It is unworthy of excellent persons to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation. -- Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz An impossible probability is preferable to an improbable possibility. -- Aristotle 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. Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none. -- Shakespeare It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. Next time you think you are perfect, try walking on water. God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. -- Alfred Jarry Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist! Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. -- Ashleigh Brilliant While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position. 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. -- Dijkstra Got Mole problems? Call Avogardo 6.02 x 10^23 I have great faith in fools -- self-confidence my friends call it. -- Edgar Allan Poe A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses. -- H.L. Mencken (American writer, 1888-1956) Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones. -- La Rochefoucauld Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, junior, what are you up to?" "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the rabbit. "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!" "Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face. Comes along a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?" "I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour wolves." "Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?" "Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw. Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion sitting next to some bloody and furry remnants of the wolf and the fox. The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing to compare it with. God is real, unless declared integer. While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their correctness never does. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. -- Bertrand Russell Virtue is its own punishment. Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives. Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy: Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have another drink. Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless. Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. -- Henry N. Camp Don't be humble ... you're not that great. -- Golda Meir It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set foot. Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don't think. 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. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. -- Earl Wilson A fool must now and then be right by chance. There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not a fence. If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me! -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920) Sto je puk jednom naucio da veruje bez razloga, ko bi to mogao razlozima srusiti? -- Nice: Tako je govorio Zaratustra The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive. Honk if you love peace and quiet. Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -- Albert Einstein Whistler's Law: You never know who is right, but you always know who is in charge. Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within. Schizophrenia beats being alone. They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them! What's another word for Thesaurus? If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. -- Maslow I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to say tuned. If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well enough to travel. Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine. -- Irsin Edman When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers. -- The Wall Street Journal 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. Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation" Law of Probable Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. Do you have lysdexia? Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -- H. L. Mencken One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him. I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter. -- Blaise Pascal You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. -- Dean Martin 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 When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the thing," it's the money. -- Kim Hubbard I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did. I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished. -- Goethe Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The curtain was up. 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 Ghandi We are upping our standards ... so up yours. -- Pat Paulsen for President, 1988. This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. -- Wolfgang Pauli He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. -- John Mason Brown, drama critic 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." (4) "Hey y'all, watch this!" The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group. MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts. -- Winston Churchill When women are depressed, they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking. -- Elaine Boosler If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows. -- Yiddish saying 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 The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul? -- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis 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 A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Winston Churchill Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. -- Will Rogers Wear sleeveless shirts! Support your right to bare arms! All those who believe in psycho kinesis raise my hand. Science is, in effect, a continuous flight from wonder. Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. -- F. P. Jones You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are. You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes, it's just a tired feeling. What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the entrance? A witty saying proves nothing. -- Voltaire Aphorism, n: A concise, clever statement. Afterism, n: A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. -- James Alexander Thom They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. Join the march to save individuality! 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 A man's mind is elevated to the status of the women with whom he associates. -- Alexander Dumas The aim of science is not to open a door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error. -- Bertolt Brecht What is the difference between theory and practice? In theory there is no difference, in practice there is. -- anonymous He thought that fear of death was perhaps the root of all art, perhaps also of all things of the mind. We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do. -- Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund Money is what people without talent use to keep score. -- Jeremy C. Epworth An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex. -- Aldous Huxley It is with logic that one proves; it is with intuition that one invents. -- Henri Poincare If it happened once, it MAY happen again. If it happened twice, it WILL happen again. -- Arabic saying A woman's best love letters are always written to the man she is betraying. -- Lawrence Durrell There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature. -- Lawrence Durrell Truth disappears with the telling of it. -- Lawrence Durrell The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. -- Emerson Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin. -- John von Neumann All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. -- Edmund Burke The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost their power of reasoning. -- Voltaire A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good. -- Voltaire Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn a living at it. -- Albert Einstein No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other. -- Jascha Heifetz Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address. -- Lane Olinghouse However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words. -- Ivan Turgenev It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. -- Hermann Hesse To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile -- that is happiness. -- Hermann Hesse Inspiration is needed in geometry just as much as in poetry. -- Aleksandr Pushkin The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. -- Fyodor Dostoevsky In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd. -- Miguel de Cervantes Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. -- Apollinaire Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest. -- Isaac Asimov If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. -- John Kenneth Galbraith Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture. -- Bertrand Russell Drink moderately, for drunkedness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise. -- Miguel de Cervantes The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. -- Bertrand Russell Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. -- Soren Kierkegaard We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones. -- Francois de La Rochefoucauld Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein. -- Joe Theismann With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. -- Steven Weinberg Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves. -- Carl Sagan What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. -- Samuel Johnson The trouble with the world is that hte stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russel If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. -- Rene Descartes Well: what we gain by science is, after all, sadness, as the Preacher saith. The more we know of the laws and nature of the Universe the more ghastly a business we perceive it all to be -- and the non-necessity of it. -- Thomas Hardy Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. -- Samuel Johnson If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you. -- Don Marquis Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. -- Mark Twain In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. -- Robert Frost By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. -- Socrates