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect + his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty. +(10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and + without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of + five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the + business permit it. + -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872 +% +A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and +ask for it back the when it begins to rain. + -- Robert Frost +% +A boss with no humor is like a job that's no fun. +% +A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well +as afterward. +% +A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator. + -- Paul Valery +% +A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours. + -- Milton Berle +% +A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love" +% +A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the +seed from which other committees will bloom. + -- Parkinson +% +A commune is where people join together to share their lack of wealth. + -- R. Stallman +% +A company is known by the men it keeps. +% +A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it +is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it. +% +A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper. + -- Dyer +% +A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased +in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at +each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting +and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are +the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn. + At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as +well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion +houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four +fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network +of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant +complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main +ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of +this central section. + Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and +colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In +brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two +hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy. +% +A feed salesman is on his way to a farm. As he's driving along at forty +m.p.h., he looks out his car window and sees a three-legged chicken running +alongside him, keeping pace with his car. He is amazed that a chicken is +running at forty m.p.h. So he speeds up to forty-five, fifty, then sixty +m.p.h. The chicken keeps right up with him the whole way, then suddenly +takes off and disappears into the distance. + The man pulls into the farmyard and says to the farmer, "You know, +the strangest thing just happened to me; I was driving along at at least +sixty miles an hour and a chicken passed me like I was standing still!" + "Yeah," the farmer replies, "that chicken was ours. You see, there's +me, and there's Ma, and there's our son Billy. Whenever we had chicken for +dinner, we would all want a drumstick, so we'd have to kill two chickens. +So we decided to try and breed a three-legged chicken so each of us could +have a drumstick." + "How do they taste?" said the farmer. + "Don't know," replied the farmer. "We haven't been able to catch +one yet." +% +A freelance is one who gets paid by the word -- per piece or perhaps. + -- Robert Benchley +% +A good supervisor can step on your toes without messing up your shine. +% +A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while +the policeman searches you. +% +A man is known by the company he organizes. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost. +% +A memorandum is written not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer. + -- Dean Acheson +% +A motion to adjourn is always in order. +% +A mouse is an elephant built by the Japanese. +% +A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary. +Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now +has no excuse for further procrastination. +% +A rock store eventually closed down; they were taking too much for granite. +% +... a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you +were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker and +a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle +Bigger Propositions. But they didn't imply that you were to be impractical +and refuse to take twice the value for a house if a buyer was such an idiot +that he didn't force you down on the asking price. + -- Sinclair Lewis, "Babbitt" +% +A traveling salesman was driving past a farm when he saw a pig with three +wooden legs executing a magnificent series of backflips and cartwheels. +Intrigued, he drove up to the farmhouse, where he found an old farmer +sitting in the yard watching the pig. + "That's quite a pig you have there, sir" said the salesman. + "Sure is, son," the farmer replied. "Why, two years ago, my daughter +was swimming in the lake and bumped her head and damned near drowned, but that +pig swam out and dragged her back to shore." + "Amazing!" the salesman exlaimed. + "And that's not the only thing. Last fall I was cuttin' wood up on +the north forty when a tree fell on me. Pinned me to the ground, it did. +That pig run up and wiggled underneath that tree and lifted it off of me. +Saved my life." + "Fantastic! the salesman said. But tell me, how come the pig has +three wooden legs?" + The farmer stared at the newcomer in amazement. "Mister, when you +got an amazin' pig like that, you don't eat him all at once." +% +A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. + -- Herbert Hoover +% +According to a recent and unscientific national survey, smiling is something +everyone should do at least 6 times a day. In an effort to increase the +national average (the US ranks third among the world's superpowers in +smiling), Xerox has instructed all personnel to be happy, effervescent, and +most importantly, to smile. Xerox employees agree, and even feel strongly +that they can not only meet but surpass the national average... except for +Tubby Ackerman. But because Tubby does such a fine job of racing around +parking lots with a large butterfly net retrieving floating IC chips, Xerox +decided to give him a break. If you see Tubby in a parking lot he may have +a sheepish grin. This is where the expression, "Service with a slightly +sheepish grin" comes from. +% +According to all the latest reports, there was no truth in any of the +earlier reports. +% +Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest +way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. + -- Sinclair Lewis +% +Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. + -- George Orwell +% +Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human +intelligence long enough to get money from it. +% +After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done. +% +After any salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the +month than you did before. +% +All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. +% +All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, +provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe +to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the +cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief +Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "Where else are you +going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?" + -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" +% +All this big deal about white collar crime -- what's WRONG with white collar +crime? Who enjoys his job today? You? Me? Anybody? The only satisfying +part of any job is coffee break, lunch hour and quitting time. Years ago +there was at least the hope of improvement -- eventual promotion -- more +important jobs to come. Once you can be sold the myth that you may make +president of the company you'll hardly ever steal stamps. But nobody +believes he's going to be president anymore. The more people change jobs +the more they realize that there is a direct connection between working for +a living and total stupefying boredom. So why NOT take revenge? You're not +going to find ME knocking a guy because he pads an expense account and his +home stationery carries the company emblem. Take away crime from the white +collar worker and you will rob him of his last vestige of job interest. + -- J. Feiffer +% +All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for fun. +Money's just the way we keep score. + -- Henry Tyroon +% +All warranty and guarantee clauses become null and void upon payment of invoice. +% +America works less, when you say "Union Yes!" +% +American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees +be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are +educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and +the women's room without having little pictures on the doors. + -- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister" +% +An office party is not, as is sometimes supposed the Managing Director's +chance to kiss the tea-girl. It is the tea-girl's chance to kiss the +Managing Director (however bizarre an ambition this may seem to anyone +who has seen the Managing Director face on). + -- Katherine Whitehorn, "Roundabout" +% +Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed +to be doing at the moment. + -- Robert Benchley +% +Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. + -- Publius Syrus +% +Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none. +% +Anything free is worth what you pay for it. +% +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. +% +"At least they're ___________EXPERIENCED incompetents" +% +At these prices, I lose money -- but I make it up in volume. + -- Peter G. Alaquon +% +At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the +number of pens that person is carrying. +% +Be sociable. Speak to the person next to you in the unemployment line tomorrow. +% +Been Transferred Lately? +% +... before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech +or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What +did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matter who was +manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of +this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my +power of meddling. + -- Joseph Conrad +% +Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson +Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate. +Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and +great effort pushing boulders into a single word. + +It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow. +Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin +equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the +destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass +both Parliament and Party. + +It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other +planets, this may be the first message received from us. + -- The Realist, November, 1964. +% +Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather +a new wearer of clothes. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Biz is better. +% +Body by Nautilus, Brain by Mattel. +% +Bullwinkle: You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit. +General: What does that make YOU? +Bullwinkle: What else? An executive. + -- Jay Ward +% +Business is a good game -- lots of competition and minimum of rules. +You keep score with money. + -- Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari +% +Business will be either better or worse. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +"But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations' paws." +% +But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a +brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and +lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the +phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where +it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's +greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company. +Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: +the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then +immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is +the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. + +This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of +electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few +customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the +last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937; +the electric companies have been merely re-selling it ever since, which is +why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases. + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% + By the middle 1880's, practically all the roads except those in +the South, were of the present standard gauge. The southern roads were +still five feet between rails. + It was decided to change the gauge of all southern roads to standard, +in one day. This remarkable piece of work was carried out on a Sunday in May +of 1886. For weeks beforehand, shops had been busy pressing wheels in on the +axles to the new and narrower gauge, to have a supply of rolling stock which +could run on the new track as soon as it was ready. Finally, on the day set, +great numbers of gangs of track layers went to work at dawn. Everywhere one +rail was loosened, moved in three and one-half inches, and spiked down in its +new position. By dark, trains from anywhere in the United States could operate +over the tracks in the South, and a free interchange of freight cars everywhere +was possible. + -- Robert Henry, "Trains", 1957 +% +By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be +boss and work twelve. + -- Robert Frost +% +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. +% +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. +% +Chairman of the Bored. +% +Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 + +0. integrated 0. management 0. options +1. total 1. organizational 1. flexibility +2. systematized 2. monitored 2. capability +3. parallel 3. reciprocal 3. mobility +4. functional 4. digital 4. programming +5. responsive 5. logistical 5. concept +6. optional 6. transitional 6. time-phase +7. synchronized 7. incremental 7. projection +8. compatible 8. third-generation 8. hardware +9. balanced 9. policy 9. contingency + + The procedure is simple. Think of any three-digit number, then select +the corresponding buzzword from each column. For instance, number 257 produces +"systematized logistical projection," a phrase that can be dropped into +virtually any report with that ring of decisive, knowledgeable authority. "No +one will have the remotest idea of what you're talking about," says Broughton, +"but the important thing is that they're not about to admit it." + -- Philip Broughton, "How to Win at Wordsmanship" +% +Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to +be appointed to do the work. +% +Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of +the beholder. + -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter +% +Competitive fury is not always anger. It is the true missionary's courage +and zeal in facing the possibility that one's best may not be enough. + -- Gene Scott +% +... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in this +business, it probably would be gibberish. + -- Thom McLeod +% +"Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich." + -- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones] +% +Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to +stick to one thing till it gets there. + -- Josh Billings +% +Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then +give it back to them. +% +Credit ... is the only enduring testimonial to man's confidence in man. + -- James Blish +% +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. +% +Dealing with the problem of pure staff accumulation, +all our researches ... point to an average increase of 5.75% per year. + -- C. N. Parkinson +% +Dear Lord: + I just want *___one* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On +the other hand", again. +% +Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe? + +Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs +to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in: +WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S. +Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand- lettered +small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random +words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S. + -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" +% +Despite all appearances, your boss is a thinking, feeling, human being. +% + "Do you think what we're doing is wrong?" + "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!" + "I've never done anything illegal before." + "I thought you said you were an accountant!" +% +Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. +% +Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. + -- James J. Ling +% +"Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to +get more wax!!" +% +Dreams are free, but you get soaked on the connect time. +% +Drilling for oil is boring. +% +Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends. +% +Ernest asks Frank how long he has been working for the company. + "Ever since they threatened to fire me." +% +Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you +just how busy they are? +% +Every cloud has a silver lining; you should have sold it, and bought titanium. +% +"Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95." +% +Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know that he is. + -- Jean Anouilh, "The Lark" +% +Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster +than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. +It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. +It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes +up, you'd better be running. +% +"Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the +richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work" + -- Robert Orben +% +Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no +guarantee of eventual success. +% +Every young man should have a hobby: learning how to handle money is +the best one. + -- Jack Hurley +% +Everybody but Sam had signed up for a new company pension plan that +called for a small employee contribution. The company was paying all +the rest. Unfortunately, 100% employee participation was needed; +otherwise the plan was off. Sam's boss and his fellow workers pleaded +and cajoled, but to no avail. Sam said the plan would never pay off. +Finally the company president called Sam into his office. + "Sam," he said, "here's a copy of the new pension plan and here's +a pen. I want you to sign the papers. I'm sorry, but if you don't sign, +you're fired. As of right now." + Sam signed the papers immediately. + "Now," said the president, "would you mind telling me why you +couldn't have signed earlier?" + "Well, sir," replied Sam, "nobody explained it to me quite so +clearly before." +% +Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money. + -- Arthur Miller +% +Everyone who comes in here wants three things: + (1) They want it quick. + (2) They want it good. + (3) They want it cheap. +I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. + -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company +% +Exceptions prove the rule, and wreck the budget. + -- Miller +% +Excerpt from a conversation between a customer support person and a +customer working for a well-known military-affiliated research lab: + +Support: "You're not our only customer, you know." +Customer: "But we're one of the few with tactical nuclear weapons." +% +Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do +the work. + -- John G. Pollard +% + Exxon's 'Universe of Energy' tends to the peculiar rather than the +humorous ... After [an incomprehensible film montage about wind and sun and +rain and strip mines and] two or three minutes of mechanical confusion, the +seats locomote through a short tunnel filled with clock-work dinosaurs. +The dinosaurs are depicted without accuracy and too close to your face. + "One of the few real novelties at Epcot is the use of smell to +aggravate illusions. Of course, no one knows what dinosaurs smelled like, +but Exxon has decided they smelled bad. + "At the other end of Dino Ditch ... there's a final, very addled +message about facing challengehood tomorrow-wise. I dozed off during this, +but the import seems to be that dinosaurs don't have anything to do with +energy policy and neither do you." + -- P. J. O'Rourke, "Holidays in Hell" +% +Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. +% +Fast, cheap, good: pick two. +% +Fear is the greatest salesman. + -- Robert Klein +% +Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions, right here! +% +For every bloke who makes his mark, there's half a dozen waiting to rub it out. + -- Andy Capp +% +Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. + -- Thomas Alva Edison +% +Genius is ten percent inspiration and fifty percent capital gains. +% +Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules. + +Corollary: + Following the rules will not get the job done. +% +"Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, +I'd rather lie around. No contest." + -- Eric Clapton +% +God help those who do not help themselves. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +God helps them that help themselves. + -- Benjamin Franklin, "Poor Richard's Almanac" +% +Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to work. +% +Good salesmen and good repairmen will never go hungry. + -- R. E. Schenk +% +Happiness is a positive cash flow. +% +Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance? + -- Charlie McCarthy +% +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? +% +He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. + -- Bion +% +He who has but four and spends five has no need for a wallet. +% +He who is content with his lot probably has a lot. +% +He who steps on others to reach the top has good balance. +% +"Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from +Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..." +% + "Hey, Sam, how about a loan?" + "Whattaya need?" + "Oh, about $500." + "Whattaya got for collateral?" + "Whattaya need?" + "How about an eye?" + -- Sam Giancana +% +Hideously disfigured by an ancient Indian curse? + + WE CAN HELP! + +Call (511) 338-0959 for an immediate appointment. +% +Hire the morally handicapped. +% + Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to +pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber, +hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say "shop for," as +opposed to "obtain." This is the major drawback of home centers: they are +always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center +employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy +applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail +and screw -- in the entire store ... + + Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the +broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a +replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside +of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way +that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic +calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime +around the middle of next week." + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty. + -- Plato +% +Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people. + -- F. M. Hubbard +% +Hotels are tired of getting ripped off. I checked into a hotel and they +had towels from my house. + -- Mark Guido +% +How come everyone's going so slow if it's called rush hour? +% +How come financial advisors never seem to be as wealthy as they +claim they'll make you? +% + "How many people work here?" + "Oh, about half." +% +Human resources are human first, and resources second. + -- J. Garbers +% +"I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder +have included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products. +This technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's +reign. My carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go +buy some more." + -- timw@zeb.USWest.COM +% +I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work. +% +I attribute my success to intelligence, guts, determination, honesty, +ambition, and having enough money to buy people with those qualities. +% +I BET WHAT HAPPENED was they discovered fire and invented the wheel on +the same day. Then that night, they burned the wheel. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats; If it be man's work I will do it. +% +I consider a new device or technology to have been culturally accepted when +it has been used to commit a murder. + -- M. Gallaher +% +I don't do it for the money. + -- Donald Trump, Art of the Deal +% +I don't have any use for bodyguards, but I do have a specific use for two +highly trained certified public accountants. + -- Elvis Presley +% +I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve +immortality through not dying. + -- Woody Allen +% + I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the +accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For +the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that +can't be measured in monetary terms. + Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to +have that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came +by subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot +should someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly +understand his long delay. +% +I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +I have ways of making money that you know nothing of. + -- John D. Rockefeller +% +I just asked myself... what would John DeLorean do? + -- Raoul Duke +% +I just need enough to tide me over until I need more. + -- Bill Hoest +% +I like work; it fascinates me; I can sit and look at it for hours. +% +I never cheated an honest man, only rascals. They wanted something for +nothing. I gave them nothing for something. + -- Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil +% +I owe the public nothing. + -- J. P. Morgan +% +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 "Einstein On The Beach" +% +I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending +their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to +buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike. + -- Emile Henry Gauvreay +% +I'd rather be led to hell than managed to heaven. +% +I'd rather just believe that it's done by little elves running around. +% +I'm always looking for a new idea that will be more productive than its cost. + -- David Rockefeller +% +I've got all the money I'll ever need if I die by 4 o'clock. + -- Henny Youngman +% +I: + The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin + with a silk sow. The same is true of money. +II: + If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would + probably be twice as good as yesterday was. +III: + There are no lazy veteran lion hunters. +IV: + If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to. +V: + One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output. + Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average + output. + -- Norman Augustine +% +If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had +lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him. +% +If a thing's worth doing, it is worth doing badly. + -- G. K. Chesterton +% +If a thing's worth having, it's worth cheating for. + -- W. C. Fields +% +If all else fails, lower your standards. +% +If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers? +% +If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there +better be no trade. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud. + -- Dagny Taggart, "Atlas Shrugged" +% +If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to invent it. +% +IF I HAD A MINE SHAFT, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's +got to be a better way. + -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +If I want your opinion, I'll ask you to fill out the necessary form. +% +If I were a grave-digger or even a hangman, there are some people I could +work for with a great deal of enjoyment. + -- Douglas Jerrold +% +If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money. +% +If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it. +% +If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we would +all be millionaires. + -- Abigail Van Buren +% +If what they've been doing hasn't solved the problem, tell them to +do something else. + -- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting" +% +If you always postpone pleasure you will never have it. Quit work and play +for once! +% +If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are real +good, you will get out of it. +% +If you are over 80 years old and accompanied by your parents, we will +cash your check. +% +If you are shooting under 80 you are neglecting your business; +over 80 you are neglecting your golf. + -- Walter Hagen +% +If you aren't rich you should always look useful. + -- Louis-Ferdinand Celine +% +If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars. + -- J. Paul Getty +% +If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights. +% +If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. +% +If you didn't have to work so hard, you'd have more time to be depressed. +% +If you do something right once, someone will ask you to do it again. +% +If you don't have time to do it right, where are you going to find the time +to do it over? +% +If you fail to plan, plan to fail. +% +If you had better tools, you could more effectively demonstrate your +total incompetence. +% +If you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it. +% +If you hype something and it succeeds, you're a genius -- it wasn't a +hype. If you hype it and it fails, then it was just a hype. + -- Neil Bogart +% +If you sell diamonds, you cannot expect to have many customers. +But a diamond is a diamond even if there are no customers. + -- Swami Prabhupada +% +If you suspect a man, don't employ him. +% +If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car +payments. + -- Earl Wilson +% +If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people he gave +it to. + -- Dorthy Parker +% +If you want to put yourself on the map, publish your own map. +% +If you would know the value of money, go try to borrow some. + -- Ben Franklin +% + If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs +around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace +explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The +"professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and deposits a +large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend the better part of the +week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after +which the "professional" returns and gives you a bill for slightly more +money than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. +Senate. + And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself. You +figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. How difficult can +it be?" + Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible, which +is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying other +people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far +less money. This article can help you. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +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. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving +from where you left them to where you can't find them. +% +In 1914, the first crossword puzzle was printed in a newspaper. The +creator received $4000 down ... and $3000 across. +% +In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: +the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy. +% +In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence ... +in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent +to carry out its duties ... Work is accomplished by those employees who +have not yet reached their level of incompetence. + -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter, "The Peter Principle" +% +In case of atomic attack, all work rules will be temporarily suspended. +% +In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and +make it better. +% +In every hierarchy the cream rises until it sours. + -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter +% +In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't need it. +% +In the middle of a wide field is a pot of gold. 100 feet to the north stands +a smart manager. 100 feet to the south stands a dumb manager. 100 feet to +the east is the Easter Bunny, and 100 feet to the west is Santa Claus. + +Q: Who gets to the pot of gold first? +A: The dumb manager. All the rest are myths. +% +Innovation is hard to schedule. + -- Dan Fylstra +% +Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the +salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon. +% +Is a person who blows up banks an econoclast? +% +It is better to give than to lend, and it costs about the same. +% +It is better to live rich than to die rich. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +It is better to travel hopefully than to fly Continental. +% +It is difficult to soar with the eagles when you work with turkeys. +% +It is imperative when flying coach that you restrain any tendency toward +the vividly imaginative. For although it may momentarily appear to be the +case, it is not at all likely that the cabin is entirely inhabited by +crying babies smoking inexpensive domestic cigars. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of +work to do. + -- Jerome Klapka Jerome +% +It is much harder to find a job than to keep one. +% +It is not enough that I should succeed. Others must fail. + -- Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's + [Also attributed to David Merrick. Ed.] + +It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. + -- Gore Vidal + [Great minds think alike? Ed.] +% +It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat +rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they +kill me. You're talking about the American way of survival of the fittest. + -- Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's +% +It's a poor workman who blames his tools. +% +It's been a business doing pleasure with you. +% +It's fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour! + -- Macy's +% +It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off the ground. + -- Daniel B. Luten +% +It's very glamorous to raise millions of dollars, until it's time for the +venture capitalist to suck your eyeballs out. + -- Peter Kennedy, chairman of Kraft & Kennedy. +% +Just because he's dead is no reason to lay off work. +% +Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help. +% +Keep your boss's boss off your boss's back. +% +Keep your Eye on the Ball, +Your Shoulder to the Wheel, +Your Nose to the Grindstone, +Your Feet on the Ground, +Your Head on your Shoulders. +Now... try to get something DONE! +% +Lavish spending can be disastrous. Don't buy any lavishes for a while. +% +Lend money to a bad debtor and he will hate you. +% +Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a +number. Youre two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash and +another number. + -- James Estes +% +Let's organize this thing and take all the fun out of it. +% +Life is a healthy respect for mother nature laced with greed. +% +Life is cheap, but the accessories can kill you. +% +Live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so. + -- Josh Billings +% +Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip +around the Sun. +% +Lo! Men have become the tool of their tools. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Loan-department manager: "There isn't any fine print. At these +interest rates, we don't need it." +% +Lonesome? + +Like a change? +Like a new job? +Like excitement? +Like to meet new and interesting people? + +JUST SCREW-UP ONE MORE TIME!!!!!!! +% +Look, we trade every day out there with hustlers, deal-makers, shysters, +con-men. That's the way businesses get started. That's the way this +country was built. + -- Hubert Allen +% +Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. + -- Frank Hubbard +% +Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags. + -- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise" +% +Luck, that's when preparation and opportunity meet. + -- P. E. Trudeau +% +Make headway at work. Continue to let things deteriorate at home. +% +Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this-- +no dog exchanges bones with another. + -- Adam Smith +% +Man must shape his tools lest they shape him. + -- Arthur R. Miller +% +Management: How many feet do mice have? +Reply: Mice have four feet. +M: Elaborate! +R: Mice have five appendages, and four of them are feet. +M: No discussion of fifth appendage! +R: Mice have five appendages; four of them are feet; one is a tail. +M: What? Feet with no legs? +R: Mice have four legs, four feet, and one tail per unit-mouse. +M: Confusing -- is that a total of 9 appendages? +R: Mice have four leg-foot assemblies and one tail assembly per body. +M: Does not fully discuss the issue! +R: Each mouse comes equipped with four legs and a tail. Each leg + is equipped with a foot at the end opposite the body; the tail + is not equipped with a foot. +M: Descriptive? Yes. Forceful NO! +R: Allotment of appendages for mice will be: Four foot-leg assemblies, + one tail. Deviation from this policy is not permitted as it would + constitute misapportionment of scarce appendage assets. +M: Too authoritarian; stifles creativity! +R: Mice have four feet; each foot is attached to a small leg joined + integrally with the overall mouse structural sub-system. Also + attached to the mouse sub-system is a thin tail, non-functional and + ornamental in nature. +M: Too verbose/scientific. Answer the question! +R: Mice have four feet. +% +Many people are unenthusiastic about their work. +% +Many people are unenthusiastic about your work. +% +Many people write memos to tell you they have nothing to say. +% +Mater artium necessitas. + [Necessity is the mother of invention]. +% +Maternity pay? Now every Tom, Dick and Harry will get pregnant. + -- Malcolm Smith +% +Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge it. +% +McDonald's -- Because you're worth it. +% +Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active. + -- Leonardo da Vinci +% +Men take only their needs into consideration -- never their abilities. + -- Napoleon Bonaparte +% +Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and +it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin +very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently +tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ... + +[EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important world events +such as agriculture, we're going to delete the next few square feet of the +woman's skin. Thank you.] + +... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your +cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of +billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is even more +interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is a fact. Your +skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the older veteran +cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and obtained offices +with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the window head first, +without so much as a pension plan, by younger hotshot cells moving up from +below. + -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face" +% +Mental power tended to corrupt, and absolute intelligence tended to +corrupt absolutely, until the victim eschewed violence entirely in +favor of smart solutions to stupid problems. + -- Piers Anthony +% +Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while +you're being miserable. + -- C. B. Luce +% +Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position. + -- Christopher Marlowe +% +Money cannot buy love, nor even friendship. +% +Money doesn't talk, it swears. + -- Bob Dylan +% +Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. +% +Money is its own reward. +% +Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots. +% +Money is the root of all wealth. +% +Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Money isn't everything -- but it's a long way ahead of what comes next. + -- Sir Edmond Stockdale +% +Money may buy friendship but money cannot buy love. +% +Money will say more in one moment than the most eloquent lover can in years. +% +Moneyliness is next to Godliness. + -- Andries van Dam +% +Most people will listen to your unreasonable demands, if you'll consider +their unacceptable offer. +% +Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo. + -- Xaviera Hollander + [The world wants to be cheated, so cheat.] +% +My idea of roughing it is when room service is late. +% +My idea of roughing it turning the air conditioner too low. +% +My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income. + -- Errol Flynn + +Any man who has $10,000 left when he dies is a failure. + -- Errol Flynn +% +"Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity +is the mother of futile dodges" is much nearer the truth. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +Neckties strangle clear thinking. + -- Lin Yutang +% +Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. +Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss +the one you are least interested, and say nothing about the other. +% +Never buy from a rich salesman. + -- Goldenstern +% +Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him. +% +Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repainting. + -- Billy Rose +% +Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +Never let someone who says it cannot be done interrupt the person who is +doing it. +% +Never say you know a man until you have divided an inheritance with him. +% +Never tell people how to do things. Tell them WHAT to do and they will +surprise you with their ingenuity. + -- Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. +% +Never trust anyone who says money is no object. +% +Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% + NEW YORK-- Kraft Foods, Inc. announced today that its board of +directors unanimously rejected the $11 billion takeover bid by Philip +Morris and Co. A Kraft spokesman stated in a press conference that the +offer was rejected because the $90-per-share bid did not reflect the +true value of the company. + Wall Street insiders, however, tell quite a different story. +Apparently, the Kraft board of directors had all but signed the takeover +agreement when they learned of Philip Morris' marketing plans for one of +their major Middle East subsidiaries. To a person, the board voted to +reject the bid when they discovered that the tobacco giant intended to +reorganize Israeli Cheddar, Ltd., and name the new company Cheeses of Nazareth. +% +Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing +else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow +the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked. + -- Larry Niven, "The Mote in God's Eye" +% +No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a camel -- +anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform effectively under +such difficult conditions. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +"No job too big; no fee too big!" + -- Dr. Peter Venkman, "Ghost-busters" +% +No one gets sick on Wednesdays. +% +No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances. +% +No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it. + -- C. Schulz +% +No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere. +% +No skis take rocks like rental skis! +% +No spitting on the Bus! +Thank you, The Mgt. +% +None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary +to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one +ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a +job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing +forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient +he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a +state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the +"expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible. + -- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work" +% +Nothing is finished until the paperwork is done. +% +Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. + -- A. H. Weiler +% +Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires +tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth. + -- Nero Wolfe +% +Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute. +% +Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss put in an honest day's work. +% +Nothing recedes like success. + -- Walter Winchell +% +Nothing succeeds like excess. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Nothing succeeds like success. + -- Alexandre Dumas +% +Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success. + -- Christopher Lascl +% +Nothing will dispel enthusiasm like a small admission fee. + -- Kim Hubbard +% +Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first +overcome. + -- Dr. Johnson +% + Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home tool +sets for under $4?" An excellent question. + Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell +plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where they +have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and +malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon administration. In either +the hardware or housewares department, you'll find an item imported from an +obscure Oriental country and described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of +a little handle with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental +notions of tools that Americans might use around the home. Buy it. + This is the kind of tool set professionals use. Not only is it +inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the +so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off if +you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to direct +sunlight. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the +reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest +amount of hot air. + -- Thomas L. Martin +% +Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy. +% +Once it hits the fan, the only rational choice is to sweep it up, package it, +and sell it as fertilizer. +% + One fine day, the bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, +and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops -- a few +people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well. At the next +stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a +wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, +"Big John doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back. + Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically +meek? Well, he was. Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't +happy about it. Well, the next day the same thing happened -- Big John got on +again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the +one after that, and so forth. This grated on the bus driver, who started +losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him. Finally he +could stand it no longer. He signed up for bodybuilding courses, karate, judo, +and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; +what's more, he felt really good about himself. + So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus +and said "Big John doesn't pay!," the driver stood up, glared back at the +passenger, and screamed, "And why not?" + With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a +bus pass." +% +One good suit is worth a thousand resumes. +% +One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as one +man would have produced alone. These two plus two more will produce half +again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin to represent a +creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter as many ... + -- Anthony Chevins +% +One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a +thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with +the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing +hymns. The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and +laughed. "You will not succeed," they told him. "No one can." + To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might +happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. +And perhaps the horse will learn to sing. + -- "The Mote in God's Eye", Niven and Pournelle +% +One possible reason that things aren't going according to plan +is that there never was a plan in the first place. +% +One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could +manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that they be +installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips. Let's say your +congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding study on how +the French government handles diseases transmitted by sherbet. Just when he +got to the plane, his mandatory air bag, strapped around his waist, would +inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus rendering him too large to fit through the +plane door. It could also be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman +proposed a law. ("Mr. Speaker, people ask me, why should October be +designated as Cuticle Inspection Month? And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.") +This would save millions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public +would violently support a law requiring airbags on congressmen. The problem +is that your potential market is very small: there are only around 500 +members of Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil, +are already too large to fit on normal aircraft. + -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants" +% +One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a new model. +% +Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer. +% +Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't +recognize them. +% +Optimism is the content of small men in high places. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack Up" +% +Or you or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. +I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but +we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. + -- J. Wellington Wells +% +Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high spirits. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson +% +Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is +they charge fifteen cents for them. +% +Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing. + -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president, Litton Industries +% +Overdrawn? But I still have checks left! +% +Owe no man any thing... + -- Romans 13:8 +% +People are always available for work in the past tense. +% +People seem to think that the blanket phrase, "I only work here," absolves +them utterly from any moral obligation in terms of the public -- but this +was precisely Eichmann's excuse for his job in the concentration camps. +% +People will buy anything that's one to a customer. +% +Please keep your hands off the secretary's reproducing equipment. +% +Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas" +until you are told that those rooms are "punched out." Once punched out, +we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas, and such. + -- N. Meyrowitz +% + Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities, +requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm into a +clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing problems, such as +annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the radio. But before we get +into specific techniques, let's look at how plumbing works. + A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except +that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has +pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets. +So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at all like your +electrical system, which is good, because electricity can kill you. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Porsche: there simply is no substitute. + -- Risky Business +% +Possessions increase to fill the space available for their storage. + -- Ryan +% +Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little +more time for dreaming. + -- J. P. McEvoy +% +Promise her anything, but give her Exxon unleaded. +% +Promising costs nothing, it's the delivering that kills you. +% +Promptness is its own reward, if one lives by the clock instead of the sword. +% +Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. +% +Put your best foot forward. Or just call in and say you're sick. +% +Put your Nose to the Grindstone! + -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd. +% +Quantity is no substitute for quality, but its the only one we've got. +% +Real wealth can only increase. + -- R. Buckminster Fuller +% +Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than +being flat broke and having a stomach ache. + -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" +% +Recent investments will yield a slight profit. +% +Recent research has tended to show that the Abominable No-Man +is being replaced by the Prohibitive Procrastinator. + -- C. N. Parkinson +% +Regardless of whether a mission expands or contracts, administrative +overhead continues to grow at a steady rate. +% +Remember -- only 10% of anything can be in the top 10%. +% +Remember to say hello to your bank teller. +% +Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat. +% +Retirement means that when someone says "Have a nice day", you +actually have a shot at it. +% +Riches cover a multitude of woes. + -- Menander +% +Rule #7: Silence is not acquiescence. + Contrary to what you may have heard, silence of those present is + not necessarily consent, even the reluctant variety. They simply may + sit in stunned silence and figure ways of sabotaging the plan after + they regain their composure. +% +Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be +surprised at how little you have. + -- Ernest Haskins +% +Sears has everything. +% +Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence. +% + "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. +"An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have +said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now." + "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly. + "Too proud?" the other enquired. + Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," +she said, "that one can't help growing older." + "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With +proper assistance, you might have left off at seven." + -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass" +% +Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a big +store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at reasonable +prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with that, let's build a home +center. And before long home centers were springing up like crabgrass all +over the United States. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing +golf with his boss. +% +So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what +is the root of money? + -- Ayn Rand +% +So... did you ever wonder, do garbagemen take showers before they go to work? +% +Some people carve careers, others chisel them. +% +Some people have a great ambition: to build something +that will last, at least until they've finished building it. +% +Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the +book or even what book. +% +Some people only open up to tell you that they're closed. +% +Some people pray for more than they are willing to work for. +% +Some people say a front-engine car handles best. Some people say a +rear-engine car handles best. I say a rented car handles best. + -- P. J. O'Rourke +% +Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the +pens will multiply instead of disappear. +% +Someday somebody has got to decide whether the typewriter is the machine, +or the person who operates it. +% +Someday your prints will come. + -- Kodak +% +Someone is unenthusiastic about your work. +% +Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names +the streets after them. + -- Bill Vaughn +% +Success is something I will dress for when I get there, and not until. +% +Suggest you just sit there and wait till life gets easier. +% +Support your local church or synagogue. Worship at Bank of America. +% +Surprise due today. Also the rent. +% +Surprise your boss. Get to work on time. +% +Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way. +% + Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content +to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good +beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up +drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a +nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves +and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" So Coca-Cola +was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw no need to +improve ... + -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" +% +Take time to reflect on all the things you have, not as a result of your +merit or hard work or because God or chance or the efforts of other people +have given them to you. +% +Take your work seriously but never take yourself seriously; and do not +take what happens either to yourself or your work seriously. + -- Booth Tarkington +% +Talent does what it can. +Genius does what it must. +You do what you get paid to do. +% +Telephone books are like dictionaries -- if you know the answer before +you look it up, you can eventually reaffirm what you thought you knew +but weren't sure. But if you're searching for something you don't +already know, your fingers could walk themselves to death. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, +work till we die. + -- C. S. Lewis +% +That's life. + What's life? +A magazine. + How much does it cost? +Two-fifty. + I only have a dollar. +That's life. +% +The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by +people who want some. + -- Dwight MacDonald +% +The `loner' may be respected, but he is always resented by his colleagues, +for he seems to be passing a critical judgment on them, when he may be +simply making a limiting statement about himself. + -- Sidney Harris +% +The absent ones are always at fault. +% +The annual meeting of the "You Have To Listen To Experience" Club is now in +session. Our Achievement Awards this year are in the fields of publishing, +advertising and industry. For best consistent contribution in the field of +publishing our award goes to editor, R.L.K., [...] for his unrivaled alle- +giance without variation to the statement: "Personally I'd love to do it, +we'd ALL love to do it. But we're not going to do it. It's not the kind of +book our house knows how to handle." Our superior performance award in the +field of advertising goes to media executive, E.L.M., [...] for the continu- +ally creative use of the old favorite: "I think what you've got here could be +very exciting. Why not give it one more try based on the approach I've out- +lined and see if you can come up with something fresh." Our final award for +courageous holding action in the field of industry goes to supervisor, R.S., +[...] for her unyielding grip on "I don't care if they fire me, I've been +arguing for a new approach for YEARS but are we SURE that this is the right +time--" I would like to conclude this meeting with a verse written specially +for our prospectus by our founding president fifty years ago -- and now, as +then, fully expressive of the emotion most close to all our hearts -- + Treat freshness as a youthful quirk, + And dare not stray to ideas new, + For if t'were tried they might e'en work + And for a living what woulds't we do? +% +The answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is... + + Four day work week, + Two ply toilet paper! +% +The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything was +released with the kind permission of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, +Sages, Luminaries, and Other Professional Thinking Persons. +% +The average individual's position in any hierarchy is a lot like pulling +a dogsled -- there's no real change of scenery except for the lead dog. +% +The best equipment for your work is, of course, the most expensive. +However, your neighbor is always wasting money that should be yours +by judging things by their price. +% +The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do +what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with +them while they do it. + -- Theodore Roosevelt +% +The best laid plans of mice and men are held up in the legal department. +% +The best things in life are for a fee. +% +The best things in life go on sale sooner or later. +% +The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, "I've got responsibilities." +% +The Bible on letters of reference: + + Are we beginning all over again to produce our credentials? Do +we, like some people, need letters of introduction to you, or from you? +No, you are all the letter we need, a letter written on your heart; any +man can see it for what it is and read it for himself. + -- 2 Corinthians 3:1-2, New English translation +% +The biggest mistake you can make is to believe that you are working for +someone else. +% + The boss returned from lunch in a good mood and called the whole staff +in to listen to a couple of jokes he had picked up. Everybody but one girl +laughed uproariously. "What's the matter?" grumbled the boss. "Haven't you +got a sense of humor?" + "I don't have to laugh," she said. "I'm leaving Friday anyway. +% +The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up +in the morning, and does not stop until you get to work. +% +The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job +application form. + -- Stanley J. Randall +% +The confusion of a staff member is measured by the length of his memos. + -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 +% +The cost of feathers has risen, even down is up! +% +The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity. +% +The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down. +% +The decision doesn't have to be logical; it was unanimous. +% +The degree of technical confidence is inversely proportional to the +level of management. +% +The departing division general manager met a last time with his young +successor and gave him three envelopes. "My predecessor did this for me, +and I'll pass the tradition along to you," he said. "At the first sign +of trouble, open the first envelope. Any further difficulties, open the +second envelope. Then, if problems continue, open the third envelope. +Good luck." The new manager returned to his office and tossed the envelopes +into a drawer. + Six months later, costs soared and earnings plummeted. Shaken, the +young man opened the first envelope, which said, "Blame it all on me." + The next day, he held a press conference and did just that. The +crisis passed. + Six months later, sales dropped precipitously. The beleaguered +manager opened the second envelope. It said, "Reorganize." + He held another press conference, announcing that the division +would be restructured. The crisis passed. + A year later, everything went wrong at once and the manager was +blamed for all of it. The harried executive closed his office door, sank +into his chair, and opened the third envelope. + "Prepare three envelopes..." it said. +% +The difference between a career and a job is about 20 hours a week. +% +The difficult we do today; the impossible takes a little longer. +% +The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in late +and owns the worm farm. + -- Travis McGee +% +The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and +add ten percent. +% +The end of labor is to gain leisure. +% +The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for +experience, while the error of age is to believe experience is a substitute +for intelligence. + -- Lyman Bryson +% +The faster I go, the behinder I get. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +The finest eloquence is that which gets things done. +% +The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, the last 10% takes the +other 90% of the time. +% +The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of +management is that success equals skill. + -- Robert Heller +% +The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist "Jack." + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. + -- Paul Erlich +% +The flush toilet is the basis of Western civilization. + -- Alan Coult +% +The gent who wakes up and finds himself a success hasn't been asleep. +% +The greatest productive force is human selfishness. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +The hardest part of climbing the ladder of success is getting through +the crowd at the bottom. +% +The hieroglyphics are all unreadable except for a notation on the back, +which reads "Genuine authentic Egyptian papyrus. Guaranteed to be at +least 5000 years old." +% +The idea there was that consumers would bring their broken electronic +devices, such as television sets and VCR's, to the destruction centers, +where trained personnel would whack them (the devices) with sledgehammers. +With their devices thus permanently destroyed, consumers would then be free +to go out and buy new devices, rather than have to fritter away years of +their lives trying to have the old ones repaired at so-called "factory +service centers," which in fact consist of two men named Lester poking at +the insides of broken electronic devices with cheap cigars and going, +"Lookit all them WIRES in there!" + -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants" +% +The ideal voice for radio may be defined as showing no substance, no sex, +no owner, and a message of importance for every housewife. + -- Harry V. Wade +% +The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest. +% +The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important +point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly +important thing to people. + -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King +% +The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the +number of participants. + -- Adam Walinsky +% +The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided +by the number of people in the group. +% +The King and his advisor are overlooking the battle field: + +King: "How goes the battle plan?" +Advisor: "See those little black specks running to the right?" +K: "Yes." +A: "Those are their guys. And all those little red specks running + to the left are our guys. Then when they collide we wait till + the dust clears." +K: "And?" +A: "If there are more red specks left than black specks, we win." +K: "But what about the ^#!!$% battle plan?" +A: "So far, it seems to be going according to specks." +% +The last person that quit or was fired will be held responsible for +everything that goes wrong -- until the next person quits or is fired. +% +The longer the title, the less important the job. +% +The major difference between bonds and bond traders is that the bonds will +eventually mature. +% +The means-and-ends moralists, or non-doers, always end up on their ends +without any means. + -- Saul Alinsky +% +The meek don't want it. +% +The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse. +% +The meek shall inherit the earth, but *not* its mineral rights. + -- J. P. Getty +% +The meek shall inherit the Earth. (But they're gonna have to fight for it.) +% +The meek shall inherit the earth; but by that time there won't be +anything left worth inheriting. +% +The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds that the +competition already has the order. +% +The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get. +% +The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. + -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" +% +The more pretentious a corporate name, the smaller the organization. (For +instance, The Murphy Center for Codification of Human and Organizational Law, +contrasted to IBM, GM, AT&T ...) +% +The most delightful day after the one on which you buy a cottage in +the country is the one on which you resell it. + -- J. Brecheux +% +The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to +watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting. + -- T. H. White +% +The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut. +% +The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop +and take a rest. +% +The only promotion rules I can think of are that a sense of shame is to +be avoided at all costs and there is never any reason for a hustler to +be less cunning than more virtuous men. Oh yes ... whenever you think +you've got something really great, add ten per cent more. + -- Bill Veeck +% +The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has +already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture, finished, +and put inside boxes. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up +until 5 or 6 PM. +% +The optimum committee has no members. + -- Norman Augustine +% +The opulence of the front office door varies inversely with the fundamental +solvency of the firm. +% +The other line moves faster. +% +The person who can smile when something goes wrong has thought of +someone to blame it on. +% +The person who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. +% +The person who's taking you to lunch has no intention of paying. +% +The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it. + -- Anthony Burgess +% +The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate +knowledge of its ugly side. + -- James Baldwin +% +The primary cause of failure in electrical appliances is an expired +warranty. Often, you can get an appliance running again simply by changing +the warranty expiration date with a 15/64-inch felt-tipped marker. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +The problem that we thought was a problem was, indeed, a problem, but +not the problem we thought was the problem. + -- Mike Smith +% +The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people +worry than work. +% +The reward for working hard is more hard work. +% +The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. + -- Emerson +% +The rich get rich, and the poor get poorer. +The haves get more, the have-nots die. +% +The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared +for not by our labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his +infinite wisdom has given control of property interests of the country, and +upon the successful management of which so much remains. + -- George F. Baer, railroad industrialist +% +The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travelers pay the +expense of it. + -- Josh Billings +% +The salary of the chief executive of the large corporation is not a market +award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal +gesture by the individual to himself. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith, "Annals of an Abiding Liberal" +% +The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got +it made. + -- Jean Giraudoux +% +The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability +and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man's neck but +money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +The shortest distance between two points is under construction. + -- Noelie Alito +% +The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up. +% +The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the sooner you will be +able to correct them. + -- Nicolaides +% +The star of riches is shining upon you. +% +The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands +what will sell. + -- Confucius +% +The term "fire" brings up visions of violence and mayhem and the ugly scene +of shooting employees who make mistakes. We will now refer to this process +as "deleting" an employee (much as a file is deleted from a disk). The +employee is simply there one instant, and gone the next. All the terrible +temper tantrums, crying, and threats are eliminated. + -- Kenny's Korner +% +The time spent on any item of the agenda [of a finance committee] will be +in inverse proportion to the sum involved. + -- C. N. Parkinson +% +The trouble with a lot of self-made men is that they worship their creator. +% +The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time. +% +The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing more +important to do. +% +The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody +appreciates how difficult it was. +% +The trouble with money is it costs too much! +% +The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work. + -- Herbert V. Prochnow +% +The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +The two most beautiful words in the English language are "Cheque Enclosed." + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The use of money is all the advantage there is to having money. + -- B. Franklin +% +The wages of sin are high but you get your money's worth. +% +The wages of sin are unreported. +% +The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start +with a large fortune. +% +The Worst Car Hire Service + When David Schwartz left university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-wreck +as a joke. Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up +shabby, wreckages waiting for the scrap heap in California. + He put on a cap and looked forward to watching people's faces as he +conducted them round the choice of bumperless, dented junkmobiles. + To his lasting surprise there was an insatiable demand for them and +he now has 26 thriving branches all over America. "People like driving +round in the worst cars available," he said. Of course they do. + "If a driver damages the side of a car and is honest enough to +admit it, I tell him, `Forget it'. If they bring a car back late we +overlook it. If they've had a crash and it doesn't involve another vehicle +we might overlook that too." + "Where's the ashtray?" asked one Los Angeles wife, as she settled +into the ripped interior. "Honey," said her husband, "the whole car's the +ash tray." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +Their idea of an offer you can't refuse is an offer... and you'd better +not refuse. +% +Them as has, gets. +% + Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations. + He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the +Jordan, then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an +open market. + If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he +should not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of +himself. + + Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree. + Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg. + Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +Then there was the ScoutMaster who got a fantastic deal on this case of +Tates brand compasses for his troupe; only $1.25 each! Only problem was, +when they got them out in the woods, the compasses were all stuck pointing +to the "W" on the dial. + +Moral: + He who has a Tates is lost! +% +There are many of us in this old world of ours who hold that things break +about even for all of us. I have observed, for example, that we all get +about the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summer and the poor +get it in the winter. + -- Bat Masterson +% +There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening +with an insurance salesman? + -- Woody Allen +% +There has been a little distress selling on the stock exchange. + -- Thomas W. Lamont, October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday) +% +There is a good deal of solemn cant about the common interests of capital +and labour. As matters stand, their only common interest is that of cutting +each other's throat. + -- Brooks Atkinson, "Once Around the Sun" +% +There is hardly a thing in the world that some man can not make a little +worse and sell a little cheaper. +% +There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over. +% +"There is no Father Christmas. It's just a marketing ploy to make low income +parents' lives a misery." +"... I want you to picture the trusting face of a child, streaked with tears +because of what you just said." +"I want you to picture the face of its mother, because one week's dole won't +pay for one Master of the Universe Battlecruiser!" + -- Filthy Rich and Catflap +% +There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing. +% +There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it +reluctantly. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +There is one way to find out if a man is honest -- ask him. If he says +"Yes" you know he is crooked. + -- Groucho Marx +% +There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong. +% +There must be more to life than having everything. + -- Maurice Sendak +% + There was a college student trying to earn some pocket money by +going from house to house offering to do odd jobs. He explained this to +a man who answered one door. + "How much will you charge to paint my porch?" asked the man. + "Forty dollars." + "Fine" said the man, and gave the student the paint and brushes. + Three hours later the paint-splattered lad knocked on the door again. +"All done!", he says, and collects his money. "By the way," the student says, +"That's not a Porsche, it's a Ferrari." +% +There's no such thing as a free lunch. + -- Milton Friedman +% +There's nothing worse for your business than extra Santa Clauses +smoking in the men's room. + -- W. Bossert +% + They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even +drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer +pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which +demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and +sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more. + They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought. +No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was +ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae +was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground +beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for doing these +things was itself the doing of them. + To wield oneself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and +so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the +greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand +and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt +sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body +of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food +spread only for demons or for gods." + -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not" +% +Things worth having are worth cheating for. +% +Think lucky. If you fall in a pond, check your pockets for fish. + -- Darrell Royal +% +This is a good time to punt work. +% +This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly, because +the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under which it +recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has "deregulated" +the airline industry. What this means for you, the consumer, is that the +airlines are no longer required to follow any rules whatsoever. They can +show snuff movies. They can charge for oxygen. They can hire pilots right +out of Vending Machine Refill Person School. They can conserve fuel by +ejecting husky passengers over water. They can ram competing planes in +mid-air. These innovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which +have been passed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights with +amazingly low fares, such as $29. Of course, certain restrictions do apply, +the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark, and you must +pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out. + -- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations" +% +This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of +the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many +solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were +largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, +which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of +paper that were unhappy. + -- Douglas Adams +% +This week only, all our fiber-fill jackets are marked down! +% +Those who claim the dead never return to life haven't ever been around +here at quitting time. +% +Those who do things in a noble spirit of self-sacrifice are to be avoided +at all costs. + -- N. Alexander. +% +Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. + -- Theophrastus +% +Time to take stock. Go home with some office supplies. +% +To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +To be or not to be, that is the bottom line. +% +To do nothing is to be nothing. +% +To do two things at once is to do neither. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +To get back on your feet, miss two car payments. +% +To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three +persons, two of them absent. +% +To restore a sense of reality, I think Walt Disney should have a Hardluckland. + -- Jack Paar +% +To save a single life is better than to build a seven story pagoda. +% +To see a need and wait to be asked, is to already refuse. +% +To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest +and cost the most. +% +To stay youthful, stay useful. +% +To the landlord belongs the doorknobs. +% +To thine own self be true. (If not that, at least make some money.) +% +To understand this important story, you have to understand how the telephone +company works. Your telephone is connected to a local computer, which is in +turn connected to a regional computer, which is in turn connected to a +loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of +Lawrence, Kan. + +Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it +suspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the computer +above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the one above it, +until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe break down in tears +and tell your closest friend about a sordid incident from your past +involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse, an entire religious order, a +garden hose and six quarts of tapioca pudding, the top computer feeds your +conversation into Edna's loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on +the porch to listen and drink gin and laugh themselves silly. + -- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own Phones?" +% +Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem +more afraid of life than death. + -- James F. Byrnes +% +Too much is not enough. +% +Too much of everything is just enough. + -- Bob Wier +% +Truth is free, but information costs. +% +Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. + -- Howard Kandel +% +Veni, Vidi, VISA: + I came, I saw, I did a little shopping. +% +Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an +infinitely large Universe, such as the one in which we live, most things one +could possibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow +somewhere. A forest was discovered recently in which most of the trees grew +ratchet screwdrivers as fruit. The life cycle of the ratchet screwdriver is +quite interesting. Once picked it needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can +lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its +outer skin that crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable +little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a hole +for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what the +screwdriver is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, +is presumably working on it. +% +Vests are to suits as seat-belts are to cars. +% +VI: + A hungry dog hunts best. + A hungrier dog hunts even better. +VII: + Decreased business base increases overhead. + So does increased business base. +VIII: + The most unsuccessful four years in the education of a cost-estimator + is fifth grade arithmetic. +IX: + Acronyms and abbreviations should be used to the maximum extent + possible to make trivial ideas profound. Q.E.D. +X: + Bulls do not win bull fights; people do. + People do not win people fights; lawyers do. + -- Norman Augustine +% +Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving +from where you left them to where you can't find them. +% + WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL: + +Firings will continue until morale improves. +% +Waste not, get your budget cut next year. +% +We all like praise, but a hike in our pay is the best kind of ways. +% +We all live in a state of ambitious poverty. + -- Decimus Junius Juvenalis +% +We are not a loved organization, but we are a respected one. + -- John Fisher +% + We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why +you are so tired. + There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought. + The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over +60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20 +years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work. + There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves +19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which +leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state +and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in +hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. + Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail, +so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and +brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself! +% +"We maintain that the very foundation of our way of life is what we call +free enterprise," said Cash McCall, "but when one of our citizens +show enough free enterprise to pile up a little of that profit, we do +our best to make him feel that he ought to be ashamed of himself." + -- Cameron Hawley +% +We were so poor that we thought new clothes meant someone had died. +% +We were so poor we couldn't afford a watchdog. If we heard a noise at night, +we'd bark ourselves. + -- Crazy Jimmy +% +We're living in a golden age. All you need is gold. + -- D. W. Robertson. +% +Weekend, where are you? +% +What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the entrance? +% +What I mean (and everybody else means) by the word QUALITY cannot be +broken down into subjects and predicates. This is not because Quality +is so mysterious but because Quality is so simple, immediate, and direct. + -- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do. +% +What sin has not been committed in the name of efficiency? +% +What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away. +% +What they said: + What they meant: + +"I recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever." + (Yes, that about sums it up.) +"The amount of mathematics she knows will surprise you." + (And I recommend not giving that school a dime...) +"I simply can't say enough good things about him." + (What a screw-up.) +"I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine." + (I can't tell you how happy I am that she left our firm.) +"When this person left our employ, we were quite hopeful he would go +a long way with his skills." + (We hoped he'd go as far as possible.) +"You won't find many people like her." + (In fact, most people can't stand being around her.) +"I cannot recommend him too highly." + (However, to the best of my knowledge, he has never committed a + felony in my presence.) +% +What they said: + What they meant: + +"If you knew this person as well as I know him, you would think as much +of him as I do." + (Or as little, to phrase it slightly more accurately.) +"Her input was always critical." + (She never had a good word to say.) +"I have no doubt about his capability to do good work." + (And it's nonexistent.) +"This candidate would lend balance to a department like yours, which +already has so many outstanding members." + (Unless you already have a moron.) +"His presentation to my seminar last semester was truly remarkable: +one unbelievable result after another." + (And we didn't believe them, either.) +"She is quite uniform in her approach to any function you may assign her." + (In fact, to life in general...) +% +What they said: + What they meant: + +"You will be fortunate if you can get him to work for you." + (We certainly never succeeded.) +There is no other employee with whom I can adequately compare him. + (Well, our rats aren't really employees...) +"Success will never spoil him." + (Well, at least not MUCH more.) +"One usually comes away from him with a good feeling." + (And such a sigh of relief.) +"His dissertation is the sort of work you don't expect to see these days; +in it he has definitely demonstrated his complete capabilities." + (And his IQ, as well.) +"He should go far." + (The farther the better.) +"He will take full advantage of his staff." + (He even has one of them mowing his lawn after work.) +% +What they say: What they mean: + +A major technological breakthrough... Back to the drawing board. +Developed after years of research Discovered by pure accident. +Project behind original schedule due We're working on something else. + to unforeseen difficulties +Designs are within allowable limits We made it, stretching a point or two. +Customer satisfaction is believed So far behind schedule that they'll be + assured grateful for anything at all. +Close project coordination We're gonna spread the blame, campers! +Test results were extremely gratifying It works, and boy, were we surprised! +The design will be finalized... We haven't started yet, but we've got + to say something. +The entire concept has been rejected The guy who designed it quit. +We're moving forward with a fresh We hired three new guys, and they're + approach kicking it around. +A number of different approaches... We don't know where we're going, but + we're moving. +Preliminary operational tests are Blew up when we turned it on. + inconclusive +Modifications are underway We're starting over. +% +What they say: What they mean: + +New Different colors from previous version. +All New Not compatible with previous version. +Exclusive Nobody else has documentation. +Unmatched Almost as good as the competition. +Design Simplicity The company wouldn't give us any money. +Fool-proof Operation All parameters are hard-coded. +Advanced Design Nobody really understands it. +Here At Last Didn't get it done on time. +Field Tested We don't have any simulators. +Years of Development Finally got one to work. +Unprecedented Performance Nothing ever ran this slow before. +Revolutionary Disk drives go 'round and 'round. +Futuristic Only runs on a next generation supercomputer. +No Maintenance Impossible to fix. +Performance Proven Worked through Beta test. +Meets Tough Quality Standards It compiles without errors. +Satisfaction Guaranteed We'll send you another pack if it fails. +Stock Item We shipped it before and can do it again. +% +What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel. +% +What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING! +% +What this country needs is a good five cent nickel. +% +What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon. +% +What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which nobody +really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday Morning Time, +whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style "hold" for +two to three hours, during which it just remains 7 a.m. This way we could +all wake up via a civilized gradual process of stretching and belching and +scratching, and it would still be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually +emerge from bed. + -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" +% +Whatever is not nailed down is mine. Whatever I can pry up is not nailed down. + -- Collis P. Huntingdon, railroad tycoon +% +When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him--that's where the money is. + -- Robespierre +% +When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the thing," +it's the money. + -- Kim Hubbard +% +When all else fails, read the instructions. +% +When I works, I works hard. +When I sits, I sits easy. +And when I thinks, I goes to sleep. +% +When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder. + -- James H. Boren +% +When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to +make a decision. +% +When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity: for +every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when your boss +is away and you get twice as much done. + -- Daniel B. Luten +% +When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking +about themselves. +% + When the lodge meeting broke up, Meyer confided to a friend. +"Abe, I'm in a terrible pickle! I'm strapped for cash and I haven't +the slightest idea where I'm going to get it from!" + "I'm glad to hear that," answered Abe. "I was afraid you +might have some idea that you could borrow from me!" +% +When you are working hard, get up and retch every so often. +% +When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried. +% +When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly. +% +When you go out to buy, don't show your silver. +% +When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers. + -- The Wall Street Journal +% +When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt. + -- Henry J. Kaiser +% +Where there's a will, there's a relative. +% +Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax. +% +While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own +form of misery. +% +While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position. +% +Who goeth a-borrowing goeth a-sorrowing. + -- Thomas Tusser +% +Whoever dies with the most toys wins. +% +Why be a man when you can be a success? + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +Will you loan me $20.00 and only give me ten of it? +That way, you will owe me ten, and I'll owe you ten, and we'll be even! +% +Wishing without work is like fishing without bait. + -- Frank Tyger +% +Work expands to fill the time available. + -- Cyril Northcote Parkinson, "The Economist", 1955 +% +Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near +the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people +to do so. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Work is the crab grass in the lawn of life. + -- Schulz +% +Work smarter, not harder, and be careful of your speling. +% +Work without a vision is slavery, Vision without work is a pipe dream, +But vision with work is the hope of the world. +% +XI: + If the Earth could be made to rotate twice as fast, managers would + get twice as much done. If the Earth could be made to rotate twenty + times as fast, everyone else would get twice as much done since all + the managers would fly off. +XII: + It costs a lot to build bad products. +XIII: + There are many highly successful businesses in the United States. + There are also many highly paid executives. The policy is not to + intermingle the two. +XIV: + After the year 2015, there will be no airplane crashes. There will + be no takeoffs either, because electronics will occupy 100 percent + of every airplane's weight. +XV: + The last 10 percent of performance generates one-third of the cost + and two-thirds of the problems. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XLI: + The more one produces, the less one gets. +XLII: + Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing. +XLIII: + Hardware works best when it matters the least. +XLIV: + Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly + direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the + additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics. +XLV: + One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the + unexpected should have been expected. +XLVI: + A billion saved is a billion earned. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XLVII: + Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other + third is covered with auditors from headquarters. +XLVIII: + The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the + less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about. + Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less + until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing. +XLIX: + Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds. +L: + The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a + chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's -- but four times + as long as the official's who created it. +LI: + By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more + government workers than there are workers. +LII: + People working in the private sector should try to save money. + There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XVI: + In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one + aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and + Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be + made available to the Marines for the extra day. +XVII: + Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, + and obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics, i.e., it always increases. +XVIII: + It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon + to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of + ten degradation accomplished. +XIX: + Although most products will soon be too costly to purchase, there will + be a thriving market in the sale of books on how to fix them. +XX: + In any given year, Congress will appropriate the amount of funding + approved the prior year plus three-fourths of whatever change the + administration requests -- minus 4-percent tax. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XXI: + It's easy to get a loan unless you need it. +XXII: + If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, + not selling advice. +XXIII: + Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is + currently estimated. +XXIV: + The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an + established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most + costly action known to man. +XXV: + A revised schedule is to business what a new season is to an athlete + or a new canvas to an artist. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XXVI: + If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on each + other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance. +XXVII: + Rank does not intimidate hardware. Neither does the lack of rank. +XXVIII: + It is better to be the reorganizer than the reorganizee. +XXIX: + Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their + jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results + hang on about half a decade. +XXX: + By the time the people asking the questions are ready for the answers, + the people doing the work have lost track of the questions. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XXXI: + The optimum committee has no members. +XXXII: + Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of + turning problems into gold -- your problems into their gold. +XXXIII: + Fools rush in where incumbents fear to tread. +XXXIV: + The process of competitively selecting contractors to perform work + is based on a system of rewards and penalties, all distributed + randomly. +XXXV: + The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, + the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give + the data authenticity. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XXXVI: + The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar + contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the + proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other + at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea. +XXXVII: + Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect. + The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much. +XXXVIII: + The early bird gets the worm. + The early worm ... gets eaten. +XXXIX: + Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of + the year -- in either direction. +XL: + Most projects start out slowly -- and then sort of taper off. + -- Norman Augustine +% +Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still +be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement. + -- Snoopy +% +You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk. +% +You can fool all the people all of the time if the advertising is right +and the budget is big enough. + -- Joseph E. Levine +% +You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. + -- Norman Douglas +% +You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. + -- Superchicken +% +You know, the difference between this company and the Titanic is that the +Titanic had paying customers. +% +You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. +I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but +we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. + -- J. Wellington Wells +% +YOU TOO CAN MAKE BIG MONEY IN THE EXCITING FIELD OF PAPER SHUFFLING! + +Mr. Smith of Muddle, Mass. says: "Before I took this course I used to be +a lowly bit twiddler. Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feel really +important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best." + +Mr. Watkins had this to say: "Ten short days ago all I could look forward +to was a dead-end job as a engineer. Now I have a promising future and +make really big Zorkmids." + +MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but when +you earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter. + + SEND FOR OUR FREE BROCHURE TODAY! +% diff --git a/fortunes/zippy b/fortunes/zippy new file mode 100644 index 0000000..81e16e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortunes/zippy @@ -0,0 +1,1289 @@ +A can of ASPARAGUS, 73 pigeons, some LIVE ammo, and a FROZEN DAQUIRI!! +% +A dwarf is passing out somewhere in Detroit! +% +A shapely CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL is FIDGETING inside my costume.. +% +A wide-eyed, innocent UNICORN, poised delicately in a MEADOW filled +with LILACS, LOLLIPOPS & small CHILDREN at the HUSH of twilight?? +% +Actually, what I'd like is a little toy spaceship!! +% +All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled +by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ... +% +All of a sudden, I want to THROW OVER my promising ACTING CAREER, grow +a LONG BLACK BEARD and wear a BASEBALL HAT!! ... Although I don't know WHY!! +% +All of life is a blur of Republicans and meat! +% +All right, you degenerates! I want this place evacuated in 20 seconds! +% +All this time I've been VIEWING a RUSSIAN MIDGET SODOMIZE a HOUSECAT! +% +Alright, you!! Imitate a WOUNDED SEAL pleading for a PARKING SPACE!! +% +Am I accompanied by a PARENT or GUARDIAN? +% +Am I elected yet? +% +Am I in GRADUATE SCHOOL yet? +% +Am I SHOPLIFTING? +% +America!! I saw it all!! Vomiting! Waving! JERRY FALWELLING into +your void tube of UHF oblivion!! SAFEWAY of the mind ... +% +An air of FRENCH FRIES permeates my nostrils!! +% +An INK-LING? Sure -- TAKE one!! Did you BUY any COMMUNIST UNIFORMS?? +% +An Italian is COMBING his hair in suburban DES MOINES! +% +And furthermore, my bowling average is unimpeachable!!! +% +ANN JILLIAN'S HAIR makes LONI ANDERSON'S HAIR look like RICARDO +MONTALBAN'S HAIR! +% +Are the STEWED PRUNES still in the HAIR DRYER? +% +Are we live or on tape? +% +Are we on STRIKE yet? +% +Are we THERE yet? +% +Are we THERE yet? My MIND is a SUBMARINE!! +% +Are you mentally here at Pizza Hut?? +% +Are you selling NYLON OIL WELLS?? If so, we can use TWO DOZEN!! +% +Are you still an ALCOHOLIC? +% +As President I have to go vacuum my coin collection! +% +Awright, which one of you hid my PENIS ENVY? +% +BARBARA STANWYCK makes me nervous!! +% +Barbie says, Take quaaludes in gin and go to a disco right away! +But Ken says, WOO-WOO!! No credit at "Mr. Liquor"!! +% +BARRY ... That was the most HEART-WARMING rendition of "I DID IT MY +WAY" I've ever heard!! +% +Being a BALD HERO is almost as FESTIVE as a TATTOOED KNOCKWURST. +% +BELA LUGOSI is my co-pilot ... +% +BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI- +% +... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ... +% +Bo Derek ruined my life! +% +Boy, am I glad it's only 1971... +% +Boys, you have ALL been selected to LEAVE th' PLANET in 15 minutes!! +% +But they went to MARS around 1953!! +% +But was he mature enough last night at the lesbian masquerade? +% +Can I have an IMPULSE ITEM instead? +% +Can you MAIL a BEAN CAKE? +% +Catsup and Mustard all over the place! It's the Human Hamburger! +% +CHUBBY CHECKER just had a CHICKEN SANDWICH in downtown DULUTH! +% +Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!! +% +Clear the laundromat!! This whirl-o-matic just had a nuclear meltdown!! +% +Concentrate on th'cute, li'l CARTOON GUYS! Remember the SERIAL +NUMBERS!! Follow the WHIPPLE AVE. EXIT!! Have a FREE PEPSI!! Turn +LEFT at th'HOLIDAY INN!! JOIN the CREDIT WORLD!! MAKE me an OFFER!!! +% +CONGRATULATIONS! Now should I make thinly veiled comments about +DIGNITY, self-esteem and finding TRUE FUN in your RIGHT VENTRICLE?? +% +Content: 80% POLYESTER, 20% DACRONi ... The waitress's UNIFORM sheds +TARTAR SAUCE like an 8" by 10" GLOSSY ... +% +Could I have a drug overdose? +% +Did an Italian CRANE OPERATOR just experience uninhibited sensations in +a MALIBU HOT TUB? +% +Did I do an INCORRECT THING?? +% +Did I say I was a sardine? Or a bus??? +% +Did I SELL OUT yet?? +% +Did YOU find a DIGITAL WATCH in YOUR box of VELVEETA? +% +Did you move a lot of KOREAN STEAK KNIVES this trip, Dingy? +% +DIDI ... is that a MARTIAN name, or, are we in ISRAEL? +% +Didn't I buy a 1951 Packard from you last March in Cairo? +% +Disco oil bussing will create a throbbing naugahide pipeline running +straight to the tropics from the rug producing regions and devalue the dollar! +% +Do I have a lifestyle yet? +% +Do you guys know we just passed thru a BLACK HOLE in space? +% +Do you have exactly what I want in a plaid poindexter bar bat?? +% +Do you like "TENDER VITTLES"? +% +Do you think the "Monkees" should get gas on odd or even days? +% +Does someone from PEORIA have a SHORTER ATTENTION span than me? +% +does your DRESSING ROOM have enough ASPARAGUS? +% +DON'T go!! I'm not HOWARD COSELL!! I know POLISH JOKES ... WAIT!! +Don't go!! I AM Howard Cosell! ... And I DON'T know Polish jokes!! +% +Don't hit me!! I'm in the Twilight Zone!!! +% +Don't SANFORIZE me!! +% +Don't worry, nobody really LISTENS to lectures in MOSCOW, either! ... +FRENCH, HISTORY, ADVANCED CALCULUS, COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, BLACK +STUDIES, SOCIOBIOLOGY! ... Are there any QUESTIONS?? +% +Edwin Meese made me wear CORDOVANS!! +% +Eisenhower!! Your mimeograph machine upsets my stomach!! +% +Either CONFESS now or we go to "PEOPLE'S COURT"!! +% +Everybody gets free BORSCHT! +% +Everybody is going somewhere!! It's probably a garage sale or a +disaster Movie!! +% +Everywhere I look I see NEGATIVITY and ASPHALT ... +% +Excuse me, but didn't I tell you there's NO HOPE for the survival of +OFFSET PRINTING? +% +FEELINGS are cascading over me!!! +% +Finally, Zippy drives his 1958 RAMBLER METROPOLITAN into the faculty +dining room. +% +First, I'm going to give you all the ANSWERS to today's test ... So +just plug in your SONY WALKMANS and relax!! +% +FOOLED you! Absorb EGO SHATTERING impulse rays, polyester poltroon!! +% +for ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING!! +% +Four thousand different MAGNATES, MOGULS & NABOBS are romping in my +gothic solarium!! +% +FROZEN ENTREES may be flung by members of opposing SWANSON SECTS ... +% +FUN is never having to say you're SUSHI!! +% +Gee, I feel kind of LIGHT in the head now, knowing I can't make my +satellite dish PAYMENTS! +% +Gibble, Gobble, we ACCEPT YOU ... +% +Give them RADAR-GUIDED SKEE-BALL LANES and VELVEETA BURRITOS!! +% +Go on, EMOTE! I was RAISED on thought balloons!! +% +GOOD-NIGHT, everybody ... Now I have to go administer FIRST-AID to my +pet LEISURE SUIT!! +% +HAIR TONICS, please!! +% +Half a mind is a terrible thing to waste! +% +Hand me a pair of leather pants and a CASIO keyboard -- I'm living for today! +% +Has everybody got HALVAH spread all over their ANKLES?? ... Now, it's +time to "HAVE A NAGEELA"!! +% +... he dominates the DECADENT SUBWAY SCENE. +% +He is the MELBA-BEING ... the ANGEL CAKE ... XEROX him ... XEROX him -- +% +He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE inside me +like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER! Or maybe he'd like to +PSYCHOLIGICALLY TERRORISE ME until I have no objection to a RIGHT-WING +MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!! I guess I should call AL PACINO! +% +HELLO KITTY gang terrorizes town, family STICKERED to death! +% +HELLO, everybody, I'm a HUMAN!! +% +Hello, GORRY-O!! I'm a GENIUS from HARVARD!! +% +Hello. I know the divorce rate among unmarried Catholic Alaskan females!! +% +Hello. Just walk along and try NOT to think about your INTESTINES +being almost FORTY YARDS LONG!! +% +Hello... IRON CURTAIN? Send over a SAUSAGE PIZZA! World War III? No thanks! +% +Hello? Enema Bondage? I'm calling because I want to be happy, I guess ... +% +Here I am at the flea market but nobody is buying my urine sample bottles ... +% +Here I am in 53 B.C. and all I want is a dill pickle!! +% +Here I am in the POSTERIOR OLFACTORY LOBULE but I don't see CARL SAGAN +anywhere!! +% +Here we are in America ... when do we collect unemployment? +% +Hey, wait a minute!! I want a divorce!! ... you're not Clint Eastwood!! +% +Hey, waiter! I want a NEW SHIRT and a PONY TAIL with lemon sauce! +% +Hiccuping & trembling into the WASTE DUMPS of New Jersey like some +drunken CABBAGE PATCH DOLL, coughing in line at FIORUCCI'S!! +% +Hmmm ... a CRIPPLED ACCOUNTANT with a FALAFEL sandwich is HIT by a +TROLLEY-CAR ... +% +Hmmm ... A hash-singer and a cross-eyed guy were SLEEPING on a deserted +island, when ... +% +Hmmm ... a PINHEAD, during an EARTHQUAKE, encounters an ALL-MIDGET +FIDDLE ORCHESTRA ... ha ... ha ... +% +Hmmm ... an arrogant bouquet with a subtle suggestion of POLYVINYL +CHLORIDE ... +% +Hold the MAYO & pass the COSMIC AWARENESS ... +% +HOORAY, Ronald!! Now YOU can marry LINDA RONSTADT too!! +% +How do I get HOME? +% +How do you explain Wayne Newton's POWER over millions? It's th' MOUSTACHE +... Have you ever noticed th' way it radiates SINCERITY, HONESTY & WARMTH? +It's a MOUSTACHE you want to take HOME and introduce to NANCY SINATRA! +% +How many retured bricklayers from FLORIDA are out purchasing PENCIL +SHARPENERS right NOW?? +% +How's it going in those MODULAR LOVE UNITS?? +% +How's the wife? Is she at home enjoying capitalism? +% +hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub. +% +HUGH BEAUMONT died in 1982!! +% +HUMAN REPLICAS are inserted into VATS of NUTRITIONAL YEAST ... +% +I always have fun because I'm out of my mind!!! +% +I am a jelly donut. I am a jelly donut. +% +I am a traffic light, and Alan Ginzberg kidnapped my laundry in 1927! +% +I am covered with pure vegetable oil and I am writing a best seller! +% +I am deeply CONCERNED and I want something GOOD for BREAKFAST! +% +I am having FUN... I wonder if it's NET FUN or GROSS FUN? +% +I am NOT a nut.... +% +I appoint you ambassador to Fantasy Island!!! +% +I brought my BOWLING BALL -- and some DRUGS!! +% +I can't decide which WRONG TURN to make first!! I wonder if BOB +GUCCIONE has these problems! +% +I can't think about that. It doesn't go with HEDGES in the shape of +LITTLE LULU -- or ROBOTS making BRICKS ... +% +I demand IMPUNITY! +% +I didn't order any WOO-WOO ... Maybe a YUBBA ... But no WOO-WOO! +% +I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just +a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more numbers!! +% +... I don't know why but, suddenly, I want to discuss declining I.Q. +LEVELS with a blue ribbon SENATE SUB-COMMITTEE! +% +I don't know WHY I said that ... I think it came from the FILLINGS in +my rear molars ... +% +... I don't like FRANK SINATRA or his CHILDREN. +% +I don't understand the HUMOUR of the THREE STOOGES!! +% +I feel ... JUGULAR ... +% +I feel better about world problems now! +% +I feel like a wet parking meter on Darvon! +% +I feel like I am sharing a ``CORN-DOG'' with NIKITA KHRUSCHEV ... +% +I feel like I'm in a Toilet Bowl with a thumbtack in my forehead!! +% +I feel partially hydrogenated! +% +I fill MY industrial waste containers with old copies of the "WATCHTOWER" +and then add HAWAIIAN PUNCH to the top ... They look NICE in the yard ... +% +I guess it was all a DREAM ... or an episode of HAWAII FIVE-O ... +% +I guess you guys got BIG MUSCLES from doing too much STUDYING! +% +I had a lease on an OEDIPUS COMPLEX back in '81 ... +% +I had pancake makeup for brunch! +% +I have a TINY BOWL in my HEAD +% +I have a very good DENTAL PLAN. Thank you. +% +I have a VISION! It's a RANCID double-FISHWICH on an ENRICHED BUN!! +% +I have accepted Provolone into my life! +% +I have many CHARTS and DIAGRAMS.. +% +... I have read the INSTRUCTIONS ... +% +-- I have seen the FUN -- +% +I have seen these EGG EXTENDERS in my Supermarket ... I have read the +INSTRUCTIONS ... +% +I have the power to HALT PRODUCTION on all TEENAGE SEX COMEDIES!! +% +I HAVE to buy a new "DODGE MISER" and two dozen JORDACHE JEANS because +my viewscreen is "USER-FRIENDLY"!! +% +I haven't been married in over six years, but we had sexual counseling +every day from Oral Roberts!! +% +I hope I bought the right relish ... zzzzzzzzz ... +% +I hope something GOOD came in the mail today so I have a REASON to live!! +% +I hope the ``Eurythmics'' practice birth control ... +% +I hope you millionaires are having fun! I just invested half your life +savings in yeast!! +% +I invented skydiving in 1989! +% +I joined scientology at a garage sale!! +% +I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!! +% +I just got my PRINCE bumper sticker ... But now I can't remember WHO he is ... +% +I just had a NOSE JOB!! +% +I just had my entire INTESTINAL TRACT coated with TEFLON! +% +I just heard the SEVENTIES were over!! And I was just getting in touch +with my LEISURE SUIT!! +% +I just remembered something about a TOAD! +% +I KAISER ROLL?! What good is a Kaiser Roll without a little COLE SLAW +on the SIDE? +% +I Know A Joke!! +% +I know how to do SPECIAL EFFECTS!! +% +I know th'MAMBO!! I have a TWO-TONE CHEMISTRY SET!! +% +I know things about TROY DONAHUE that can't even be PRINTED!! +% +I left my WALLET in the BATHROOM!! +% +I like the way ONLY their mouths move ... They look like DYING OYSTERS +% +I like your SNOOPY POSTER!! +% +-- I love KATRINKA because she drives a PONTIAC. We're going away +now. I fed the cat. +% +I love ROCK 'N ROLL! I memorized all the WORDS to "WIPE-OUT" in +1965!! +% +I need to discuss BUY-BACK PROVISIONS with at least six studio SLEAZEBALLS!! +% +I once decorated my apartment entirely in ten foot salad forks!! +% +I own seven-eighths of all the artists in downtown Burbank! +% +I put aside my copy of "BOWLING WORLD" and think about GUN CONTROL +legislation... +% +I represent a sardine!! +% +I request a weekend in Havana with Phil Silvers! +% +... I see TOILET SEATS ... +% +I selected E5 ... but I didn't hear "Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs"! +% +I smell a RANCID CORN DOG! +% +I smell like a wet reducing clinic on Columbus Day! +% +I think I am an overnight sensation right now!! +% +... I think I'd better go back to my DESK and toy with a few common +MISAPPREHENSIONS ... +% +I think I'll KILL myself by leaping out of this 14th STORY WINDOW while +reading ERICA JONG'S poetry!! +% +I think my career is ruined! +% +I used to be a FUNDAMENTALIST, but then I heard about the HIGH +RADIATION LEVELS and bought an ENCYCLOPEDIA!! +% +... I want a COLOR T.V. and a VIBRATING BED!!! +% +I want a VEGETARIAN BURRITO to go ... with EXTRA MSG!! +% +I want a WESSON OIL lease!! +% +I want another RE-WRITE on my CEASAR SALAD!! +% +I want EARS! I want two ROUND BLACK EARS to make me feel warm 'n secure!! +% +... I want FORTY-TWO TRYNEL FLOATATION SYSTEMS installed within +SIX AND A HALF HOURS!!! +% +I want the presidency so bad I can already taste the hors d'oeuvres. +% +I want to dress you up as TALLULAH BANKHEAD and cover you with VASELINE +and WHEAT THINS ... +% +I want to kill everyone here with a cute colorful Hydrogen Bomb!! +% +... I want to perform cranial activities with Tuesday Weld!! +% +I want to read my new poem about pork brains and outer space ... +% +I want to so HAPPY, the VEINS in my neck STAND OUT!! +% +I want you to MEMORIZE the collected poems of EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY +... BACKWARDS!! +% +I want you to organize my PASTRY trays ... my TEA-TINS are gleaming in +formation like a ROW of DRUM MAJORETTES -- please don't be FURIOUS with me -- +% +I was born in a Hostess Cupcake factory before the sexual revolution! +% +I was making donuts and now I'm on a bus! +% +I wish I was a sex-starved manicurist found dead in the Bronx!! +% +I wish I was on a Cincinnati street corner holding a clean dog! +% +I wonder if I could ever get started in the credit world? +% +I wonder if I ought to tell them about my PREVIOUS LIFE as a COMPLETE +STRANGER? +% +I wonder if I should put myself in ESCROW!! +% +I wonder if there's anything GOOD on tonight? +% +I would like to urinate in an OVULAR, porcelain pool -- +% +I'd like MY data-base JULIENNED and stir-fried! +% +I'd like some JUNK FOOD ... and then I want to be ALONE -- +% +I'll eat ANYTHING that's BRIGHT BLUE!! +% +I'll show you MY telex number if you show me YOURS ... +% +I'm a fuschia bowling ball somewhere in Brittany +% +I'm a GENIUS! I want to dispute sentence structure with SUSAN SONTAG!! +% +I'm a nuclear submarine under the polar ice cap and I need a Kleenex! +% +I'm also against BODY-SURFING!! +% +I'm also pre-POURED pre-MEDITATED and pre-RAPHAELITE!! +% +I'm ANN LANDERS!! I can SHOPLIFT!! +% +I'm changing the CHANNEL ... But all I get is commercials for "RONCO +MIRACLE BAMBOO STEAMERS"! +% +I'm continually AMAZED at th'breathtaking effects of WIND EROSION!! +% +I'm definitely not in Omaha! +% +I'm DESPONDENT ... I hope there's something DEEP-FRIED under this +miniature DOMED STADIUM ... +% +I'm dressing up in an ill-fitting IVY-LEAGUE SUIT!! Too late... +% +I'm EMOTIONAL now because I have MERCHANDISING CLOUT!! +% +I'm encased in the lining of a pure pork sausage!! +% +I'm GLAD I remembered to XEROX all my UNDERSHIRTS!! +% +I'm gliding over a NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP near ATLANTA, Georgia!! +% +I'm having a BIG BANG THEORY!! +% +I'm having a MID-WEEK CRISIS! +% +I'm having a RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE ... and I don't take any DRUGS +% +I'm having a tax-deductible experience! I need an energy crunch!! +% +I'm having an emotional outburst!! +% +I'm having an EMOTIONAL OUTBURST!! But, uh, WHY is there a WAFFLE in +my PAJAMA POCKET?? +% +I'm having BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS about the INSIPID WIVES of smug and +wealthy CORPORATE LAWYERS ... +% +I'm having fun HITCHHIKING to CINCINNATI or FAR ROCKAWAY!! +% +... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM +of a KOSHER DELI -- +% +I'm in direct contact with many advanced fun CONCEPTS. +% +I'm into SOFTWARE! +% +I'm meditating on the FORMALDEHYDE and the ASBESTOS leaking into my +PERSONAL SPACE!! +% +I'm mentally OVERDRAWN! What's that SIGNPOST up ahead? Where's ROD +STERLING when you really need him? +% +I'm not an Iranian!! I voted for Dianne Feinstein!! +% +I'm not available for comment.. +% +I'm pretending I'm pulling in a TROUT! Am I doing it correctly?? +% +I'm pretending that we're all watching PHIL SILVERS instead of RICARDO +MONTALBAN! +% +I'm QUIETLY reading the latest issue of "BOWLING WORLD" while my wife +and two children stand QUIETLY BY ... +% +I'm rated PG-34!! +% +I'm receiving a coded message from EUBIE BLAKE!! +% +I'm RELIGIOUS!! I love a man with a HAIRPIECE!! Equip me with MISSILES!! +% +I'm reporting for duty as a modern person. I want to do the Latin Hustle now! +% +I'm shaving!! I'M SHAVING!! +% +I'm sitting on my SPEED QUEEN ... To me, it's ENJOYABLE ... I'm WARM +... I'm VIBRATORY ... +% +I'm thinking about DIGITAL READ-OUT systems and computer-generated +IMAGE FORMATIONS ... +% +I'm totally DESPONDENT over the LIBYAN situation and the price of CHICKEN ... +% +I'm using my X-RAY VISION to obtain a rare glimpse of the INNER +WORKINGS of this POTATO!! +% +I'm wearing PAMPERS!! +% +I'm wet! I'm wild! +% +I'm young ... I'm HEALTHY ... I can HIKE THRU CAPT GROGAN'S LUMBAR REGIONS! +% +I'm ZIPPY the PINHEAD and I'm totally committed to the festive mode. +% +I've got a COUSIN who works in the GARMENT DISTRICT ... +% +I've got an IDEA!! Why don't I STARE at you so HARD, you forget your +SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!! +% +I've read SEVEN MILLION books!! +% +... ich bin in einem dusenjet ins jahr 53 vor chr ... ich lande im +antiken Rom ... einige gladiatoren spielen scrabble ... ich rieche +PIZZA ... +% +If a person is FAMOUS in this country, they have to go on the ROAD for +MONTHS at a time and have their name misspelled on the SIDE of a +GREYHOUND SCENICRUISER!! +% +If elected, Zippy pledges to each and every American a 55-year-old houseboy ... +% +If I am elected no one will ever have to do their laundry again! +% +If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will be +replaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET! +% +If I felt any more SOPHISTICATED I would DIE of EMBARRASSMENT! +% +If I had a Q-TIP, I could prevent th' collapse of NEGOTIATIONS!! +% +... If I had heart failure right now, I couldn't be a more fortunate man!! +% +If I pull this SWITCH I'll be RITA HAYWORTH!! Or a SCIENTOLOGIST! +% +if it GLISTENS, gobble it!! +% +If our behavior is strict, we do not need fun! +% +If Robert Di Niro assassinates Walter Slezak, will Jodie Foster marry Bonzo?? +% +In 1962, you could buy a pair of SHARKSKIN SLACKS, with a "Continental +Belt," for $10.99!! +% +In Newark the laundromats are open 24 hours a day! +% +INSIDE, I have the same personality disorder as LUCY RICARDO!! +% +Inside, I'm already SOBBING! +% +Is a tattoo real, like a curb or a battleship? Or are we suffering in Safeway? +% +Is he the MAGIC INCA carrying a FROG on his shoulders?? Is the FROG +his GUIDELIGHT?? It is curious that a DOG runs already on the ESCALATOR ... +% +Is it 1974? What's for SUPPER? Can I spend my COLLEGE FUND in one +wild afternoon?? +% +Is it clean in other dimensions? +% +Is it NOUVELLE CUISINE when 3 olives are struggling with a scallop in a +plate of SAUCE MORNAY? +% +Is something VIOLENT going to happen to a GARBAGE CAN? +% +Is this an out-take from the "BRADY BUNCH"? +% +Is this going to involve RAW human ecstasy? +% +Is this TERMINAL fun? +% +Is this the line for the latest whimsical YUGOSLAVIAN drama which also +makes you want to CRY and reconsider the VIETNAM WAR? +% +Isn't this my STOP?! +% +It don't mean a THING if you ain't got that SWING!! +% +It was a JOKE!! Get it?? I was receiving messages from DAVID LETTERMAN!! +YOW!! +% +It's a lot of fun being alive ... I wonder if my bed is made?!? +% +It's NO USE ... I've gone to "CLUB MED"!! +% +It's OBVIOUS ... The FURS never reached ISTANBUL ... You were an EXTRA +in the REMAKE of "TOPKAPI" ... Go home to your WIFE ... She's making +FRENCH TOAST! +% +It's OKAY -- I'm an INTELLECTUAL, too. +% +It's the RINSE CYCLE!! They've ALL IGNORED the RINSE CYCLE!! +% +JAPAN is a WONDERFUL planet -- I wonder if we'll ever reach their level +of COMPARATIVE SHOPPING ... +% +Jesuit priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!! +% +Jesus is my POSTMASTER GENERAL ... +% +Kids, don't gross me off ... "Adventures with MENTAL HYGIENE" can be +carried too FAR! +% +Kids, the seven basic food groups are GUM, PUFF PASTRY, PIZZA, +PESTICIDES, ANTIBIOTICS, NUTRA-SWEET and MILK DUDS!! +% +Laundry is the fifth dimension!! ... um ... um ... th' washing machine +is a black hole and the pink socks are bus drivers who just fell in!! +% +LBJ, LBJ, how many JOKES did you tell today??! +% +Leona, I want to CONFESS things to you ... I want to WRAP you in a SCARLET +ROBE trimmed with POLYVINYL CHLORIDE ... I want to EMPTY your ASHTRAYS ... +% +Let me do my TRIBUTE to FISHNET STOCKINGS ... +% +Let's all show human CONCERN for REVERAND MOON's legal difficulties!! +% +Let's send the Russians defective lifestyle accessories! +% +Life is a POPULARITY CONTEST! I'm REFRESHINGLY CANDID!! +% +Like I always say -- nothing can beat the BRATWURST here in DUSSELDORF!! +% +Loni Anderson's hair should be LEGALIZED!! +% +Look DEEP into the OPENINGS!! Do you see any ELVES or EDSELS ... or a +HIGHBALL?? ... +% +Look into my eyes and try to forget that you have a Macy's charge card! +% +Look! A ladder! Maybe it leads to heaven, or a sandwich! +% +LOOK!! Sullen American teens wearing MADRAS shorts and "Flock of +Seagulls" HAIRCUTS! +% +Make me look like LINDA RONSTADT again!! +% +Mary Tyler Moore's SEVENTH HUSBAND is wearing my DACRON TANK TOP in a +cheap hotel in HONOLULU! +% +Maybe we could paint GOLDIE HAWN a rich PRUSSIAN BLUE -- +% +MERYL STREEP is my obstetrician! +% +MMM-MM!! So THIS is BIO-NEBULATION! +% +Mmmmmm-MMMMMM!! A plate of STEAMING PIECES of a PIG mixed with the +shreds of SEVERAL CHICKENS!! ... Oh BOY!! I'm about to swallow a +TORN-OFF section of a COW'S LEFT LEG soaked in COTTONSEED OIL and +SUGAR!! ... Let's see ... Next, I'll have the GROUND-UP flesh of CUTE, +BABY LAMBS fried in the MELTED, FATTY TISSUES from a warm-blooded +animal someone once PETTED!! ... YUM!! That was GOOD!! For DESSERT, +I'll have a TOFU BURGER with BEAN SPROUTS on a stone-ground, WHOLE +WHEAT BUN!! +% +Mr and Mrs PED, can I borrow 26.7% of the RAYON TEXTILE production of +the INDONESIAN archipelago? +% +My Aunt MAUREEN was a military advisor to IKE & TINA TURNER!! +% +My BIOLOGICAL ALARM CLOCK just went off ... It has noiseless DOZE +FUNCTION and full kitchen!! +% +My CODE of ETHICS is vacationing at famed SCHROON LAKE in upstate New York!! +% +My EARS are GONE!! +% +My face is new, my license is expired, and I'm under a doctor's care!!!! +% +My haircut is totally traditional! +% +MY income is ALL disposable! +% +My LESLIE GORE record is BROKEN ... +% +My life is a patio of fun! +% +My mind is a potato field ... +% +My mind is making ashtrays in Dayton ... +% +My nose feels like a bad Ronald Reagan movie ... +% +My NOSE is NUMB! +% +... My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling Alley!! +% +My pants just went to high school in the Carlsbad Caverns!!! +% +My polyvinyl cowboy wallet was made in Hong Kong by Montgomery Clift! +% +My uncle Murray conquered Egypt in 53 B.C. And I can prove it too!! +% +My vaseline is RUNNING... +% +NANCY!! Why is everything RED?! +% +NATHAN ... your PARENTS were in a CARCRASH!! They're VOIDED -- They +COLLAPSED They had no CHAINSAWS ... They had no MONEY MACHINES ... They +did PILLS in SKIMPY GRASS SKIRTS ... Nathan, I EMULATED them ... but +they were OFF-KEY ... +% +NEWARK has been REZONED!! DES MOINES has been REZONED!! +% +Nipples, dimples, knuckles, NICKLES, wrinkles, pimples!! +% +Not SENSUOUS ... only "FROLICSOME" ... and in need of DENTAL WORK ... in PAIN!!! +% +Now I am depressed ... +% +Now I think I just reached the state of HYPERTENSION that comes JUST +BEFORE you see the TOTAL at the SAFEWAY CHECKOUT COUNTER! +% +Now I understand the meaning of "THE MOD SQUAD"! +% +Now I'm being INVOLUNTARILY shuffled closer to the CLAM DIP with the +BROKEN PLASTIC FORKS in it!! +% +Now I'm concentrating on a specific tank battle toward the end of World War II! +% +Now I'm having INSIPID THOUGHTS about the beautiful, round wives of +HOLLYWOOD MOVIE MOGULS encased in PLEXIGLASS CARS and being approached +by SMALL BOYS selling FRUIT ... +% +Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS ... +% +Now my EMOTIONAL RESOURCES are heavily committed to 23% of the SMELTING +and REFINING industry of the state of NEVADA!! +% +Now that I have my "APPLE", I comprehend COST ACCOUNTING!! +% +Now, let's SEND OUT for QUICHE!! +% +Of course, you UNDERSTAND about the PLAIDS in the SPIN CYCLE -- +% +Oh my GOD -- the SUN just fell into YANKEE STADIUM!! +% +Oh, I get it!! "The BEACH goes on", huh, SONNY?? +% +Okay ... I'm going home to write the "I HATE RUBIK's CUBE HANDBOOK FOR +DEAD CAT LOVERS" ... +% +OKAY!! Turn on the sound ONLY for TRYNEL CARPETING, FULLY-EQUIPPED +R.V.'S and FLOATATION SYSTEMS!! +% +OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS of JELL-O +and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th'WRENCH in the JELL-O as if +it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... ... or ... I ... um ... WHERE'S +the WASHING MACHINES? +% +On SECOND thought, maybe I'll heat up some BAKED BEANS and watch REGIS +PHILBIN ... It's GREAT to be ALIVE!! +% +On the other hand, life can be an endless parade of TRANSSEXUAL +QUILTING BEES aboard a cruise ship to DISNEYWORLD if only we let it!! +% +On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a POINT. +% +Once upon a time, four AMPHIBIOUS HOG CALLERS attacked a family of +DEFENSELESS, SENSITIVE COIN COLLECTORS and brought DOWN their PROPERTY +VALUES!! +% +Once, there was NO fun ... This was before MENU planning, FASHION +statements or NAUTILUS equipment ... Then, in 1985 ... FUN was +completely encoded in this tiny MICROCHIP ... It contain 14,768 vaguely +amusing SIT-COM pilots!! We had to wait FOUR BILLION years but we +finally got JERRY LEWIS, MTV and a large selection of creme-filled +snack cakes! +% +One FISHWICH coming up!! +% +ONE LIFE TO LIVE for ALL MY CHILDREN in ANOTHER WORLD all THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES. +% +ONE: I will donate my entire "BABY HUEY" comic book collection to + the downtown PLASMA CENTER ... +TWO: I won't START a BAND called "KHADAFY & THE HIT SQUAD" ... +THREE: I won't ever TUMBLE DRY my FOX TERRIER again!! +% +... or were you driving the PONTIAC that HONKED at me in MIAMI last Tuesday? +% +Our father who art in heaven ... I sincerely pray that SOMEBODY at this +table will PAY for my SHREDDED WHAT and ENGLISH MUFFIN ... and also +leave a GENEROUS TIP .... +% +over in west Philadelphia a puppy is vomiting ... +% +OVER the underpass! UNDER the overpass! Around the FUTURE and BEYOND REPAIR!! +% +PARDON me, am I speaking ENGLISH? +% +Pardon me, but do you know what it means to be TRULY ONE with your BOOTH! +% +PEGGY FLEMMING is stealing BASKET BALLS to feed the babies in VERMONT. +% +People humiliating a salami! +% +PIZZA!! +% +Place me on a BUFFER counter while you BELITTLE several BELLHOPS in the +Trianon Room!! Let me one of your SUBSIDIARIES! +% +Please come home with me ... I have Tylenol!! +% +Psychoanalysis?? I thought this was a nude rap session!!! +% +PUNK ROCK!! DISCO DUCK!! BIRTH CONTROL!! +% +Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!! +% +RELATIVES!! +% +Remember, in 2039, MOUSSE & PASTA will be available ONLY by prescription!! +% +RHAPSODY in Glue! +% +SANTA CLAUS comes down a FIRE ESCAPE wearing bright blue LEG WARMERS +... He scrubs the POPE with a mild soap or detergent for 15 minutes, +starring JANE FONDA!! +% +Send your questions to ``ASK ZIPPY'', Box 40474, San Francisco, CA +94140, USA +% +SHHHH!! I hear SIX TATTOOED TRUCK-DRIVERS tossing ENGINE BLOCKS into +empty OIL DRUMS ... +% +Should I do my BOBBIE VINTON medley? +% +Should I get locked in the PRINCICAL'S OFFICE today -- or have a VASECTOMY?? +% +Should I start with the time I SWITCHED personalities with a BEATNIK +hair stylist or my failure to refer five TEENAGERS to a good OCULIST? +% +Sign my PETITION. +% +So this is what it feels like to be potato salad +% +So, if we convert SUPPLY-SIDE SOYABEAN FUTURES into HIGH-YIELD T-BILL +INDICATORS, the PRE-INFLATIONARY risks will DWINDLE to a rate of 2 +SHOPPING SPREES per EGGPLANT!! +% +Someone in DAYTON, Ohio is selling USED CARPETS to a SERBO-CROATIAN +% +Sometime in 1993 NANCY SINATRA will lead a BLOODLESS COUP on GUAM!! +% +Somewhere in DOWNTOWN BURBANK a prostitute is OVERCOOKING a LAMB CHOP!! +% +Somewhere in suburban Honolulu, an unemployed bellhop is whipping up a +batch of illegal psilocybin chop suey!! +% +Somewhere in Tenafly, New Jersey, a chiropractor is viewing "Leave it +to Beaver"! +% +Spreading peanut butter reminds me of opera!! I wonder why? +% +TAILFINS!! ... click ... +% + Talking Pinhead Blues: +Oh, I LOST my ``HELLO KITTY'' DOLL and I get BAD reception on channel + TWENTY-SIX!! + +Th'HOSTESS FACTORY is closin' down and I just heard ZASU PITTS has been + DEAD for YEARS.. (sniff) + +My PLATFORM SHOE collection was CHEWED up by th' dog, ALEXANDER HAIG + won't let me take a SHOWER 'til Easter ... (snurf) + +So I went to the kitchen, but WALNUT PANELING whup me upside mah HAID!! + (on no, no, no.. Heh, heh) +% +TAPPING? You POLITICIANS! Don't you realize that the END of the "Wash +Cycle" is a TREASURED MOMENT for most people?! +% +Tex SEX! The HOME of WHEELS! The dripping of COFFEE!! Take me to +Minnesota but don't EMBARRASS me!! +% +Th' MIND is the Pizza Palace of th' SOUL +% +Thank god!! ... It's HENNY YOUNGMAN!! +% +The appreciation of the average visual graphisticator alone is worth +the whole suaveness and decadence which abounds!! +% +The entire CHINESE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM all share ONE personality -- +and have since BIRTH!! +% +The fact that 47 PEOPLE are yelling and sweat is cascading down my +SPINAL COLUMN is fairly enjoyable!! +% +The FALAFEL SANDWICH lands on my HEAD and I become a VEGETARIAN ... +% +... the HIGHWAY is made out of LIME JELLO and my HONDA is a barbequeued +OYSTER! Yum! +% +The Korean War must have been fun. +% +... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!! +% +The Osmonds! You are all Osmonds!! Throwing up on a freeway at dawn!!! +% +The PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY is CRYING for an END to BURT REYNOLDS movies!! +% +The PINK SOCKS were ORIGINALLY from 1952!! But they went to MARS +around 1953!! +% +The SAME WAVE keeps coming in and COLLAPSING like a rayon MUU-MUU ... +% +There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY. +There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS. I'm very probably wrong. +% +There's a little picture of ED MCMAHON doing BAD THINGS to JOAN RIVERS +in a $200,000 MALIBU BEACH HOUSE!! +% +There's enough money here to buy 5000 cans of Noodle-Roni! +% + "These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!" + "These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!" + "These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP +out of MEGATON MAN!" +% +These PRESERVES should be FORCE-FED to PENTAGON OFFICIALS!! +% +They collapsed ... like nuns in the street ... they had no teen +appeal! +% +This ASEXUAL PIG really BOILS my BLOOD ... He's so ... so ... URGENT!! +% +"This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT DOG." + -- Bob Violence +% +This is a NO-FRILLS flight -- hold th' CANADIAN BACON!! +% +This MUST be a good party -- My RIB CAGE is being painfully pressed up +against someone's MARTINI!! +% +... this must be what it's like to be a COLLEGE GRADUATE!! +% +This PIZZA symbolizes my COMPLETE EMOTIONAL RECOVERY!! +% +This PORCUPINE knows his ZIPCODE ... And he has "VISA"!! +% +This TOPS OFF my partygoing experience! Someone I DON'T LIKE is +talking to me about a HEART-WARMING European film ... +% +Those aren't WINOS -- that's my JUGGLER, my AERIALIST, my SWORD +SWALLOWER, and my LATEX NOVELTY SUPPLIER!! +% +Thousands of days of civilians ... have produced a ... feeling for the +aesthetic modules -- +% +Today, THREE WINOS from DETROIT sold me a framed photo of TAB HUNTER +before his MAKEOVER! +% +Toes, knees, NIPPLES. Toes, knees, nipples, KNUCKLES ... +Nipples, dimples, knuckles, NICKLES, wrinkles, pimples!! +% +TONY RANDALL! Is YOUR life a PATIO of FUN?? +% +Uh-oh -- WHY am I suddenly thinking of a VENERABLE religious leader +frolicking on a FORT LAUDERDALE weekend? +% +Uh-oh!! I forgot to submit to COMPULSORY URINALYSIS! +% +UH-OH!! I put on "GREAT HEAD-ON TRAIN COLLISIONS of the 50's" by +mistake!!! +% +UH-OH!! I think KEN is OVER-DUE on his R.V. PAYMENTS and HE'S having a +NERVOUS BREAKDOWN too!! Ha ha. +% +Uh-oh!! I'm having TOO MUCH FUN!! +% +UH-OH!! We're out of AUTOMOBILE PARTS and RUBBER GOODS! +% +Used staples are good with SOY SAUCE! +% +VICARIOUSLY experience some reason to LIVE!! +% +Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and TAX-DEFERRED! +% +Wait ... is this a FUN THING or the END of LIFE in Petticoat Junction?? +% +Was my SOY LOAF left out in th'RAIN? It tastes REAL GOOD!! +% +We are now enjoying total mutual interaction in an imaginary hot tub ... +% +We have DIFFERENT amounts of HAIR -- +% +We just joined the civil hair patrol! +% +We place two copies of PEOPLE magazine in a DARK, HUMID mobile home. +45 minutes later CYNDI LAUPER emerges wearing a BIRD CAGE on her head! +% +Well, here I am in AMERICA.. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I +HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE ... +EMOTIONS are SWEEPING over me!! +% +Well, I'm a classic ANAL RETENTIVE!! And I'm looking for a way to +VICARIOUSLY experience some reason to LIVE!! +% +Well, I'm INVISIBLE AGAIN ... I might as well pay a visit to the LADIES +ROOM ... +% +Well, O.K. I'll compromise with my principles because of EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR! +% +Were these parsnips CORRECTLY MARINATED in TACO SAUCE? +% +What a COINCIDENCE! I'm an authorized "SNOOTS OF THE STARS" dealer!! +% +What GOOD is a CARDBOARD suitcase ANYWAY? +% +What I need is a MATURE RELATIONSHIP with a FLOPPY DISK ... +% +What I want to find out is -- do parrots know much about Astro-Turf? +% +What PROGRAM are they watching? +% +What UNIVERSE is this, please?? +% +What's the MATTER Sid? ... Is your BEVERAGE unsatisfactory? +% +When I met th'POPE back in '58, I scrubbed him with a MILD SOAP or +DETERGENT for 15 minutes. He seemed to enjoy it ... +% +When this load is DONE I think I'll wash it AGAIN ... +% +When you get your PH.D. will you get able to work at BURGER KING? +% +When you said "HEAVILY FORESTED" it reminded me of an overdue CLEANING +BILL ... Don't you SEE? O'Grogan SWALLOWED a VALUABLE COIN COLLECTION +and HAD to murder the ONLY MAN who KNEW!! +% +Where do your SOCKS go when you lose them in th' WASHER? +% +Where does it go when you flush? +% +Where's SANDY DUNCAN? +% +Where's th' DAFFY DUCK EXHIBIT?? +% +Where's the Coke machine? Tell me a joke!! +% +While my BRAINPAN is being refused service in BURGER KING, Jesuit +priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!! +% +While you're chewing, think of STEVEN SPIELBERG'S bank account ... his +will have the same effect as two "STARCH BLOCKERS"! +% +WHO sees a BEACH BUNNY sobbing on a SHAG RUG?! +% +WHOA!! Ken and Barbie are having TOO MUCH FUN!! It must be the +NEGATIVE IONS!! +% +Why are these athletic shoe salesmen following me?? +% +Why don't you ever enter any CONTESTS, Marvin?? Don't you know your +own ZIPCODE? +% +Why is everything made of Lycra Spandex? +% +Why is it that when you DIE, you can't take your HOME ENTERTAINMENT +CENTER with you?? +% +Will it improve my CASH FLOW? +% +Will the third world war keep "Bosom Buddies" off the air? +% +Will this never-ending series of PLEASURABLE EVENTS never cease? +% +With YOU, I can be MYSELF ... We don't NEED Dan Rather ... +% +World War III? No thanks! +% +World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced dress code! +% +Wow! Look!! A stray meatball!! Let's interview it! +% +Xerox your lunch and file it under "sex offenders"! +% +Yes, but will I see the EASTER BUNNY in skintight leather at an IRON +MAIDEN concert? +% +You can't hurt me!! I have an ASSUMABLE MORTGAGE!! +% +You mean now I can SHOOT YOU in the back and further BLUR th' +distinction between FANTASY and REALITY? +% +You mean you don't want to watch WRESTLING from ATLANTA? +% +YOU PICKED KARL MALDEN'S NOSE!! +% +You should all JUMP UP AND DOWN for TWO HOURS while I decide on a NEW CAREER!! +% +You were s'posed to laugh! +% +YOU!! Give me the CUTEST, PINKEST, most charming little VICTORIAN +DOLLHOUSE you can find!! An make it SNAPPY!! +% +Your CHEEKS sit like twin NECTARINES above a MOUTH that knows no BOUNDS -- +% +Youth of today! Join me in a mass rally for traditional mental +attitudes! +% +Yow! +% +Yow! Am I having fun yet? +% +Yow! Am I in Milwaukee? +% +Yow! And then we could sit on the hoods of cars at stop lights! +% +Yow! Are we laid back yet? +% +Yow! Are we wet yet? +% +Yow! Are you the self-frying president? +% +Yow! Did something bad happen or am I in a drive-in movie?? +% +Yow! I just went below the poverty line! +% +Yow! I threw up on my window! +% +Yow! I want my nose in lights! +% +Yow! I want to mail a bronzed artichoke to Nicaragua! +% +Yow! I'm having a quadrophonic sensation of two winos alone in a steel mill! +% +Yow! I'm imagining a surfer van filled with soy sauce! +% +Yow! Is my fallout shelter termite proof? +% +Yow! Is this sexual intercourse yet?? Is it, huh, is it?? +% +Yow! It's a hole all the way to downtown Burbank! +% +Yow! It's some people inside the wall! This is better than mopping! +% +Yow! Maybe I should have asked for my Neutron Bomb in PAISLEY -- +% +Yow! Now I get to think about all the BAD THINGS I did to a BOWLING +BALL when I was in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL! +% +Yow! Now we can become alcoholics! +% +Yow! Those people look exactly like Donnie and Marie Osmond!! +% +Yow! We're going to a new disco! +% +YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL! +% +YOW!! I'm in a very clever and adorable INSANE ASYLUM!! +% +YOW!! Now I understand advanced MICROBIOLOGY and th' new TAX REFORM laws!! +% +YOW!! The land of the rising SONY!! +% +YOW!! Up ahead! It's a DONUT HUT!! +% +YOW!! What should the entire human race DO?? Consume a fifth of +CHIVAS REGAL, ski NUDE down MT. EVEREST, and have a wild SEX WEEKEND! +% +YOW!!! I am having fun!!! +% +Zippy's brain cells are straining to bridge synapses ... +% diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e69de29 diff --git a/scripts/fortune b/scripts/fortune new file mode 100644 index 0000000..10271de --- /dev/null +++ b/scripts/fortune @@ -0,0 +1,99 @@ +#!/usr/bin/python +""" +Define the official CLI interface to the fortune-lite python module + +Copyright 2019 Haximilian + +Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +You may obtain a copy of the License at + + http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 + +Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +limitations under the License. +""" + +# Import dependencies: +from argparse import ArgumentParser +from os import getenv +from os.path import dirname, expanduser, isfile, join +import time +import fortune_lite + +# Define configuration options for the larger program: +PARSER = ArgumentParser(description="A Python-based fortune cookie generator", + prog="fortune") +PARSER.add_argument("-v", "--version", action="version", version="Fortune-Lite" + + " 1.0.0", help="Prints out the version information and " + + "exits the program.") +PARSER.add_argument("-a", "--all", action="store_true", help="Selects from all" + + " databases, including offensive fortunes.") +PARSER.add_argument("-e", "--equal", action="store_true", help="Makes it " + + "equally likely that the fortune will be selected from " + + "any given category, as opposed to making all fortunes " + + "equally likely regardless of category.") +PARSER.add_argument("-f", "--categories", action="store_true", help="Instead " + + "of printing a fortune, just print a list of all fortune" + + " categories (files).") +PARSER.add_argument("-o", "--offensive", action="store_true", help="Only print" + + " fortunes marked as offensive.") +PARSER.add_argument("-w", "--wait", type=int, help="Wait the specified number " + + "of seconds after printing the fortune before exiting.") + +# Parse the provided arguments: +ARGS = PARSER.parse_args() + +# Get a handle to the database connection: +DB = getenv("FORTUNE_DB") +if (not DB) or (not isfile(DB)): + DB = expanduser("~/.fortune.db") +if not isfile(DB): + DB = join(dirname(fortune_lite.__file__), "fortune.db") +CONN = fortune_lite.get_connection(DB) + + +# Define a function to exit the program: +def run_exit(): + """ + Gracefully exits the program. + """ + fortune_lite.close_connection(CONN) + if ARGS.wait: + time.sleep(ARGS.wait) + exit() + +# Deal with requests to list categories: +if ARGS.categories: + if ARGS.offensive: + list = fortune_lite.list_offensive_categories(CONN) + elif ARGS.all: + list = fortune_lite.list_categories(CONN) + else: + list = fortune_lite.list_appropriate_categories(CONN) + for cat in list: + print(cat) + run_exit(); + +# Handle the case where all categories are to be given an equal chance: +if ARGS.equal: + if ARGS.offensive: + cat = fortune_lite.select_random_offensive_category(CONN) + elif ARGS.all: + cat = fortune_lite.select_random_category(CONN) + else: + cat = fortune_lite.select_random_appropriate_category(CONN) + print(fortune_lite.select_random_from_category(CONN, cat)) + run_exit() + +# Handle the case where all fortunes are to be given an equal chance: +if ARGS.offensive: + print(fortune_lite.select_random_offensive(CONN)) +elif not ARGS.all: + print(fortune_lite.select_random_appropriate(CONN)) +else: + print(fortune_lite.select_random(CONN)) +run_exit() diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000..df1da5f --- /dev/null +++ b/setup.py @@ -0,0 +1,108 @@ +#!/usr/bin/python +""" +Packages Fotrune-Lite into a format more suitable for pip + +Copyright 2019 Haximilian + +Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); +you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. +You may obtain a copy of the License at + + http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 + +Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software +distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, +WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. +See the License for the specific language governing permissions and +limitations under the License. +""" + +# Import dependencies: +from os import listdir, remove +from os.path import dirname, isfile, join, realpath +from setuptools import setup +from sqlite3 import connect + +# Declare constants: +DIR = dirname(realpath(__file__)) + +# Remove the database file, if it exists: +if isfile(join(DIR, "fortune_lite", "fortune.db")): + remove(join(DIR, "fortune_lite", "fortune.db")) + print(">> Removed old database") + +# Compile the database: +CONN = connect(join(DIR, "fortune_lite", "fortune.db")) +print(">> Created database at \"" + join(DIR, "fortune_lite", "fortune.db") + "\"") +CURSOR = CONN.cursor() + +# Create the database: +CURSOR.execute(""" + CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS categories ( + id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, + name TEXT NOT NULL, + offensive BOOLEAN NOT NULL + ) +""") +CURSOR.execute(""" + CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS fortunes ( + id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, + category INTEGER NOT NULL, + data TEXT NOT NULL, + FOREIGN KEY (category) REFERENCES categories (id) + ) +""") +print(">> Initialized local database") + + +# Define a method to parse a single file: +def readfile(name, location, off): + """ + Parses the fortunes out of a single database file. + :param name: The name of the file to open. + :param location: The location of the fortune file. + :param off: A boolean representing whether or not the file is considered + offensive. + """ + CURSOR.execute("INSERT INTO categories(name, offensive) VALUES (?, ?)", + (name, off)) + cat = CURSOR.lastrowid + handle = open(location) + data = handle.read().split("%") + handle.close() + + # Add all entries to the database: + for entry in range(1, len(data) - 1): + CURSOR.execute("INSERT INTO fortunes(category, data) VALUES (?, ?)", + (cat, data[entry])) + +# Read each regular file: +for file in listdir(join(DIR, "fortunes")): + if isfile(join(DIR, "fortunes", file)): + readfile(file, join(DIR, "fortunes", file), False) + print(">> Added file \"" + file + "\"") + +# Read each offensive file: +for file in listdir(join(DIR, "fortunes", "off")): + if isfile(join(DIR, "fortunes", "off", file)): + readfile(file, join(DIR, "fortunes", "off", file), True) + print(">> Added offensive file \"" + file + "\"") + +# Commit the changes: +CONN.commit() +CONN.close() +print(">> Changes committed") + +# Setup the package: +setup(name="fortune_lite", + version="1.0.0", + description="A Python implementation of fortune", + url="https://github.com/haximilian/fortune-lite", + author="Haximilian", + author_email="haximilian@gmail.com", + license="Apache 2.0", + packages=["fortune_lite"], + package_data={'': ['fortune.db']}, + include_package_data=True, + scripts=["scripts/fortune"], + zip_safe=False)