Various quotes

These are not all my doing; some have been yanked mercilessly and without credit from others' .sigs, .plans and .posts. They currently in somewhat random order - perhaps someday I'll organise them. Or maybe not.
Last changed: Fri Aug 19 14:12:06 MDT 2011

Make no small plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.

-- Daniel Burnham

If you have never seen a mountain you may perilously fail to recognize it even as you stand inside its shadow or climb into its light. If you have never known a man certain of his faults, doubtful of his merits, and longing and laboring to be good, you may mistake him for a hypocrite or worse. But that will mean you never understood, you never grasped the ground rules for a fruitful, striving life.

-- June Jordan (on Dr. Martin Luther King)

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

-- Gautama Buddha (Indian mystic, founder of Buddhism)

Stapp's Ironical Paradox (aka Stapp's Law): the universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.

-- Dr. John P Stapp

There ain't nothing to it but to do it. If you can't do it, call me. I'll do it, I'm used to it.

-- Eddie "Loop" Lincoln

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost...

All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

-- H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation.

-- Herbert Spencer

Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

-- J.B.S. Haldane

Common sense is just another name for the prejudices that we have been brought up with.

-- Stephen Hawking

Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.

-- Albert Einstein

Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.

-- Steve Earle

I've met Bob Dylan and his bodyguards, and I don't think Steve could get anywhere near his coffee table.

-- Townes Van Zandt

"I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no---and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I suppose I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough I think I would choose to have it.

"...I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters; worn death 'as close as dungarees,' appreciated it --- and life --- more; seen the finest and the most terrible in people, and slowly learned the values of caring, loyalty, and seeing things through. I have seen the breadth and depth and width of my mind and heart and seen how frail they both are, and how ultimately unknowable they both are. Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But, normal or manic, I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know. And I think much of this is related to my illness---the intensity it gives to things and the perspective it forces on me. I think it has made me test the limits of my mind (which, while wanting, is holding) and the limits of my upbringing, family, education, and friends."

-- Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

--H.P. Lovecraft

Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.

-- Sam Brown, Washington Post, January 26, 1977

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

--E. B. White

All I need from anyone is love and respect, and anyone who can't give me that has no business in my life.

-- Arnold, in "Torch Song Trilogy"

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator; but among those whom I love, I can: all of them can make me laugh.

-- W.H. Auden

Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we think, to be loyal to a family and clan, whose blood is in your own veins. Love between a man and a woman is founded on the mating instinct and is not free from desire and self-seeking. But to have a friend and to be true under any and all trials is the mark of a man.

-- Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) Santee Sioux

There is silence born of love, which expresses everything.

-- Conte Vittorio Alfieri

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.

-- Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery

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

You learn that if you sit down in the woods and wait something happens.

-- Henry David Thoreau

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.

-- Danny Kaye

Music I heard with you
was more than music,
And bread I broke with you
was more than bread.

-- Conrad Aiken

Hate has a reason for everything. But love is unreasonable.

--V. Raiuhes Ahaefvthe

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.

-- Lou Reed

Cogito, ergo spud : I think, therefore I yam.

God is love; Satan is 30 and up one set.

People are more violently opposed to fur than leather, because it's safer to pick on rich women than biker gangs.

Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" whilst you look for a stick.

-- Talleyrand

No.

-- Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, scene 3.

If you can't giggle, tickle, scream, laugh, run around the room naked, pour liqueur on each other and lick it off, tie each other down, have whipped cream fights, dance and sing with each other, then you are having sex with the person too soon.

Like the ski resort full of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.

--Alan McKay

FRISBEETARIANISM is the belief that when you die your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

Rule of Driving 1: Keep on the black bit between the trees.

Listen three eyes, don't you try and outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.

(on a bathroom wall):
Nietzche is dead: -- God

Sherman: "Mr. President, what will you do to gain the votes of American citizens who are Atheists?"
Bush: "Well, I don't really have a strong interest in Atheists. Faith in God is pretty important to me."
Sherman: "But you do believe that Atheists should have the same rights as other citizens?"
Bush: "I don't know that Atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

-- US Supreme Court

The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.

-- Treaty of Tripoli, 1797, ratified by the US Senate and signed by John Adams

The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.

-- George Washington

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

-- Thomas Paine

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, The Age of Reason

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

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

-- James Madison

The reason why the Divine Scriptures contain not only God's commands, but the life and character of the just, is this: that, if haply it be hidden in what way we are to take that which is enjoined, by the actions of the just it may be understood.

-- Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis (St. Augustine), "De mendacio" ("On Lying")

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.

-- Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921

A human being is part of the whole, called by us "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 consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

-- Albert Einstein

We felt the effects of herb were so dangerous that it was better to lie to the american public to save them rather than tell them the truth.

-- Partnership for a Drug Free America

It struck most of us that the biggest harm reduction we could see would be to stop putting people in jail for drug use.

-- Dr. John Morgan, who was commissioned by the American Medical Association (AMA) to draft a report on harm reduction, commonly defined as helping drug users minimize the consequences of their behavior. The conclusion rattled the AMA, which subsequently shelved the report.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Nor, are they likely to end up with either.

Motto of Benjamin Franklin's Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Those great and good men foresaw that troublous times would arise, when rulers and people would become restive under restraint, and seek by sharp and decisive measures to accomplish ends deemed just and proper; and that the principles of constitutional liberty would be in peril, unless established by irrepealable law. The history of the world had taught them that what was done in the past might be attempted in the future. The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism....

US Supreme Court, in Ex Parte Milligan 71 U.S. 2 (1866)

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

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

-- Benjamin Franklin

A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences.

-- Thomas Jefferson

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.

-- Stanley Milgram

During the Great Depression, Germans rallied to one-man-one-party rule, uniforms, flags and rifles, mass rallies, racial hatred, and appeals to national glory. What would happen in other countries if small businessmen, housewives, artisans, white-collar workers, and students felt betrayed by an alien political establishment, a fraying welfare net, and chronic economic dislocations?"

-- Claudia Koonz

Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. We categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain.

-- US Supreme Court Chief Justice Berger

If you understand, things are as they are. If you do not understand, things are as they are.

-- Gensha, Zen Master

Freedom is taking actions under principles you have defined for yourself, even if they upset your friends. Friends are those who respect those principles and choose to become close.

My Indian name: Sleeps-Past-Noon.

Don't hate yourself in the morning - sleep till noon.

Of course, the *real* work was done by a team of God's grad student flunkies, working under enormous pressure to get the job done in three days because God had waited until Wednesday to tell them it was due on Saturday.

Physicists define stress as force per unit area. The rest of humanity defines stress as physics.

"Fahrvergnugen" is German for "dashboard rattle."

Life is FULL; it's PEOPLE who are short.

The most violent element in society is ignorance.

-- Emma Goldman

PORNOGRAPHY, n. Whatever gives a federal judge an erection.
EROTICA, n.: (1) What turns me, a person of good taste, on.; (2) Well written pornography.

In any non-trivial axiomatic system, there are true theorems which cannot be proven.: -- Godel
Shit happens.: -- Ragman
Let it be.: -- Lennon

Please - help keep reincarnation safe and legal.

Legalize spiritual discovery and powerful oxyhematoporphyrin tools.

If marriage is outlawed, only outlaws will have inlaws.

Reunite Gondwanaland!
Stop continental drift!

Subduction leads to orogeny.

Well, it may be a sin, but at least it's original.

A physicist is an adult who persists in asking childish quesions.

-- Eric S. Moore

Love does not make the world go around, just up and down a bit.

-- Crossfire

Jake liked his women the way he liked his kiwi fruit: sweet yet tart, firm-fleshed yet yielding to the touch, and covered with short brown fuzzy hair.

Unix - it's a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there.

Duct tape is like The Force: it has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

Engineering: "How will this work?"
Science: "Why will this work?"
Management: "When will this work?"
Liberal Arts: "Do you want fries with that?"

The word "politics" is derived from the Greek "poly-", meaning "many", and the word "ticks", meaning "blood sucking parasites".

Why is it so easy to love and leave, and so hard to remain behind?

--Ashleigh Brilliant

Someday you'll find someone special... someone who won't press charges.

--Gomez Addams

Think of the penis as brewed coffee and the clitoris as espresso.

--drbenway@pipeline.com on alt.drugs.caffeine

learn from the past
live for today
look to tomorrow
take a nap this afternoon

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

(Found in the retro-grouch's Koran, the 1994 Bridgestone catalogue.)

Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing 'Subtle plans are here again'.

--Blackadder

Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was getting tired of being stared at.

-- Steve Martin in Roxanne

It's Shambhala Day, and I'm eating a hamburger from Wendy's. This can't be good...

.. K

Friends are God's way of apologizing to us for our families.

Q: What makes men chase women they have no intention of marrying?
A: The same urge that makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of driving.

What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that people have stopped banging their heads against?

--Larry Wall

The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.

-- Douglas Adams

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.

-- Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work"

We are all neural-nets in training mode. When we get out of training mode we are dogmatic.

-- John Navratil, on soc.culture.australian

I've seen Sun monitors on fire off the side of the multimedia lab. I've seen NTU lights glitter in the dark near the Mail Gate. All these things will be lost in time, like the root partition last week. Time to die...

-- Peter Gutmann in alt.sysadmin.recovery

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

Today's jargon file addition: "Salmon Day"... The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end.

| <-- You must be smarter than this stick to ride the Internet

-- Mike Handler, paraphrased from Bev White

Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like there's nobody watching.

Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Laugh. Practice wellness, play with abandon. Continue to learn. Appreciate your friends. Choose with no regret. Do what you love. Live life as if this is all there is.

-- Maryanne Radmacher

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damned fool about it.

-- W C Fields

No matter how good she looks, some other guy is sick and tired of putting up with her crap.

-- Men's Room, Linda's Bar and Grill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Wait, wait, just a second. Now we've got to think here. Now let's see. What would Brian Boitano do?

-- Stan (from South Park)

Wasurenaide - doko e itte mo soko ni iru yo.

PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.

-- Greg Graffin / Bad Religion

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!", but "That's funny ..."

-- Isaac Asimov

Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature, as to not deserve the name.

-- Samuel Butler

Hippies and turntables don't mix.

-- KT

Stupidity should be painful.

I sense a great need: _Suicide for Dummies_.

-- D. Joseph Creighton in the scary devil monastery

When I go bra shopping, I'm not looking for something lacy and revealing... I'm looking for something that says "finest German engineering".

-- D

The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.

-- Bruce Lee

I hate to advocate weird chemicals, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone...but they've always worked for me

-- Hunter S. Thompson

Be of love a little more careful than of anything.

-- e.e. cummings

love 

love is the voice under all silences
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun
more last than star...

-- e.e. cummings

        THEORY
Into love and out again,
        Thus I went and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen:
        Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
        All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
        Someone dropped me on my head?

-- Dorothy Parker

Forgive, oh Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me.

-- Robert Frost, In the Clearing

You can't be a real country without a beer and an airline. A football team and some nuclear weapons help, but at the very least you need a beer.

-- Frank Zappa

<davorg> clowns are scary
<gbjk> I concur. It's their motivation that worries me.

-- in #london.pm

In other words, there is a high probability that the Fuck-Up Fairy has paid their sysadmin a visit.

-- Norman De Forest on SPAM-L

XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.

-- Anonymous Coward on Slashdot

[There's a] world of difference between a rule that's simple to follow and one that's easy to follow

-- dm

Once you add the bacon, you should eat.

.. K

Heisenberg uncertainty is inversely proportional to employee ID

-- dm