Quotes and Random Pictures

"Let no feeling of discouragement preyupon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed."
- Abraham Lincoln

The meek are contesting the will.

 "Only a fool learns from experience, I learn from the experience of others" -Bismarck

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust

Monk

Do you really think one can fall in love upon first glance? Attraction, oh yes; love, it seems to me, takes much time and sweat and joy and pain. That is why few really know it.
 - M. Kranick

 "In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass, and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity." -J. Holobom

"Of all the words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'it might have been.'"

 Will shall be the sterner, heart the bolder, spirit the greater as our strength lessens." -Beorhtworld, 991 AD
 

"For him every work of God manifested a new and heretofore unappreciated loveliness." Gene Stratton-Porter, The Song of the Cardinal

 But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it. - G. K. Chesterton

 Love reason, then; let your writings take from it both their splendor and their worth." -Boileau

 "The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.
-- J. Michael Straczynski"

"I know," said Tuppence sympathetically, "It isn't the same thing at all. You can go on telling yourself how good and worthy he is, and adding up his qualities as though they were an addition sum - and it all has a simply refrigerating effect."
- Agatha Christie, "Partners in Crime"

"Anyone can sit back at the seashore and be inspired because it shouts at you - so do the mountains. But the prairie only whispers. You must listen carefuly and not miss the message." Rev. Val Peters

"Always one looks for one thing- the lover, the perfect, the eternal lover. It is the music of the Harlequin one hears. No lover ever satisfies one, for all lovers are mortal." Agatha Christie, "The Mysterious Mr. Quin"

"Sometimes we must leave our safe places, and walk empty-handed among our enemies." -Brigette O'Donnell

 It is the love of a woman that makes the story of a man. - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

It seemed good to let the mind explore so far as it could the paths of thought and logic and also good to pray for help and succour, and be thankful when they came. -Winston Churchill

To do good is noble; to teach others to do good is nobler, and no trouble. -Mark Twain

I drifted steadily to the left...I was fascinated by the intellectual stature of these men and their broad and inspiring outlook upon public affairs, untrammeled as it was by the practical burden of events. -Winston Churchill

 No man can cross the same stream twice, for both he and the stream will have changed over time. - Heraclitus

It is hard to fight with one's heart's desire. Whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of soul. -Heraclitus

If a traveller were informed that such a man was the Leader of the House of Commons, he might begin to comprehend how the Egyptians worshipped an insect. - B. Disraeli

Cake Walk

The real tragedy is not the conflict of good with evil but of good with good. - Dorothy Sayers, 'Gaudy Night'

When I want your opinion, I will give it to you. -- "The Godfather"

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 the office. -- Robert Frost

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it---and stop 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 anymore. -- Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, American Writer, 1835-1910)

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?"

 I think you should defend to the death their right to march, and then go down and meet them with baseball bats. -- Woody Allen, on the KKK

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. -- Dorothy Parker

 She admired the strange nexus of interests that unites the male half of mankind into a close honeycomb of cells, each touching the other on one side only, and yet constituting a tough and closely adhering fabric. - Dorothy Sayers, "Gaudy Night"

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. -- Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -- H. L. Mencken

 In a Russian tragedy, everybody dies. In a Russian comedy, everybody dies too. But they die happy. -- Barry Farber, in the Journal of Petroleum Technology

Bukowski

All pleasures contain an element of sadness. -Jonathan Eibeschutz

This is a one line proof...if we start sufficiently far to the left. -- Cambridge University Math Department

When subjected to extreme feminine heat and pressure, male hydrocarbons will often produce a diamond. -- Omni

Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no alphabet and therefore cannot use acronyms to communicate ideas at a faster rate. -- Omni

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. The meanest fear is the fear of sentimentality. G.K. Chesterton

To be deeply in love is, of course, a great liberating force and the most common experience that frees... Anne Morrow Love is like pi---natural, irrational, and VERY important

Football combines two of the worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings. -- George Will

In brief, she assumed that, being a man, I was vain to the point of imbecility, and this assumption was correct, as it always is. -- 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

Any computer project will take twice as long as you think it will even when you take into account Hofstadter's law. -- Hofstadter's law (Douglas Hofstadter)

A little incompatibility is the spice of life, as long has he has income and she is pattable. -- Ogden Nash

Fools aren't born, Pongo. Pretty girls make them in their spare time. -- Roger, 101 Dalmatians

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. - Einstein

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence. - Sydney Smith

The first duty of love is to listen. - P. Tillich "Faced with a maze, an engineer will immediately try to find the fastest way through it instead of simply going around it." - Tie Carson

Conservatives should learn the difference between a sin and a crime, and liberals should learn the difference between a virtue and a requirement. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, or glory in the flower, we will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains.   - William Wordsworth

They both knew that friendship wasn't the right word for their relationship, because beneath all the respect, innate trust, and high esteem they had for each other, there was something deeper. But as friends, they had the chance to learn what it was. - Denise

  "If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drillin' rights on that man's head."-- Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower discussing President George Bush's policies. 

--First they came for the fourth amendment, but I said nothing because I wasn't a drug dealer. Then they came for the sixth amendment, but I kept quiet because I wasn't guilty. Finally they came for the first amendment, and by then it was too late to say anything at all. 

How times have changed at IBM. A friend of the Feline reports that Big Blue marketing and sales personnel have been strictly forbidden to use the word "mainframe." Instead, in an attempt to distance themselves from the dinosaur, they're to use the more PC-friendly phrase "large enterprise server." If that's the case, the Katt retorted, they should also refer to "dumb terminals" as "intelligence-challenged workstations." - Spencer Katt, Infoworld 

"Aunt Laura, tell me, honestly, do you think love is ever a happy thing?" Mrs. Welman's face became grave. "In the sense you mean, Elinor- no, probably not. To care passionately for another human creature brings always more sorrow than joy; but all the same, Elinor, one would not be without that experience. Anyone who has never really loved has never really lived." Agatha Christie, "Sad Cypress" 

For sheer primitive rage, commend me to a thorough-going humanitarian when you get him well roused. Agatha Christie, "The Murder at the Vicarage"

 "Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor." - L. Long 

Great questions in the life of a people are decided only by force... once the bayonet really stands as the first order of political business, then constitutional illusions and scholastic exercises in Parliament become nothing but a cover for bourgeois betrayal of the revolution. The truly revolutionary class must then advance the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat. - Lenin 

Her voice had that faintly complaining note in it which is about the most annoying sound a human voice can contain. - Agatha Christie 

"There are none so deaf as those who will not hear." Liking is more important that loving. It lasts. I want what is between us to last, Luke. I don't want us just to love each other and marry and get tired of each other, and then want to marry someone else. - Agatha Christie, 'Easy to Kill' 

When once you have tasted flight you will always walk with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always be. --Leonardo da Vinci 

The soul by itself is clever enough. It's the body that makes it stupid. Hans Christian Andersen, "The Galoshes of Fortune" 

"In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented six feet downward and covered with dirt." -- Blair P. Houghton 

"That is one of the functions of art: to present what the narrow and desperately practical perspectives of real life exclude." C. S. Lewis - On stories. 

The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers. - Richard W. Hamming, 1962

 "That was a very effective speech you have just made," said Rosalind surveying him appraisingly. "You know perfectly well that nobody who had any feeling in them at all could allow you to go away immediately after making such a speech. you have allowed yourself to show hurt and disappointment. You've thrown yourself on my charity and you've said you wanted me as a friend, which is a powerful appeal to someone in my position. Well done, Bernard." He colored faintly as he replied. "It wasn't intended to be like that. I've only spoken as I felt." "Yes, that's the cleverness of it. When a normally reserved and calculating mind decides for once to come out into the open with the simple truth, it is irresistible." -Anna Clarke, "Poison Parsley"

 "Television is a medium because it is neither rare nor well done." -- Fred Friendly, former head of CBS News 

"Television has changed the American child from in irresistable force into an immovable object." - Laurence J. Peter 

"False is the idea of unity that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one might drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction of liberty" -George Washington 

If God intended for us to go to lectures He wouldn't have created double-sided photocopiers." - IC RagMag 1991/92 

"In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments--there are consequences." - Robert G. Ingersoll 

Loyalty is the marrow of honor. -Paul von Hindenburg 

May God grant me the insanity to run WinNT when required the skills to run Linux when allowed and the patience not to kill the people making the decisions. - Nathan Dabney 

All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place. Douglas Adams, 

"Mostly Harmless" we look before and after, and pine for what is not; our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught; our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought... -shelley

 I think charm is the ability to be truly interested in other people. Richard Avedon 

Greensleeves Alas my love you do me wrong To cast me off discourteously; And I have loved you oh so long Delighting in your company. Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves my heart of gold Greensleeves was my heart of joy And who but my Lady Greensleeves. I have been ready at your hand To grant whatever thou would'st crave; I have waged both life and land Your love and goodwill for to have. Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold Greensleeves was my heart of joy And who but my Lady Greensleeves. Thy petticoat of sendle white With gold embroidered gorgeously; Thy petticoat of silk and white And these I bought thee gladly. Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold Greensleeves was my heart of joy And who but my Lady Greensleeves. "

...There are a lot of needs that have to be filled that don't call for education at all." "Like what?" demanded Vincent. "Like listening to people," said Cynthia. "There aren't any degrees given for it, but it is something someone has to do. " When she said this Vincent felt more ashamed of himself than ever. Cynthia seemed more of a complete human being than he was, and the thought first annoyed him, and then humbled him. But the annoyance persisted, for Vincent of Mountjoy had this in common with his father - he did not like to be reminded by sensing the virtues of others that he himself was not perfect. L. Wibberley, "The Mouse on the Moon"

 "It is a pity there is no one in the Duchy suitable for my son to marry," the Count said one day to Tully. "Perhaps it is not such a pity," replied Tully, "Vincent is too young to marry yet." "He's twenty-five years of age," retorted the Count. "Yes, but he's emotionally immature," said Tully. "He still thinks of himself as the most important person in the world - the one who has to be suited in all things. That is the attitude of the perennial bachelor, who by his nature is emotionally immature." L. Wibberley, "The Mouse on the Moon"

 A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths are a statistic. - Stalin 

 Peace - n., in international affairs the period of cheating between two periods of fighting. Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary 

It is but seldom that any one overt act produces hostilities between two nations; there exists, more commonly, a previous jealousy and ill will, a predisposition to take offense. - Washington Irving 

An ally has to be watched just like an enemy. -Trotsky 

Better a known enemy than a forced ally. -Napolean 

Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments. -Frederick the Great 

No plan survives contact with the enemy. -Helmuth von Moltke 

 I am more afraid of our mistakes than our enemies' designs. -Pericles

 Wars are caused either by women or priests. -Czech proverb 

To delight in war is a merit in a soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman. -G. Santayana, "The life of reason." 

Batista

 I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love. - Henry Ward Beecher

I have never met or heard of troops who can withstand a night attack from the rear. -B. Newman 

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy. -Churchill

Banksy

An army is of little value in the field unless wise counsels prevail at home. -Cicero The unknown is the governing condition of war. -Foch 

An army of deer led by a lion is more to be feared than an army of lions led by a deer. Chabrais 

The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it is worth. 
- T. Macaulay

 ...[T]he highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion. Richard Feynman, "What Do you care what other people think?" 

Otter visits Orang

But the Persions suffered from that most dangerous tendency in war: a wish to kill but not to die in the process. -Herodotus 

The military value of a partison's work is not measured by the amount of property destroyed or the number of men killed or captured, but in the number he keeps watching. -John S. Mosby 

We have not yet lost this war, but we are overdrawn on the Bank of Miracles. -W.J. Brown 

Of war men will ask its outcome, not its cause. -Seneca 

I'll grant that experience with computers during your formative years will certainly help you _use_ computers. I'm arguing that it won't help you much in building the future of computing. -Scott Hess 

Muddy Waters

"No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good." -C.S. Lewis 

There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double- digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the 8-cent postcard. The second was 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 got to tell the other how to run the telephone business?

"Brilliance is typically the act of an individual, but incredible stupidity can usually be traced to an organization." - Jon Bentley 

Never mistake a clear view for a short distance. Paul Hoffe 

My devil's dictionary definition for an Intelligent Agent is a query program with a user interface that is so obscure that you must anthropomorphize it in order to account for its behavior. - Jaron Lanier 

Nietzche

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No; calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg. -- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 

The tremendous examination of existence will not be based on whether we have been to college, but on whether we seriously, yet in good humor, confronted in our lives the highest things. - G.K. Chesterton 

There wasn't anything spectacular to do in Darrowby, but there was a complete lack of strain, a feeling of being self-sufficient in a warm existence of our own that made everything meaningful and worthwhile. - James Herriot, "All Creatures Great and Small" "

I was wrong about that young man of yours. A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine." -Agatha Christie, "The Mystery of the Blue Train" 

 "But you think it's exaggerated, of course." "I don't know that I do," said Stafford Nye. 

"Things that sound exaggerated are very often not exaggerated at all. They are only things that you haven't heard said before or thought about before. And therefore they come to you as so unfamiliar that you can hardly do anything about them except accept them." Agatha Christie, "Passenger to Frankfurt" 

She listened to everything; she was a woman who answered intimately but who utterly didn't chatter. She scattered abroad therefore no cloud of words; she could assent, she could agree, above all she could encourage, without doing that. Henry James, "The Jolly Corner" 

 Gandhi

I believed the only way for IBM to win was to move, move, move all the time. As the computer industry grew, we had to grow with it, no matter how fast that growth might be. I never varied from the management rule that the worst possible thing we could do would be to lie dead in the water with any problem. Solve it, solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solved it wrong, it would come back and slap you in the face and then you would solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without immediate risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business." -Thomas Watson, Jr. 

"Good management is largely a matter of love. Or if you are uncomfortable with that word, call it caring." James Autry, _Love and Profit_

"I didn't believe, but I was happy in my invincible ignorance. It's rather an enviable state." P.D. James, _The Skull beneath the Skin_

"How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?" Yeats

Marilyn

 "Nietzsche was wrong; it wasn't action but pleasure which bound one to existence." P.D. James, _The Skull beneath the Skin_

Mae West

"Never believe that you know that last word about any human heart." -Henry James

Madonna

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. Robert Hutchins "As the complexity of chips approaches the complexity of software. The behavior of chips approaches the behavior of software." -- John Ahlstrom Scientists are the people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it. - William F. Buckley, _Who's on First_ 

Mahatma

I find that one exhausts the physical possibilities fairly soon, don't you? But if a man has wit, intelligence, and his own peculiar enthusiasms, then there's some kind of purpose in the relationship. -P.D. James, Death of an Expert Witness

 They'll tell you the most destructive force in the world is hate. Don't you believe it, lad. It's love. -P.D. James, Death of an Expert Witness

Sartre and Simone

She said that was what love is, knowing that you can make just one other person happy, and be made happy by them in return. -P.D. James, Death of an Expert Witness

Stork

 "Professional futurists look like science-fiction writers who've had the imagination beaten out of them." Ben Bova ...A Union officer passed over ground covered by Confederate wounded and paused to tell this prostrate Mississippi soldier, "You fought well and stood well." The wounded man looked up at him and said: "Yes, and here we lie." -Bruce Catton, Terrible Swift Sword

 You know what URL stands for, don't you? Ubiquity first, Revenues Later. - Anil Gadre

"If Buddha had intended men to understand women, He wouldn't have given us aspirin." - Confucius




"We should be as careful of our words as of our actions." Cicero



Considering how to build better systems and how various languages can serve that end is a much better use of time than fighting language wars. Bjarne Stroustrup - http://www.research.att.com/~bs/blast.html C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off. -Bjarne Stroustrup



 Mulder saw her eyeing the other women with a touch of envy. Oh, he was attracted to them, but that was just the animal in him responding to their presence. His frontal lobes weren't involved at all. His mind loved Scully for her mind, his heart loved her for her heart, his body loved her for her body, and his soul loved her for her soul. Sometimes she just needed a little reminding. John Birt , _Carpe Diem_


 Twas a woman who drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her for it. W. C. Fields


The most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen, or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. - Helen Keller


 We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another. - Luciano de Crescenzo



Who travels for love finds a thousand miles not longer than one. - Japanese Proverb



Pains of love be sweeter far than all the other pleasures are. - John Dryden, English poet



Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. - Charlie Brown



 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. - Alfred, Lord Tennyson


I'm not a vegetarian because I like animals; I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants...


 "It's not the one bullet with your name on it that you have to worry about; it's the twenty thousand-odd rounds labeled `occupant.'" --Murphy's Laws of Combat


A Platonic lover is a man who holds the eggshells while somebody else eats the omelette. - Crowninshield



 It doesn't matter whom a man marries; he is sure to find, the next morning, he has married someone else. Sam Rogers Vs lbh pna ernq guvf lbh ernyyl bhtug gb trg bhg zber Guerrillas never win wars but their adversaries often lose them. -Charles Thayer



What is a supercomputer? 1) "A supercomputer is a device for converting a CPU-bound problem into an I/O bound problem." [Ken Batcher] 2) "A supercomputer is one that is only one generation behind what you really need." Neil Lincoln's definition. 3a) "Hardware above and beyond, software behind and below" 3b) A machine to solve yesterday's problems at today's speeds. -from the comp.parallel FAQ The human brain can only encompass what the human posterior can endure. Never underestimate the importance of sitting comfortably with good posture. Alex Woo Heilmeier's catachism for new research projects 1.What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon. 2.How it is done today and what are the limitations of current practice? 3.What's new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful? 4.Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make? 5.What are the risks and the payoffs? 6.How much will it cost? How long will it take? 7.What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success? Time Management List Goals Set Priorities Make Daily ``To Do'' List Ask: What Is The Best Use of My Time Now? Handle Paper Only Once Unclutter Space and Thinking DO IT NOW! Alex Woo


"Nobody, and I mean nobody, knows how to program large parallel machines." -- Seymour Cray (needs confirming source)



"Don't do anything that other people are doing. Always do something a little different or significantly different if you can... Every time you take a new approach, new ingredients, you increase risk. But it was my feeling, that the rewards would come often enough so that taking those kinds of risks would have a long-term benefit. And, I think they did during my career." -- Seymour Cray, 1994


"The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it's too late." -- Seymour Cray @ CIA ~mid-1970



 To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men. Burke


When the ass was invited the wedding feast he said, 'They need more wood and water. Bosnian proverb



The fox condemns the trap, not himself. Blake




God will provide - ah, if only He would till He does so! Yiddish proverb



As he knew not what to say, he swore. Byron The parrots of Penance I.




I am the very model of a member of the faculty, Because I'm simply overcome with sentiments of loyalty. I daily think of reasons why I'm glad to be American, And thank the Lord I've always been a registered Republican. The thoughts I think are only thoughts approved by my community. I pledge allegiance to the flag at every opportunity. I haven't had a thing to do with Communist conspirators, And neither have my relatives, descendants or progenitors. I try to keep away from propositions controversial; I've no opinions social, economic, or commercial. And so you see that I must be, with sentiments of loyalty, The very perfect model of a member of the faculty. Chorus: And so you see that he must be, with sentiments of loyalty, The very perfect model of a member of the faculty. II. I'm qualified to educate in matters of heredity, Unsullied by the taint of any doctrinaire rigidity. I teach the Darwin theory with evaluation critical, Uninfluenced by dogmatists, religious or political. I understand the economic forces that have made us great, The system of free enterprise I do not underestimate. I'm well-equipped objectively to point out flaws in Marxist thought, Because I've never read his work and rest assured that I will not. I freely follow truth in ways which I am sure will satisfy The Boards of Regents, William Hearst, and Hoover of the FBI.



 And so you see that I must be, with sentiments of loyalty, The very perfect model of a member of the faculty. It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. Mark Twain


 "The learned Fool writes his nonsense in better language, but 'tis still nonsense." B.Franklin 'Poor Richard Improved' (1754)






"Patience and passage of time do more than strength and fury." - Jean de la Fontaine



Computers let you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila. Mitch Radcliffe



"When you ask someone how their marriage is, there's only two answers you're probably going to hear. One is it's great, and two is it's over." -Steve Glaser


 You will never improve unless you blame yourself for the troubles you have. Start thinking of what to do about it. R.G. Le Tourneau.


All of which is to say I was far from immune to her kisses, however casual. Robert Asprin, _Sweet Myth-tery of Life_


 Marriage is a fine institution ... if one requires institutionalizing. S. Freud. Robert Asprin, _Sweet Myth-tery of Life_



Thus the task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees. Erwin Schrodinger


What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself. A. Lincoln


Experience informed him that if he was to be let off one punishment, in a moment more something worse was about to be awarded him. - Tanish Lee, "Night's Daughter, Day's Desire"



 ...Sharon and Carter became aware that this magic born of the struggle between their tarnished sensibilities and their unstained hopes was not something that would last. Soon they would have to confront a world devoid of magic...and they would win at love, or they would lose. And loss was probable, for love is an illusion with the fragility of glass and light, whose magic must be constantly be renewed...Sharon and Carter turned to one another, and though they were afraid of all that would come, the night began without error. -Lucius Shephard, "The Glassblower's Dragon"


 We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Richard Feynman, "The Value of Science"


"Veni, vidi, vici," Julius Caesar "


Reorganisation is a splendid method of producing illusion of progress whilst creating confusion, and demoralisation." Petronius Arbiter, AD60.


 They were masters of words, when words could be spoken and arguments made with cool distance or casual cruelty; but their true emotions were too great for words alone ever to express them. -Marc Singer


 "If anybody ever marries you, it will be for the pleasure of hearing you talk piffle," said Harriet severely. -Dorothy Sayers, "Strong Poison"


 Consider this a thinking chick's flick, one with a brain, a heart and the courage to not always play it safe. Susan Wloszczyna


If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be research! Stephen E Mulholland



 It is almost impossible to watch a sunset and not dream. Bern Williams You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do. H. Ford


Life did not always or even normally grant one the wishes of the heart. Sometimes it came near, sometimes not very near at all. -Guy Gavriei Kay, a Song for Arbonne



Ignorant people are sure of the causes of everything. James Thorpe



There is no knowledge that is not power. Emerson


Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party. Jimmy Buffett



What a world were this, how unendurable its weight, if they whom Death had sundered did not meet again. Ellery Queen The Adventure of the Hollow Dragon


Most people have trouble talking when they have nothing to say. Though it rarely stops them, does it? Lawrence Block, With a smile for the Ending



"Education is not the filling of a bucket but the starting of a fire." W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright.



"A month in the lab will save three days in the library". "Thy rapier sharp wit woundeth me much. Mine eyes doth well up, my throat tighten. It strikest me like foulest fly be swatted away by the tail of behemoth of far away lands of africa, the petulant pachyderm. Help me, for I die now. Skewered verily like the suckling pig at the Michaelmas feast, slow roasting under yule log, yet fast dispatched from this weary world. I am crushed by this awesome mind, the likes of which has not been seen since ancient times. The hale philosophers of old, Aristotle and Plato, would blush in thy company, for the'st be not worthy to hold truck or court with the likes of thee. Thou leaveth their feeble intellects spinning wanly in the unsettled dust, to settle slowly, higgledy pigeldy... Away, away, I say, for I cannot bear it longer. Bury before my racked body can become cold and stiffened, or newly inhabited with those denizens of the underworld, the mealy worm." - Quintine Farquare - 'Tis pity to be witless' (1579) Act I, Scene 4



As practiced by computer science, the study of programming is an unholy mixture of mathematics, literary criticism, and folklore.
- B. A. Sheil, 1981



 "Only the paranoid survive" -Andy Grove


My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. -- Ashleigh Brilliant


 If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go in business because we'd be cynical: "It's gonna go wrong." Or "She's going to hurt me." Or,"I've had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore . . ." Well, that's nonsense. You're going to miss life. You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down. Ray Bradbury


 "Second only, of course, to disinterested search for truth, no task is more pleasing to scholars than exposing the negligence, ignorance and stupidity of their fellows. To both these pleasures we now address ourselves" - Pooh and the Philosophers - John Tyerman Williams




Beware of companies that start writing checks and stop writing software. - Larry Ellison




 Soul meets soul on lovers' lips. - Percy Bysshe Shelley




She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. - Dorothy Parker



 "Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, for the people, by the people." -- Oscar Wilde




"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought." --Basho




"He has read everything, and, to his credit, written nothing." A J Raffles



Katalepsis: that derangement of the senses that comes when terror or anger usurp dominion of the mind. Our life is not a smoothly flowing stream, Sometimes I think that rapids wait at every bend, For us idyllic quiet is an idle dream Because we do not care that we offend. You are contrary, stubborn as a mule, My Raven, to my calmness you're a constant threat. Your antics make me lose my hard-won cool And then I say things that I soon regret. We fight, we make up, then we fight some more, But I'd not have it any other way, Dishonest meekness would enrage me more, Your frankness I will cherish every day. Should sparring be the price that pay we must, I'll pay it gladly for our loving trust. - Menshevik



If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants. -- Isaac Newton



If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders. -- Hal Abelson


In computer science, we stand on each other's feet. -- Brian K. Reed Speech and silence.


 We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth. -E.M. Cioran

"To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness." Confucius (c.551-479 B.C.), Chinese philosopher.


"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea. " Isak Dinesen (pseudonym of Baroness Karen Blixen), 1885-1962, Danish author.

"Well, it may be all right in practice, but it will never work in theory." Warren Buffett on how the academic community regards his investment approach.

"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers." Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) Syrian-born American mystic poet and painter.


"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell." Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)


A poet is a man who is glad of something, and tries to make other people glad of it too. George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind.

"We cannot tolerate the proliferation of this paperwork any longer. It is useless to fight the forms. We must kill the people producing them." Attributed to Vladimir Kabaidze, Director of the Ivanovo Machine Works near Moscow, in a speech before the annual Communist Party Congress, 1936.


"A wise man knows everything, a shrewd one everybody." a fortune cookie from Grand Chau Chow, a Chinese restaurant


"The vanity of teaching often tempteth a man to forget he is a blockhead." George Savile


For to know a person's name is not always to know the person's self. George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind.


Somehow, when once you've looked into anybody's eyes, right deep down into them, I mean, nobody will do for that one any more. Nobody, ever so beautiful or good, will make up for that one going out of sight. George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind.


"There are two powers only which are sufficient to control men, and secure the rights of individuals and a peaceable administration; these are the combined force of religion and law, and the force or fear of the bayonet." Noah Webster




"Jones said in a moment of war, the fear is so immense, you know you're going to die, and the fellow next to you is going to die. In that moment all your conditioning and personality disintegrates, all that's left is a profound love for the fellow standing next to you. . . . Out of this terrible horror of mankind, this quality of love can be expressed."  - Nick Nolte


 "Somehow his dream is told: somehow he publishes it with solemn joy: sometimes with pencil on canvas; sometimes with chisel on stone; sometimes in towers and aisles of granite, his soul's worship is builded; sometimes in anthems of indefinite music; but clearest and most permanent, in words." -Emerson 



"There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself --- an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly." -Antisthenes


"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." -Mother Teresa 


 "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. " - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)


People ask you for criticism, but what they really want is praise. - William Somerset Maugham, A.D. 1874-1965


On one occasion a student burst into his office. "Professor Stigler, I don't believe I deserve this F you've given me." To which Stigler replied, "I agree, but unfortunately it is the lowest grade the University will allow me to award."


 Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one 

Honi soit qui mal y pense. (Evil to him who evil thinks). Henry III


 "My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher. " - Socrates (470-399 B.C.)



God is a verb. - Richard Buckminster Fuller, A.D. 1895-1983



I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! - anon.


Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. --Bertrand Russell.


Trust the computer industry to shorten "Year 2000" to Y2K. It was this kind of thinking that caused the problem in the first place. -- Anonymous


"Most people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost for support instead of illumination when in reality they should be used like a dog uses a lamppost, look it over carefully from all angles and then piss on it." 


"Wit is educated insolence. " - Aristotle (284-322 B.C.)



The Golden Rule of Flaming My flames will be witty, insulting, interesting, funny, caustic, or sarcastic, but never, ever, will they be boring.


 "English is essentially an imprecise dialect of Java, without the object orientation." -- Julian Morrison


As the Twentieth Century draws to a close, we find it more and more difficult to mount a compelling defense of the idea of progress; but we find it equally difficult to imagine life without it. Lasch


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

Simplicity of living, as much as possible, to retain a true awareness of life. Balance of physical, intellectual, and spiritual life. Work without pressure. Space for significance and beauty. Time for solitude and sharing. Closeness to nature to strengthen understanding and faith in the intermittency of life: life of the spirit, creative life, and the life of human relationships. - Anne M. Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea


Must we love? That is a nonsensical question. It is like asking, "Must we breathe?" No, we do not have to breathe, and no, we do not have to love. But the consequences of both those decisions will be the same. - Richard Swenson, Margin


The inability of most people to feel the pain of others as if it were their own is what makes evil possible. Andrei Amalrik


Drink up, my friends, because tomorrow we ride at dawn. Lonesome Dove



People don't buy three-eighths-inch drill bits. People buy three-eighths-inch holes.
- Michael Porter


In America the absence of honest passion is a distinguishing feature of both professional wrestling and politics.  - Murray Kempton


My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate -- that's my philosophy.  
 -  Thornton Wilder 


We were cordial and merry to a high degree, but of what passed I have no recollection. James Boswell
 


A fanatic is a man who does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case. Finley Peter Dunne


I am, frankly, in a complete muddle as to what has happened, and have tried to write a chapter that anybody can use to prove anything they like.
- Agatha Christie, The Floating Admiral


I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter. -- Blaise Pascal


Necessity is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. W. Pitt



 A scientist discovers what exists. An engineer creates what never was. von Karmon



A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. -- Groucho Marx



We'll survive because we're basically completely insane. - Laurie Anderson



Now there's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any messages saying that we are `holding our position'. We're not `holding' anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy! We're going to hold onto him by the nose, and we're gonna kick him in the ass! --General George S. Patton, Jr.


The Librarian sits in a small, bright office, surrounded by stacks of things: things she's reading, things she's putting aside for people, things that make her think. (Inc., Jan 1999, p. 47)

It doesn't have to be right. It has to be provocative. Highsmith


I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Galileo



It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Albert Einstein




"Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at the close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into


To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.   - Theodore Roosevelt



All ethnic comedies feature scenes that make you want to leave the theater and immediately start eating. - Rober Ebert



 "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is. - Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut


" He was awake in a sleeping town and not far away there were mountains with snow on them and long tracts of hills with strange soft names. - Ngaio Marsh, _Vintage Murder_


How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born? - Yates



The more you know about something, the more you're able to see when you look at it, the more you can remember about it, and the less tied you will be to following a mindless series of steps in working with what you don't know.
- J.P. Moreland, _Love your God with all your mind_



Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt - Samuel Adams



And when she blushes and beams at me, I know what it's like to be looked at with love, the simplest, plainest love. Marilyn Sides



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin


Another beautiful theory, murdered by a gang of facts. - anon


We're looking for visions, not hallucinations. Lee Buchanan, NSF


The state which separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting by fools. Thucydides


Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. - Jim Horning


Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains. Winston Churchill



"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
- E. Dijkstra

The streets of our country are in turmoil. The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might. And the republic is in danger. Yes, danger from within and without. We need law and order! Without law and order our nation cannot survive. Adolf Hitler, 1932


We are only as free as our willingness to suffer. 


Jarrell was not so much a father as an affectionate encyclopedia. -Mary Jarrell Rajeev Motwani, a computer science professor at Stanford, says: "Good Ph.D. students are extreme in their creativity and self-motivation. Master's students are equally smart but do not have the same drive to create something new."

 The master's takes you where others have been; the doctorate, where no one has gone before. - Randall Stross,



 "What's Google's Secret Weapon? An Army of Ph.D.'s", New York Times, June 6, 2004.


AMNESIA: Condition that enables a woman who has gone through labor to make love again. - Author Unknown



 It's not that perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool has ever done. -- Erik Naggum


Daughters are God's way of getting back at you for being a guy. Tom Clancy


 "Common sense says it's ridiculous, and from a moral standpoint it's outrageous." - anonymous comment on a patent case


"Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become." -- C.S. Lewis



"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 (German chancellor, leader of the Nazi party, 1889-1945)



 It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences. -- C. S. Lewis



Engineers work best by flailing about, and we've been doing as much of that as anybody. - Drew Endy, MIT (Slate, Jan. 2005)


You can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into. - Jonathan Swift


Things themselves do not suffer theory gladly and are sure to spoil our best faith efforts. - Shalin


In some convoluted way, our self-image as a professional becomes entwined with convincing people that they should do what we want them to do. Stephen Brookefield, _Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher_



I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup




Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play, and to play at their worship. Gordon Dahl


Thrusting my nose firmly between his teeth, I threw him heavily on the ground on top of me. Mark Twain




 I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.
- Alan Kay



She went to bed thinking more about another person than herself. This goes to show that even minor poetry may have its practical uses. Dorothy Sayers, _Gaudy Night_



 It is said that love and a cough cannot be hid. Dorothy Sayers, _Gaudy Night_



"If there isn't a significant possibility of failure it's not research, it's just work." -- Duncan Buell, U. of S. Carolina



The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit. Dorothy Sayers, _Gaudy Night_





[T]he trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell


[T]hese young people will really perform for you in ways that are really remarkable if they know you care about them and are on their side. You got to know what the hell you're talking about, too. --Ron Prince


"There's an elegiac quality in watching [American wilderness] go, because it's our own myth, the American frontier, that's deteriorating before our eyes. I feel a deep sorrow that my kids will never get to see what I've seen, and their kids will see nothing; there's a deep sadness whenever I look at nature now." 
-- Peter Matthiessen


 "Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available." Gregory Benford

Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed. - Niehbuhr, _Beyond Tragedy






 If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito.




 "To start from nothing and create an idea that ends up improving people's lives, it's just fun, the most fun in the world," - Rich Newton Memento mori.




When in doubt, use brute force. -Ken Thompson



God is the perfect father, but he has a very disfunctional family. - Liam Atcheson





 "A committee has often been described as a cul-de-sac down which good ideas are lured and then quietly strangled." - Gen. Ronald Keys




You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children. - Madeleine L'Engle


Once you have a mission, you can't go back to having a job. - Shai Agassi




There is no excellence without difficulty. - Ovid


Education should prepare people to face new challenges; that's what makes education different from training. - Bjarne Stroustup


What makes a great developer? Curiosity, initiative, tenacity, ability to reason logically, ability to communicate and to work with others. - Bjarne Stroustup



 




In the world of energy, people sometimes have trouble distinguishing make-believe from reality. - Rob Rapier The bigger your head gets, the easier your shoes are to fill.


 "I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by" - Douglas Adams



"Of one hundred men, one will read the Bible; the other ninety-nine will read the Christian." D.L. Moody


We are left for a season among men; let us faithfully represent Him here. A.W. Tozier, "The Knowledge of the Holy"



A critical issue is that PowerPoint is a tool for presentation, not discussion. In a multivariate world, we need more discussion, not less.   - Robin Harris


 "Like it or not, life science researchers at large need to recognize that their research is intertwined with supercomputing resources in one way or another." -- Glen Otero, Ph.D.


If you love deeply, you're going to get hurt badly. But it's worth it. - C.S. Lewis, Shadowlands

Now I think of design as a puzzle game. A good engineer sees thousands, maybe millions of pieces he or she can use. The magic comes when they see a novel way a bunch of them fit together to do something insanely great. - Rick Merritt, "Jobs: A flair for a little design magic"

 Out of curiousity comes everything. - Steve Jobs


 "A question is a relatively short set of words ending in a question mark, capable of being answered from the stage.
 If you feel the urge to tell us what you think about something, it's not a question."
- Tom Stoddard





Plans are nothing, planning is everything. Dwight Eisenhower