Quotes
(Last updated: 15th of December 2003.)
A list of interesting and/or funny quotes. New ones are added to the top of the list. Some of them don't have attributions because I don't know who to attribute them to.
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
- Japanese Proverb
---
A long fuse gives time to reconsider.
- Graeme A.S. Browne
---
Travel may well broaden the mind, but it certainly narrows the bank account.
- W.G.P.
---
Listen to all, plucking a feather from every goose, but, follow no one absolutely.
- Chinese Proverb
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It's a shame, that when we have a good dream, we have to be asleep at the time.
- P.K. Shaw
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He who laughs, lasts.
- Mary Pettibone Poole
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Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.
- Albert Camus
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Being your age is hard enough without having to act it.
- P.K. Shaw
---
You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo
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The more you reason the less you create.
- Raymond Chandler
----
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 dares criticise it.
- Pierre Gallois
----
One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question
remains a fool forever.
- Chinese Proverb
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If all pulled in one direction, the world would keel over.
- Yiddish Proverb
----
Happy is he who causes scandal.
- Salvador Dali
----
Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
- Chinese Proverb
----
The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every
opportunity.
- Winston Churchill
----
When they are alone they want to be with other, and when they are with others
they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.
- Gertrude Stein
----
Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.
- Aesop
----
Is there some principle of nature which states that we never know the quality
of what we have until it is gone?
- Richard Hofstadter
----
We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of
truth.
- John F. Kennedy
----
We can never see ourselves as others see us; even the mirror shows us in
reverse.
- P.K. Shaw
----
Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is
love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.
-- Ella Fitzgerald
----
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists
of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
-- Albert Camus
----
Man must shape his tools lest they shape him.
- Arthur Miller
----
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the
candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
-- Buddha
----
Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final
forming of a person's character lies in their own hands...
-- Anne Frank
----
Reality is something you rise above.
-- Liza Minelli
----
Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.
-- Thomas Dewar
----
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
-- Bertrand Russell
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Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.
-- Anna Freud
----
Computers are useless.
They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
----
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
----
When you are right, you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too
conservative.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
----
The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.
-- Confucius
----
Age becomes bothersome only when you stop to coddle it.
-- W.G.P.
----
Ask a lot, but take what is offered.
-- Russian proverb
----
A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the
world.
-- George Santayana
---
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
-- Kierkegaard
---
Drink moderately, for drunkenness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a
promise.
-- Miguel de Cervantes
---
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging
their prejudices.
-- William James
---
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
-- Gandhi
---
A man's greatness can be measured by his willingness to be kind.
-- W.G.P.
---
Man is the only animal that can be bored.
-- Erich Fromm
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Count your age with friends but not with years.
-- Anonymous
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I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
-- G.K. Chesterton
---
All things good to know are difficult to learn.
-- Greek proverb
---
If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.
-- Kingsley Amis
---
Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try
to be better than yourself.
-- William Faulkner
---
A good listener is the wisest of persons.
-- W.G.P.
---
We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large
ones.
-- Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
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The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.
-- Pierre Corneille
---
Everyone complains of his memory, but no one complains of his judgement.
-- Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
---
It takes a woman twenty years to make a man of her son and another woman
twenty minutes to make a fool of him.
-- Helen Rowland
---
Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is.
-- Vince Lombardi
---
A period of living it up is usually followed by a period of living it down.
-- P.K. Shaw
---
You never see a woman marrying a dumb man for his shape.
-- W.G.P.
---
Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.
-- Michel de Montaigne
---
Personally, I have always looked on cricket as organised loafing.
-- William Temple
---
A pessimist is a man who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.
-- Laurence J. Peter
---
If someone tells you he is going to make "realistic decision" you immediately
understand that he has resolved to do something bad.
-- Mary McCarthy
---
The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of
things without it.
-- Carl Gustav
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An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.
-- Dylan Thomas
---
The woman's work that is never done is most likely what she asked her husband
to do.
-- W.G.P
---
Friendship is love minus sex and plus reason. Love is friendship plus sex and
minus reason.
-- Mason Cooley
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We are born crying, live complaining and die disappointed.
-- Thomas Fuller
---
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that
dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.
-- G. K. Chesterton
---
The proverb warns that, "You should not bite the hand that feeds you". But
maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.
-- Thomas Szasz
---
A good scare is worth more than good advice.
-- Proverb
---
We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do
something for us.
-- Joseph Addison
---
Suicide is the most hapless action one can make - because it involves
returning the most valuable gift one can possibly receive.
-- J.D. Boatwood
---
We owe almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed, but to those who
have differed.
-- C.C. Colton
---
Alcohol is a very necessary article...It enables Parliament to do things at
eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.
-- G.B. Shaw
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The most difficult secret for a man to keep is his own opinion of himself.
-- Marcel Pagnol
---
Discrimination is the enemy of progress.
-- P.K. Shaw
---
Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be
gained from it.
-- Honore de Balzac
---
We have to distrust each other. It's our only defence against betrayal.
-- Tennessee Williams
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The hardest thing for any young man to learn is that he is so like other men.
-- W.G.P.
---
Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
-- E.M. Forster
---
A hobby is hard work you wouldn't do for a living.
-- Anonymous
---
The opinion you have of others may be the same opinion they have of you.
-- W.G.P
---
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a
cabbage, concludes that it will also make a better soup.
-- H.L. Mencken
---
Beware of the conversationalist who adds "in other words". He is merely
starting afresh.
-- Robert Morley
---
"The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race."
-- Don Marquis (1878 - 1937)
---
It is a rare and beautiful thing to be completely understood by another.
-- P.K. Shaw
---
Once a woman has given you her heart you can never get rid of the rest of her.
-- Sir John Vanburgh
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A good face is a letter of recommendation.
-- Proverb
---
Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.
-- Louis Armstrong
---
To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know because
I've done it a thousand times.
-- Mark Twain
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Taking to pieces is the trade of those who cannot construct.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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It is the ability to deceive oneself that one shows the greatest talent.
-- Anatole France
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To like, and dislike the same things, that is indeed true friendship.
-- Sallust
---
One way to look young is to be always seen with older people.
-- W.G.P.
---
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
-- Gore Vidal
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How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares if there seemed any
danger of their coming true!
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
---
One stops being a child when one realises that telling one's trouble does
not make it better.
-- Cesare Pavese
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People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.
-- Otto Von Bismarck
----
To refuse praise reveals a desire to be praised twice over.
-- Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
----
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for
the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings.
-- Unknown
----
Total absence of humour renders life impossible.
-- Sidoine Gabrielle Colette
----
The pleasure of criticising robs us of the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.
-- Jean de la Bruyere
----
It is only rarely that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but once can almost
always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.
-- Alexandre Fils Dumas
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The reason why parents love the younger children best is because they now have so
little hope that the elder will do well.
-- Japanese proverb
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It is wise to provide for the things that can't happen - they are the things that
do happen.
-- W.G.P.
---
If there were no good in the world we would not be hearing so much about evil.
-- P.K. Shaw
---
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
---
Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting
married just because you do.
-- Zsa Zsa Gabor
---
A guilty conscience is the mother of invention.
-- Carolyn Wells
---
The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you are an artist.
-- Max Jacob
---
The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.
-- Barry Commoner
---
Experience is in the fingers and the head. The heart is inexperienced.
-- Henry David Thoreau
---
If you think about what you ought to do for other people, your character
will take care of itself.
-- Woodrow Wilson
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Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm living public opinion.
-- Wendell Phillips
---
"One must laugh before one is happy, or one may die without ever laughing
at all."
-- Jean de La Bruyere
---
"Yeah, I threw out that oil. It had gone bad."
"So you checked the oil and discovered it had gone all horrible and leeky,
and thought 'Stone that for a box of fish'?"
"...yes, Steve, that's *exactly* what I thought."
-- Steven and Peter Scougall, 25th September 2001
---
We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
-- David Brower
---
Remember, the plural of 'moron' is 'focus group'.
-- James A. Wolf
---
Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car
could go straight upwards.
-- Fred Hoyle
---
So where the sheer incompetence of politicians and generals used to
start wars, the sheer incompetence of us computer people has now put an
end to it. No mean feat. For centuries humanity has been looking for
the Weapon That Would End War Forever. We have found it. War has
ended, not with the bang of a bomb, but with the gentle whisper of
crashing software.
-- Gerard Stafleu (gerard@uwovax.uwo.ca)
---
On the whole human beings want to be good,
but not too good and not quite all the time.
-- George Orwell (1903-1950), collected essays
---
And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone
the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which
will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which
can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the
meaning and the glory.
The sacred word:
E G O
-- Equality 7-2521
---
This game will never take off.
-- Steven Scougall, early 1993, in reference to Doom. How wrong I was. =)
---
The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of
thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If
only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.
-- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
---
Finagle's Law:
If something can go wrong, it will.
---
The *true* Murphy's Law:
If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those results
in a catastrophe, then someone will do it that way.
---
Jones' Law:
The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone
to blame it on.
---
I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have
to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on
their television screens.
-- Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969)
---
"Hard work pays off later, laziness pays off now."
-- John Evans, 1/11/00
---
I don't suffer from stress, I suffer from idiots.
-- Dr. John Farrell's sig, 26/10/00
---
I'm currently suffering from amnesia and deja vu at the same time...
I THINK I'VE FORGOTTEN THIS BEFORE!
-- Ben French's sig, 5/10/00
---
"Are you going out, Sam?"
"Yes, I'm just going out to kick some arse, dear."
"Oh, *good*. Just be sure you wrap up well, then."
-- Sam and Sybil Vimes, Jingo (by Terry Pratchett)
---
"Have you got your IDIOT System Variable set to 'yes'?"
"Hang on, I'll just go check."
-- Answers and questions we'll never hear (but would like to
ask) in Customer Support.
Tina Hodge, 3/10/99.
---
"No, but he certainly could kick the shit out of Captain Kirk. And
you may quote me."
-- Patrick Stewart, on whether Professor X from _X-Men_ could kick
Capt. Picard's butt.
---
"Disinformation is better than datinformation."
-- Jonatan Streith, 5/7/00
---
That the joy of working with computers - they are so consistent and
predictable.
-- Paul Finucane, 20/06/00
---
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
-- Mark Twain
---
Okay, you're sitting at the bar. Suddenly, your surrounded by ninjas.
Naturally, your first thought is 'How can I turn this into a party?'
-- Philip Barkow's sig, 9/5/00
---
Languages were first invented by humans, for the benefit of humans.
In the annals of computer science, this fact has occasionally been
forgotten. More precisely, this fact has occasionally been remembered.
-- From "Programming Perl", by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen &
Randal L. Schwartz
--
"I would like to say that I find martial arts truly amazing. I mean,
people with years of training in martial arts can, using only their
hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in history."
-- Ohr Somayach
--
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is
those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively
assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
-- Charles Darwin
--
Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way; she better understands
her own affairs than we.
-- Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592)
--
Programming contest: Wheel Of FORTRAN
--
I like sex. (Big letters)
Since I don't have sex in your office, and I
probably like sex more than you like smoking,
please do not smoke in my office.
-- Sign in office
--
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
--
If Q was female, would he be called O?
--
Inasmuch as the mathematical theorems are related to
reality, they are not sure; inasmuch as they are sure, they
are not related to reality.
-- Einstein's Observation
--
I must say, Captain, I've got to admire your balls!
...Perhaps later.
-- Perkins and Edmund : Corporal Punishment
--
Those alarm things that make a real loud honking kind of noise were going
off as Captain James Hurley stared at the screen that showed him the stuff
outside in space, while he sat in the chair that the captain sits in and
slowly reached for the control panel for the thing that makes the ship go
real fast.
-- Tom Butler, Florida
--
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build
bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce
bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
-- Rich Cook
--
"If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How
intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?"
-- Linda Ellerbee
--
Want to confuse people? Quote from the wrong message!
--
May the volts of a 1000 lightning bolts strike your modem.
--
I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would
take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place
and kill him.
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
--
He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh.
-- The Koran
--
Some people swear by DoubleSpace, others swear AT it.
--
If you haven't all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't
have that you wouldn't want.
--
Your rich uncle will die, but will spell your name incorrectly.
--
If a person never succeeds, how do you know they're trying?
--
The masses seem to me worthy of notice in only three respects: first
as blurred copies of great men, produced on bad paper with worn plates,
further as a resistance to the great, and finally as the tools of the
great; beyond that, may the devil and statistics take them.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
--
Making deals with N. Korea is like paying cannibals to eat you last.
--
Gravity always gets me down.
--
"God willing, we will return."
-- Eugene Cernan, the Moon, 1972
--
The saddest moment in a person's life comes only once.
-- Brendan Francis
--
Anaximander used to assert that the primary cause of all things was
the Infinite,--not defining exactly whether he meant air or water
or anything else.
-- Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD)
--
COBOL is the next best thing to coding it in binary.
--
Now, please excuse me while I wreak my vengeance.
-- Huge the Barbarian from the same cartoon
--
The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.
-- Edward Abbey
--
Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got.
-- Murphy's laws on sex
--
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.
--
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel
from coast to coast without seeing anything.
-- Charles Kuralt
--
Want a stupid answer? Ask me anything!
--
Trumpeters do it with alternant fingerings.
--
The optimum committee has no members.
-- Augustine's Law Number XXXI
--
MINSTREL, adj. Formerly a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with
a color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and blood can
bear.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
--
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"
--
Those who fail to repeat history are doomed to study it.
--
Never let lack of preparation hinder the implementation of a change.
--
TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
Moses Mendlessohn having fallen ill sent for a Christian
physician, who at once diagnosed the philosopher's disorder as
trichinosis, but tactfully gave it another name. "You need and
immediate change of diet," he said; "you must eat six ounces of pork
every other day."
"Pork?" shrieked the patient -- "pork? Nothing shall induce me to
touch it!"
"Do you mean that?" the doctor gravely asked.
"I swear it!"
"Good! -- then I will undertake to cure you."
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
--
A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well
as afterward.
--
A lie that can be passed off as truth becomes truth.
--
The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a
lion.
-- Arab Proberb
--
Software engineer
one who engineers others into writing the code for him/her
-- Glossary of Software Engineering Terms
--
I gobbled a dry martini and hurried back through the reed curtain to
the dining room.
The eighty-five cent dinner tasted like a discarded mail-bag and was
served to me by a waiter who looked as if he would slug me for a
quarter, cut my throat for six bits and bury me at sea in a barrel of
comcrete for a dollar and a half plus sales tax.
-- Raymond Chandler
--
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.
--
-- How many Mensans does it take to change a light bulb?
66. Eleven philosophers to ponder whether it is possible
to actually do anything; ten semanticists to debate the
various possible meanings of each phrase, word, and
syllable; nine columnists to write about it from
radically different viewpoints; eight letter writers to
respond vehemently with opposing points of view; seven
Quibblers who delight in pointing out others' mistakes
(_what_ is said is not as important as saying it
correctly); six conservatives who believe things should
stay the way they are; five liberals who believe that
action should be taken immediately to form a committee
to study possible actions; four ornery SOBs who disagree
on principal with anything anyone else has suggested;
three peacemakers who believe it's more important to
work it out without showing any more emotions than
necessary to get it done; two statisticians who maintain
that numbers are more important than facts; and one
pragmatist to ignore the BS and replace the bad bulb
with a good one. Whilst all this is going on, all the
Mensans are keeping count in their heads just to make
absolutely sure that it really does add up to 66.
--
Women in Joliet, Illinois, can be jailed for trying on more
than six dresses in one store.
--
Bite me, it's fun.
--
I sometimes feel alone and insignificant, especially when people turn
out the lights while I'm still in the bathroom.
--
Winning isn't the most important thing; it's the only thing.
-- J. Ceasar
--
The mortgage market changes virtually from day to day, so you can wait a
few weeks and, if you haven't committed suicide in the meantime, try again,
even with the same lenders.
-- William G. Connolly
--
"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot, C++ makes it harder,
but when you do, it blows away your whole leg"
-- Bjarne Stroustrup
--
As soon as you mention something...
...if it's good, it will go away,
...if it'S bad, it'll happen.
-- The Unspeakable Law
--
(On democracy, as compared to a hotly contested monarchy)
"...nothing actually gets done. It just fails to get done with less
violence than before."
-- Penny Gabriev (from Slayers Demiurge, written by Stefan Gagne)