Quotes I like

What follow are the quotes I have in my random signatures used in my email program. A number of folks have asked me either where I got them, or for others, so here they all are. The sources for the quotes include: Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations ISBN:0316082775, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations ISBN:0198600585, The Encyclopedia of Graffiti ISBN:0026020009, The Portable Curmudgeon ISBN:0452266688, Primetime Proverbs ISBN:0517572842, 1911 Best things anybody ever said ISBN:0449902854, Mark My Words ISBN:0760735328, and Word Lover’s Book of Unfamiliar Quotations ISBN:0965760073. There’s also Faisal Jawdat’s Quotes File and Democracy.ru's quotes page which I’ve mined for quotes I like. Also some quotes are just funny things people around me have said or that I’ve seen on the net. I’ve tried to list the original source for all quotes where possible, but have been unable to find an orginal source for most of the "seen on the net" quotes.

In January 2001 I added a link for each quote. Just copy the link that appears to the right of the quote to go straight to one you like.
In February 2003, I finally decided to dump the table. The page should load a lot more quickly now. And the page is machine-generated from a master quotes-file that’s also the source for my email signatures. Now I’ve only got one file to maintain, and this shouldn’t get too far out of date. Woo!

"I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies." - William F. Buckley, Jr. link


"Tonstant weader fwowed up." - Dorothy Parker, on A.A. Milne's 'House at Pooh Corner' link


"No easy problems ever come to the President of the United States. If they are easy to solve, somebody else has solved them." - Dwight Eisenhower link


"Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty." - Calvin Coolidge link


"There is no justification for public interference with purely private concerns." - Calvin Coolidge link


"Ultimately, property rights and personal rights are the same thing." - Calvin Coolidge link


"When once the right of the individual to liberty and equality is admitted, there is no escape from the conclusion that he alone is entitled to the rewards of his own industry. Any other conclusion would necessarily imply either privilege or servitude." - Calvin Coolidge link


"A government which requires of the people the contribution of the bulk of their substance and rewards cannot be classed as a free government..." - Calvin Coolidge link


"The Constitution is the sole source and guaranty of national freedom." - Calvin Coolidge link


"Civilization and profits go hand in hand." - Calvin Coolidge link


"That tax is theoretically best which interferes least with business." - Calvin Coolidge link


"No matter what any one may say about making the rich and the corporations pay the taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil. It is your fellow workers who are ordered to work for the Government every time an appropriation bill is passed." - Calvin Coolidge link


"Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business." - Calvin Coolidge link


"You can display no greater wisdom than by resisting proposals for needless legislation. It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones." - Calvin Coolidge link


"We have got so many regulatory laws already that in general I feel that we would be just as well off if we didn't have any more." - Calvin Coolidge link


"NAFTA and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do with liberty." - Michael Badnarik link


"As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman." - Adam Michnik link


"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual." - Ayn Rand link


"Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing." - Bernard Baruch link


"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic." - Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn link


"Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods." - H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) link


"Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of." - H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) link


"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place." - H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) link


"A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier." - H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) link


"It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office." - H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) link


"The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage." - H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) link


"If...the machine of government...is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." - Henry David Thoreau link


"Complete equality isn't compatible with democracy, but it is agreeable to tolitarianism. After all the only way to ensure the equality of the slothful, the inept and the immoral is to suppress everyone else." - Iain Benson link


"Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death." - James Madison link


"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." - John Adams link


"Any doctrine that weakens personal responsibility for judgment and for action helps create the attitudes that welcome and support the totalitarian state." - John Dewey link


"If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind." - John Stuart Mill link


"We'd all like to vote for the best man but he's never a candidate." - Kin Hubbard link


"Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt." - Mahatma Gandhi link


"The more corrupt the state, the numerous the laws." - Tacitus link


"Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress." - Thomas A. Edison link


"Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money." - Thomas Hobbes link


"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." - Thomas Jefferson link


Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. - Thomas Jefferson link


"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill link


"Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders." - Ronald Reagan link


"The taxpayer - that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination." - Ronald Reagan link


"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan link


"Status quo, you know, that is Latin for 'the mess we're in.'" - Ronald Reagan link


"I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon." - Ronald Reagan link


"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them." - Ronald Reagan link


"They say hard work never hurt anybody, but I figure why take the chance." - Ronald Reagan link


"What makes him think a middle-aged actor, who's played with a chimp, could have a future in politics?" - Ronald Reagan (on Clint Eastwood's bid to become mayor of Carmel, CA) link


"...I know it's hard when you're up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp." - Ronald Reagan, Feb 10, 1982 link


"...there is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Ronald Reagan, Jan 21, 1981 link


"Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere." - Ronald Reagan, Fortune, Sept 15, 1986 link


"Republicans believe every day is 4th of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15. - Ronald Reagan (attributed) link


"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away." - Ronald Reagan (attributed) link


"Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence." - Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1970 link


"Facts are stupid things." - Ronald Reagan (attempting to quote John Adams, who said "Facts are stubborn things.") link


"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book." - Ronald Reagan link


"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it." - Ronald Reagan link


"What is a soul? It's like electricity - we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light a room." -Ray Charles link


"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson link


"If liberty is worth keeping and free representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American fundamentals -- not some, but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will surely fall." - United States Supreme Court decision, Ullmann v. United States 350 U.S. 422, 428 (1955) link


"Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like." - Alan Dershowitz, As quoted in Dan Gifford, The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in Religion and Reason, 62 Tenn. L. Rev. 759, 789 (1995). link


"The more people are dependent upon the government, the more controlled they are." - U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright, 20 Mar 1998 link


"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." - Thomas Jefferson Letter to William Ludlow, 1824 link


"What luck for rulers, that men do not think." -Adolf Hitler link


"If you believe the term "militia" means the National Guard then you must believe that freedom of speech is reserved for the Government Printing Office." - Seen in a sig file link


"The argument that today's National Guardsmen, members of a select militia, would constitute the only persons entitled to keep and bear arms has no historical foundation." - Joyce Lee Malcolm, Professor of History, Bentley College link


"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one." - Jesus Christ, Luke 22:36 link


"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.] - (Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD), Letters to Lucilius on Morals, Letter 87, c.63-65 AD link


"I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand." - Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), speech in San Franscisco, July 1871 link


"... a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..." - Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181) link


"Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power." - Yoshimi Ishikawa, in the L.A. Times, Oct 15, 1992. link


"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education." - Thomas Jefferson link


"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams link


"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." - Frederic Bastiat link


"A good friend of mine used to say, 'This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.' Think about that for a while." - Nuke LaLoosh, "Bull Durham" link


"People who say you can't get drunk on beer just aren't trying." link


"The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness." - Annie Savoy, "Bull Durham" link


"You just got lesson number one. Don't think, it can only hurt the ball club." - Crash Davis, "Bull Durham" link


"I'm stranded all alone in the gas station of love, and I have to use the self-service pumps." - "Weird" Al Yankovic, "One More Minute" link


"English is the preacher's language because it lets you talk until you think of what to say." - Garrison Keillor link


"Government is basically a parasite, and if the host doesn't grow, then government suffers." - Jeb Bush link


"If people think you're bad, you might as well be bad. It's more fun than being good." - Kinsey Millhone link


"If you're not making anybody mad you're not getting anything done." - Col. Paul McNicol, USMC link


Let us remind ourselves again that the Second Amendment of the US Constitution should be referred to as the Statute of Liberty. - Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC link


When I was young we used to go "skinny dipping," now I just "chunkydunk." - seen on the web link


It's like my dad always said, "When you got nothing special, you got nothing special to lose." - Oswald (The Drew Carey Show) link


"I need a girlfriend whose name doesn't end in .JPG" - anon link


"Political correctness is just tyranny with manners." - Charlton Heston link


"Nobody ever sees what I see." - Jerry Fletcher ("Conspiracy Theory") link


"A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line." - Jerry Fletcher ("Conspiracy Theory") link


"To say that being non-judgmental is better than being judgmental is itself a judgment, and therefore a violation of principle." - Thomas Sowell link


"They are not all saints who use holy water." - English Proverb link


"Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt." - Robert Lindner, "Must You Conform?" 1956 link


"Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority." - T. H. Huxley, "Lay Sermons", 1870 link


"It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds." - Whilliam Ellery Channing, "Self-culture," 1838 link


"I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage." - Montesqueieu, "Pensées Diverses link


"Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings." - Heinrich Heine, "Almansor," 1823 link


"Give me chastity and continence, but not right now." - St. Augustine, "Confessions," A.D. 401 link


"I have no objection to churches so long as they do not interfere with God's work." - Brooks Atkinson, "Once around the Sun," 1951 link


"Courtship to marriage is as a very witty prologue to a very dull play." - William Gongreve, "The Old Bachelor," 1693 link


"Men are always doomed to be duped, not so much by the arts of the [female] sex as by their own imaginations. They are always wooing goddesses and marrying mere mortals." - Washington Irving, "Bracebridge Hall," 1822 link


"Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse." - Adlai Stevenson, speech, Albequerque, NM, 1952 link


"One of the evils of democracy is, you have to put up with the man you elect whether you want him or not." - Will Rogers, "Autobiography," 1949 link


Doubt is not a pleasant state of mind, but certainty is absurd. - Voltaire to Frederick the Great, 1767 link


"As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death." - Alfred North Whitehead, "Dialogues," 1954 link


"A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies." - Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," 1891 link


"We have met the enemy and they are us!" - Walt Kelly, "Pogo", 1971 link


"Experience is a comb which nature gives us when we are bald." - Chinese Proverb link


"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has." - Martin Luther, "Table Talk," 1569 link


"If we're not foolish young, we're foolish old." - Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale," Canterbury Tales, c. 1400 link


"[Let any] who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form . . . stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." - Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801 link


"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." - Edmund Burke, speech, Buckinghamshire, 1784 link


"A gentleman never insults anyone unintentionally." - Oscar Wilde, in conversation. link


"Seeing so much poverty everywhere makes me think that God is not rich. He gives the appearance of it, but I suspect some financial difficulties." - Victor Hugo, "Lex Misérables," 1862 link


"Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil." - Robert A. Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land," 1961 link


"The worse thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government." - Henry Ward Beecher, "Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit," 1887 link


"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." - Thomas Paine, "Common Sense," 1776 link


"The secret of Humor . . . is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven." - Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar," 1894 link


"Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen." - Jerome K. Jerome, "The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," 1889 link


"It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all." - James Thurber, "Fables for Our Time," 1943 link


"A good indignation brings out all one's powers." - Emerson, "Journals," 1841 link


"The man who walks alone is soon trailed by the F.B.I." - Wright Morris, "A Bill of Rites . . .," 1967 link


"Assassination: the extreme form of censorship." - G. B. Shaw, "The Rejected Statement" link


"When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon, interview with David Frost, May 19, 1977 link


"Wherever law ends, tyranny begins." - John Locke, "Treatise on Government," 1690 link


"The more laws the more offenders." - Thomas Fuller, "Gnomologia," 1732 link


"Armies under the control of ... a sovereign State cannot bring freedom to anyone." - Simone Weil, "Ecrits historiques..." link


"A man's library is a sort of harem." - Emerson, "The Conduct of Life," 1860 link


"Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them." - Emile Zola, "Le Roman expérimental," 1880 link


"My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders." - Mark Twain, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" 1889 link


"Drinking without being thirsty and making love at any time, Madame, are the only things that distinguish us from other animals. - Beaumarchais, "The Marriage of Figaro," 1784 link


"To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely." - Jorge Luis Borges, "Labyrinthes," 1962 link


"God created women for the unique purpose of domesticating men." - Voltaire, "L'Ingénue," 1767 link


"Women like silent men. They think they're listening." - Marcel Achard, "Quote," November 4, 1956 link


"We must remember that Satan has miracles, too." - John Calvin, "Institues of the Christian Religion," 1536 link


"I cannot afford to waste my time making money." - Louis Agassiz, declining an offer to teach link


"Nature is trying very hard to make us success, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment." - Buckminster Fuller, "Synergetics," 1975 link


"Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation." - James Thurber, "Further Fables for Our Time," 1956 link


"People who make no noise are dangerous." - Jean de La Fontaine, "Fables," 1678 link


"It is probable that democracy owes more to nonconformity than to any other single movement." - R. H. Tawney, "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism," 1926 link


"Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories -- those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost." - Russell Baker, "New York Times," June 18, 1968 link


"What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?" - Thomas Jefferson to Col. William S. Smith, November 13, 1787 link


"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." - Thomas Jefferson, motto link


"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx link


"What a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which may be freely given, but cannot be taken from him without his consent." - Samuel Adams, Massachusetts circular letter, 1768 link


"A president's hardest task is not to do what is right, but to /know/ what is right." - Lyndon B. Johnson, State of the Union, January 4, 1965 link


"It is often easier to fight for priciples than to live up to them." - Adlai Stevenson, speech, NYC, August 27, 1952 link


"Not joy but joylessness is the mother of debauchery." - Nietzsche, "Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions," 1879 link


"The higher an ape mounts, the more he shows his breech." - Thomas Fuller, "Gnomologia," 1732 link


"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." - Thoreau, "Walden," 1854 link


"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start a new religion." - L. Ron Hubbard, quoted in the NYT, July 11, 1984 link


Man is certainly stark mad: he channot make a flea, yet he makes gods by the dozens." - Montaigne, "Essays," 1588 link


"Instead of the function of governing, for which it is radically unfit, the proper office of a representative assembly is to watch and control the government." - John Stuart Mill, "Dissertations," 1859 link


"All man's troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room." - Pascal, "Pensées," 1670 link


"Who then is sane?" - Horace, "Satires II," 29 B.C. link


"Sanity is madness put to good uses." - George Santayana, "Little Essays" link


"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." - Einstein, "Out of My Later Years," 1950 link


"Solemnity is the shield of idiots." - Montesquieu, "Pensées et jugements" link


"The Framers [of the Constitution] . . . created the federally protected right of silence and decreed that the law could not be used to pry open one's lips and make him a witness against himself." - Justice William O. Douglas, dissent, Ullmann vs. U.S., 1956 link


"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal." - Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist" 1890 link


"I am opposed to socialism because it dreams ingenuously of good, truth, beauty, and equal rights." - Nietzsche, "Will to Power," 1883 link


"A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will." - Thoreau, "Walden," 1854 link


"In solitude especially do we begin to appreciate the advantage of living with someone who knows how to think." - Rousseau, "Confessions" link


"Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards." - Sir Fred Hoyle, "London Observer," 1979 link


"Pitching is ... the art of instilling fear." - Sandy Koufax, quoted in Hood, "The Gashouse Gang," 1976 link


"It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up." - Muhammad Ali, "New York Times," April 6, 1977 link


"Treaties are like roses and girls: they last while they last." - De Gaulle, "Time," July 12, 1963 link


"We Americans have no commission from God to police the world." - Benjamin Harrison, Address to Congress, 1888 link


"When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned." - Herbert Hoover, "New York Times," August 9, 1964 link


"The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity." - Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate State of Mind," 1954 link


"Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing it is always from the noblest motive." - Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," 1891 link


"One never repents of having spoken too little but often of having spoken too much." - Philippe de Commynes, "Mémoires," 1524 link


"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving evidence of the fact." - George Eliot, "Impressions of Theophrastus Such," 1879 link


"The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away." - John S. Coleman, Address, Detroit Chamber of Commerce, 1956 link


"When a machine begins to run without human aid, it is time to scrap it -- whether it be a factory or a government." - Alexander Chase, "Perspectives," 1966 link


"Trust ivrybody -- but cut th' ca-ards." - Finley Peter Dunne, "Mr. Dooley's Philosophy," 1900 link


"Nowadays flattery wins friends, truth hatred." - Terence, "The Woman of Andros," 166 B.C. link


"No human being can really understand another, and no one can arrange another's happiness." - Graham Greene, "The Heart of the Matter," 1948 link


"Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding." - Coleridge, "Biographica Literaria," 1817 link


"Nothing troubles me more than time and space, and yet nothing troubles me less." - Charles Lamb, January 2, 1810 link


'Tis better to know useless things than to know nothing at all. - Seneca, "Epistles," c. A.D. 50 link


"A vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance." - Spinoza, "Ethics," 1677 link


"One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear." - Nietzsche, "Human, All Too Human," 1878 link


"Power... marks its victim, denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments." - Henry Clay, speech, US Senate, March 14, 1834 link


"Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts a hand on you, send him to the cemetery." - Malcolm X, "Malcolm X Speaks," 1965 link


"May your every wish be granted." - Ancient Chinese curse link


"After each war there is a little less democracy to save." - Brooks Atkinson, "Once Around the Sun," 1951 link


"The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak." - J.B. Bossuet, "Politics from Holy Writ," 1709 link


"All heiresses are beautiful." - John Dryden, "King Arthur," 1691 link


"Wise men are not wise at all times." - Emerson, "The Conduct of Life," 1860 link


"He is no wise man that cannot play the fool on occasion." - Thomas Fuller, "Gnomologia," 1732 link


"Of the demonstrably wise, there are but two: those who commit suicide, and those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied by drink." - Mark Twain, "Note-Book," 1935 link


"An intelligent woman is a woman with whom one can be as stupid as one wants." - Paul Valéry, "Mauvaises pensées et autres," 1941 link


"A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." - Walt Kelly, "Pogo," 1971 link


"Words ... are the great foes of reality." - Joseph Conrad, "Under Western Eyes," 1911 link


"The more I saw of the world, the less I was able to adjust to its ways." - Rousseau, "Confessions," 1765 link


"A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." - Thomas Mann, "Essays of Three Decades," 1947 link


"This letter is long because I didn't have time to write a short one." - Pascal, "Lettres provinciales," 1656 link


Wasting one's youth is better than doing nothing at all with it. - Georges Courteline, "Philosophie," 1917 link


Exercise your First and Second Amendment Rights at the same time Shoot the book burners. link


Do not drink Jack Daniels after midnight. - Dr. Aaron S. Kurland link


Hey! You're lookin' pretty sharp tonight. You're wearing pants! -Dr. Aaron S. Kurland link


"Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others." - Edward Abbey link


"Might does not make right but it sure makes what is." - Edward Abbey link


A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. - Edward Abbey link


"The ready availability of suicide, like sex and alcohol, is one of life's basic consolations." - Edward Abbey link


"AC/DC has lived the dumbness that the Ramones have only faked all these years." -Chuck Eddy link


"A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer." - Dean Acheson link


"She is achingly pretty, the kind of woman that you want to take care of for the rest of her life for a few years." - Alan of http://www.heinovision.com link


"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armor 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 link


"There was a point to this narrative, but it has presently escaped the chronicler's mind." - Douglas Adams link


"Baby, I wanna be your underwear" - Bryan Adams link


"If you have trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done." - Scott Adams link


"Women: You can't live with them, can't leave 'em on the curb when you're done with them." - David Addison (Moonlighting) link


"Ignorance of your profession is best concealed by solemnity and silence, which pass for profound knowledge upon the generality of mankind." - Advice to Officers of the British Army, 1783 link


"A professional is a man who can do his job when he doesn't feel like it; an amateur is won who can't [do his job] when he does feel like it." - James Agate, "Ego" link


Alcohol is your enemy. The bible says: Love thy enemy. - Graffito - Helsinki, 1970 link


"Open Source": adj. software developed by a loose confederation of drunken graduate students under the mistaken belief that their work is actually worth something to someone. - Alex Rosenberg link


"The only good cat is a stir-fried cat." - Alf link


"Like my old skleenball coach used to say, 'Find out what you don't do well, then don't do it.'" - Alf link


"He has a woman's name and wears makeup. How original." - Alice Cooper on Marilyn Manson link


"There's a little Spinal Tap in all of us." - Alice Cooper link


"Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple of more feet, just to be sure." - Eric Allman link


"Socrates was a philosopher. He went around pointing out errors in the way things were done. They fed him hemlock." -Gil Amelio, quoting a "young philosophy student" link


"Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder." - Anonymous (attr. Hugh Drummond in Seymour Hicks's "Vintage Years") link


"God don't make no mistakes -- that's how he got to be God." - Archie Bunker link


"The wise learn many things from their enemies." - Aristophanes link


I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises. - Neil Armstrong link


"Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up: This... is my BOOM STICK!" - Ash "Army of Darkness" link


"Good ... Bad ... I'm the guy with the GUN!" - Ash, "Army of Darkness" link


"Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency." - seen on http://www.kimdutoit.com/ link


"Never believe anything until it's officially denied." - Margaret Atwood link


"Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact." - Honoré de Balzac link


"No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit." - Sir Frederick G. Banting link


"Windoze is the Mac interface done by people with Crayolas instead of Rapidographs." -barnhill@kahub.cc.ukans.edu link


"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." - Marion Barry link


"A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person." - Dave Barry link


Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock. - John Barrymore link


"The way to fight a woman is with your hat. Grab it and run." - John Barrymore link


"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb." - Batman link


"He can turn beans into peas." -Benson, referring to the Supreme Being, in "Time Bandits" link


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 great struggle for independence. - Attributed to Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948) link


"Remember that whenever you see a beautiful, single girl, somewhere there's a guy who's glad to be rid of her." - bumper sticker link


"I told all of our original investors that they would lose their money for sure." - Jeff Bezos link


"Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure." - Ambrose Bierce link


"This just in: Bill Gates is an unscrupulous businessman and a big, fat liar. Attention newspaper publishers: This is not a scoop." - Brooke Shelby Biggs, Packet link


"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind." - Humphrey Bogart link


"Never accept a drink from a urologist." - Erma Bombeck's father link


Interviewer: Do you feel you're a star? Bon Scott: No. I see stars sometimes, though. link


Homer: "Moe, what do you recommend for severe depression?" Moe: "Booze, booze and more booze." Lenny: "There's nothing like a depressant to cure depression." - The Simpsons (episode 5f04) link


"I wonder how much it would cost to develop a perl script to do the same thing? Perl programmers can make something like $75 an hour, so I bet the cost would be somewhere between five and ten bucks." - Alan Bostick link


"Unlike the phone system, the Internet has no Ma Bell or FCC to mandate new policies for the entire system. Not even Microsoft can make us all upgrade our routers. I think." - Paul Boutin link


"The way to deal with bureaucrats is with stealth and sudden violence." - UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali link


"For something that does not exist, the Internet Engineering Task Force has had quite an impact." - Scott Bradner link


My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. - Ashleigh Brilliant link


"The government has issued an orange alert, which once again, means nothing." - Kent Brockman (The Simpsons) link


"Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office." - David Broder link


"Comedy is when you break your leg. Tragedy is when I stub my toe." - Mel Brooks link


"Look, I've seen the A-Team more recently than I've had sex. I think that's all I need to say." - Dan Bruce link


"Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality the cost becomes prohibitive." - William F. Buckley, Jr. link


"I would like to take you seriously but to do so would affront your intelligence." - William F. Buckley, Jr. link


"We are here to drink beer ... and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." - Charles Bukowski link


"If you can only remain pure in your stupidity, someday you may get a phone call from hell." - Charles Bukowski link


"Death is just nature's way of telling you, 'Hey, you're not alive anymore.'" - Bull Shannon link


"Humble, that's me... Mr. Modesty. When it comes to humility, I'm the greatest." - Bullwinkle J. Moose link


Michael Moore is just like P. J. O'Rourke, only without the wit, the humour and the insight. - Tom Burroughes link


"The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too." - Samuel Butler link


"If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue." - Samuel Butler link


"The more things change, the more they suck." - Butthead link


"It's not denial... I'm just very selective about the reality I accept." - Calvin, "Calvin & Hobbes" link


"I try to make everyone's life a little more surreal." - Calvin, "Calvin & Hobbes" link


"A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy." - Joseph Campbell link


"There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." - Albert Camus link


"I can't come in to work today because I'll be stalking my previous boss, who fired me for not showing up for work. OK?" -Marshall Clow link


"It's a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year." - Truman Capote link


" ...point out to me one person who's ever worked for Steve Jobs twice. You're kind of disposable in Steve's eyes - and I've been disposed of. All the ex-Mac people will tell you, you only drink purple Kool-aid once." - Steve Capps, Apple Finder & Newton developer link


May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. - George Carlin link


"One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity." - Andrew Carnegie link


Cats aren't clean, they're just covered in cat spit. link


"Down with the categorical imperative!" - Graffito at UCLA, 1972 link


The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless. - Nicholas Chamfort link


"Type designers are greedy weenies." - Chank Diesel link


Truth is the highest thing that man may keep. - Geoffrey Chaucer link


"Any idiot can face a crisis - it's the day to day living that wears you out." - Anton Chekhov link


"No animal ever invented anything as bad as drunkenness - or as good as drink." - G.K. Chesterton link


"May your fondest wish be granted." - Traditional Chinese curse link


"If that makes your lawyers or managers happy, well, good for them. You still have a lot to worry about." - Tom Christiansen, note on the Perl Y2K disclaimer link


"Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me." - Winston Churchill link


"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." - Winston Churchill link


"Most of the world's work is done by people who don't feel very well." - Winston Churchill link


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


Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit. (Almost nobody dances sober, unless he happens to be insane.) - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Murena link


"There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum." - Arthur C. Clarke link


"I don't have a fear of flying. I have a fear of not flying." - Andrew Dice Clay link


If a President of the United States ever lied to the American people he should resign. - Bill Clinton, 1974 link


"If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel you are looking the wrong way." - Barry Commoner link


"Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose." -Dale Dribble from "King of the Hill" link


"More congress, less legislation." - graffito link


The bill of rights went too far. They should have stopped with: "Congress shall make no law." - Seen at http://www.keepandbeararms.com/ link


"No matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it." - Alan Cooper link


"Memory is like an orgasm. It's a lot better if you don't have to fake it." - Seymour Cray link


"When I sit down in front of a Windows machine, I can't write; when I sit down in front of my Mac, I can write. So I only use Macs." -Michael Crichton link


"Nothing in our culture, not even home computers, is more over- rated than the epidermal felicity of two featherless bipeds in desperate congress." - Quentin Crisp link


"People in stucco houses shouldn't throw quiche." - Sonny Crockett (Miami Vice) link


"You've got to know the rules before you can break 'em. Otherwise, it's no fun." - Sonny Crockett (Miami Vice) link


"He who stops being better stops being good." - Oliver Cromwell link


"The main difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman is that the used car salesman can probably drive and knows when he's lying." - Peter da Silva link


"Anyone who has never hacked sendmail.cf has no soul. Anyone who has hacked it twice has no brain." - Peter da Silva link


"If it weren't for pickpockets I'd have no sex life at all." - Rodney Dangerfield link


If somebody starts shooting a gun at me, don't expect me to defend myself with a condiment. - Steve Daniels on pepper spray link


"If you're not going to kill me, I have things to do." - Darkman link


VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use Unix. - W. Davidson link


"The official ideologiy [of Poland] is Marxism-Leninism, which no one openly admits to believing. For Marx expressed the German view, and Lenin the Russian one, and the meeting of these particular minds has always spelled Polish ruin." - Norman Davies "God's Playground: A History of Poland" link


"Most Poles are by temperament 'agin'." - Norman Davies "God's Playground: A History of Poland" link


"[The Poles] will die for their country; but few will work for it. - Norman Davies "God's Playground: A History of Poland" link


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


You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. - Dean Martin link


"Democracy! Whiskey! And sexy!" - response of a man in Najaf, Iraq when asked what he hoped America would bring to Iraq with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein link


"That Marquis de Sade, he sure knew how to hurt a guy." graffito link


Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. - Philip K. Dick link


"In America sex is an obsession, in other parts of the world it is a fact." - Marlene Dietrich link


"I don't practice what I preach, because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to." - J.R. "Bob" Dobbs link


"Good looks are no substitute for a sound character." - Dr. Who link


The secret of survival is: Always expect the unexpected. Dr. Who link


I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol. link


"Beware the fury of a patient man." - John Dryden, "Absolam and Achitophel", 1680 link


"Oh brother. What blather. Look out when someone uses the word leverage." - John C. Dvorak link


"I am Dyslexic, of Brog. Fesistence is rutile. You will be assissitated." - Peter Chang link


"I have strong feelings about gun control. If there's a gun around, I want to be controlling it." - Clint Eastwood link


"There ain't no rules around here. We're trying to accomplish something." - Thomas Edison link


"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein link


"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." - Harlan Ellison link


I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to. - Elvis Presley link


"The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization." - Ralph Waldo Emerson link


"I hate quotations." - Ralph Waldo Emerson link


"Familiarity breeds democracry." - Florence King link


"Never accept an invitation from a stranger unless he gives you candy." - Linda Festa link


When everyone is out to get you, paranoia is only good thinking. - Dr. Johnny Fever link


"Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry." - Richard Feynman link


"What I can not create I can not understand" found on Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death link


"I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring." - Richard Feynman's last words link


I have been asked if I ever get the DTs; I don't know; it's hard to tell where Hollywood ends and the DTs begin. - W. C. Fields link


"That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust." - Gustave Flaubert link


"When in doubt, duck." - Malcolm Forbes link


"Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don't need it; if you are sick, you shouldn't take it." - Henry Ford link


"You appeal to a small, select group of confused people." - Fortune cookie link


"Psychics will lead dogs to your body." - Alleged Fortune Cookie link


"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing." - Redd Foxx link


"After all, it is an ancient and valuable right of the English people to turn their nouns into verbs when they are so minded." - H. W. Fowler "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" link


To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture. - Anatole France link


"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin link


Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. - Benjamin Franklin link


God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or imporoper. - Richard Buckminster Fuller link


"The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun." - R. Buckminster Fuller link


Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. - Mahatma Gandhi link


I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. - Mahatma Gandhi link


"The way to find what the mainstream will do tomorrow is to associate with the lunatic fringe today." - Jean-Louis Gassee link


I know tomorrow I'll forget all these things I did, I drank so much tonight I just feel stupid. - The Gear Daddies link


But each time we talk, I get the same old thing Always no hugg-ee no kiss-ee until I get a weddin' ring My honey, my baby don't put my love upon no shelf She said don't give no lines and keep your hands to yourself. - Dan Baird (Georgia Satellites) "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" link


"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." - J. Paul Getty link


<Beeth> Girls are like internet domain names, the ones I like are already taken. <honx> well, you can stil get one from a strange country :-P - <http://www.bash.org/?369> link


If God dropped acid, would he see people? link


"When ideas fail, words come in very handy." - Goethe link


"'Know thyself?' If I knew myself, I'd run away." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe link


"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. - Ian Fleming (Goldfinger) link


"There is nothing for a case of nerves like a case of beer." - Joan Goldstein link


"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." - Barry Goldwater link


"If you've wrecked one train, you've wrecked them all." - Gomez Addams link


"To describe it as 'Gonzo' journalism is to ignore the influence of all the other muppets." - Ben Moor, in re Hunter S. Thompson link


"It is true that some lawyers are dishonest, arrogant, greedy, venal, amoral, ruthless buckets of slime. On the other hand, it is unfair to judge the entire profession by a few hundred- thousand bad apples." - James D. Gordon III, The Washington Post link


I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution. - Ulysses S. Grant link


You know you're really somebody in the software world when Richard Stallman complains about you having a gratuitous patent. link


"In my country there is a belief--and rightly so--that the only thing separating us from the animals is mindless superstitions and pointless rituals." - Latka Gravis link


To me, cheating just means you care about winning. -Red Green link


"If he calls me passive-aggressive one more time, I'll get back at him in ways so subtle that he won't have any idea why." - Matt Groening link


"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx link


"If women dressed for men, the stores wouldn't sell much -- just an occasional sun visor." - Groucho Marx link


"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of bandages and adhesive tape." - Groucho Marx link


Dave's Rule of Gun-Control: You kill it, you clean it. link


"That's not a lie, it's a terminological inexactitude." Al Haig link


"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers link


"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." - Han Solo, "Star Wars" link


Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer. - Cookie link


"I'm worried about Congress really messing this up. We have that tendency, I've been told." - Senator Orrin Hatch link


"Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle." - Heinrich Heine link


Don't tell me violence doesn't solve anything. Look at Carthage. - Robert Heinlein link


"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools." - Ernest Hemingway link


"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." - Ernest Hemmingway link


"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force: Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. - Patrick Henry link


Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. - Hubert H. Humphrey, 1960 link


"If the evidence doesn't seem to fit a particular conspiracy theory, just create a bigger conspiracy theory." - Robert D. Hicks, "In Pursuit of Satan" link


"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State." - Heinrich Himmler link


"There is nothing quite so good as a burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating." - Alfred Hitchcock link


I must apologize for the lack of bloodshed in tonight's program. We shall try to do better next time. - Alfred Hitchcock link


"Actually, I have no regard for money. Aside from its purchasing power, it's completely useless as far as I'm concerned." - Alfred Hitchcock link


We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like. I have prepared one of my own. In it, I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like." - Alfred Hitchcock link


"I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it." - Alfred Hitchcock link


"Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'sir' without adding, 'you're making a scene.'" - Homer J. Simpson link


"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." - Homer Simpson link


"The wild shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner... the bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher... the competent drumwork of Don Brewer... Oh, man!" - Homer Simpson (on Grand Funk Railroad) link


"This Inner Peace stuff is sure tough on the old coconut." - Homer Simpson link


"Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get." - Homer J. Simpson link


"Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way." - Homer J. Simpson link


Homer no function beer well without. - Homer Simpson link


Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people. - F. M. Hubbard link


"The way to make money is to start your own religion." - L. Ron Hubbard link


I have an idea forming in my head. -Benson (Time Bandits) link


"Insurance is no substitute for a good alarm system and a twelve-guage shotgun." - Victor Isbecki (Cagney & Lacey) link


"When I was crazy I thought you were great" - Ric Ocasek "It's all I can do" link


"The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards." - Alexander Jablokov link


"If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking beer, I bet is makes beer shoot out your nose." - Deep Thought, Jack Handy link


"Culture which withholds freedom is more despicable than barbarism." - Jan Chryzostom Janiszewski (1848) link


"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." - Thomas Jefferson link


Were it left for me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. - Thomas Jefferson link


"I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it." - Thomas Jefferson link


"Being able to put two rounds into the same hole from 25 meters! That's gun control." - Minnesota Governor-Elect Jesse Ventura link


Jesus was my co-pilot. But I crashed in the Andes and I was forced to eat him. - bumper sticker link


"I don't like money, actually, but it quiets my nerves." -Joe Louis link


"Go into the street and give one man a lecture on morality and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most." - Samuel Johnson link


the good thing about true hopelessness is that you don't have to try again. - Jamie Zawinski link


"In the fight between you and the world, back the world." - Franz Kafka link


"Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy." - Franz Kafka link


"Jolt is for Windows programmers. It's typical IBM PC: it goes in brown and comes out yellow. Mountain Dew is for Macintosh programmers: it goes in yellow and comes out yellow. It's WYSIWYP." - Guy Kawasaki link


"If you can keep your head when those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you've misunderstood the situation." - graffito link


Washington is a city of southern efficiency and northern charm. - John F. Kennedy link


"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy link


We had no use for the policy of the Gospels, 'if someone slaps you, just turn the other cheek.' We had shown that anyone who slapped us on our cheek would get his head kicked off. - Nikita Khrushchev link


"God may have loved the common people, but a trip to any shopping mall suggests that He made far too many of them." - Florence King link


"If whisky or salt won't cure it, then to hell with it. I worry about important things." - Florence King link


"Never look on the bright side. The glare is blinding." - Florence King link


"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." - Donald Knuth link


"You're bound to be unhappy if you optimize everything." - Donald Knuth link


"Any inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it has been sorted with the help of a computer." - Donald Knuth, "Sorting and Searching" link


"Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match." - Karl Kraus link


The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people meaner. - Karl Kraus link


"Sending assassins to kill me is in very poor taste." - Illya Kuryakin link


"Gun Control is mind control." - L. Neil Smith link


"Schizophrenia is a successful attempt not to adapt to pseudo- social realities." - R. D. Laing link


"You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right." - Lyndon B. Johnson link


"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered." - Lyndon Baines Johnson link


The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives. - Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project link


"At first glance, there's a lot of sex on the Internet. Or not at first glance: Nobody can find anything on the Internet at first glance." - Senator Patrick Leahy link


"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." - Tim Leary link


"Fortunately, I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug, uh, regimen to keep my mind, you know, uh, limber." - The Dude (The Big Lebowski) link


"My old life wasn't as glamourous as my web page made it look." - Leela from Futurama link


I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up. - Tom Lehrer link


One hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong. - Graffito link


"You know, we've won awards for this crap." - David Letterman link


"A small handgun makes any TV remote control." - David Letterman link


"I'm going to memorize your name and throw my head away." - Oscar Levant to an obnoxious acquaintance link


"Who the mad would destroy, first they make Gods." Bernard Levin link


"Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime." -G. Gordon Liddy link


"Why is it that there are so many more horses' asses than there are horses?" - G. Gordon Liddy link


Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln link


If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? link


"...if it's a hobby for me, and a job for you, why are you doing such a shoddy job of it?" - Linus Torvalds on Microsoft and software development link


"Security for Unix is like Multitasking for MS-DOS." - Kevin Lockwood link


"I have a simple philosophy. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches." - Alice Roosevelt Longworth link


"You're a creature of the night, Michael. Just like out of a comic book. You're a vampire, Michael. My own brother, a god- damned shit sucking vampire. Ooh, you wait 'til Mom finds out, buddy." -Sam "The Lost Boys" link


"I don't want anybody to make a fuss. When I go, I just want to be stood outside in the garbage with my hat on." - Lou Grant link


I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in. - seen on the net link


"There's a time to be Daniel Boone, and there's a time to be a plumber." - MacGyver link


"It is a common failing of man not to take account of tempests during fair weather." - Machiavelli link


Called up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms regional office and asked, "What wine goes best with an M-16?" The guy who answered did his best to be helpful: "That depends. What are you smoking?" -Michael Maciolek link


"Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison (1787) link


"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison link


"My dad once gave me a few words of wisdom which I've always tried to live by. He said, 'Son, never throw a punch at a redwood.'" - Thomas Magnum (P.I.) link


"Working rule number twenty-three: Go through the motions anyway; you might get lucky." - Thomas Magnum (P.I.) link


"Let me just say that it is super wierd throwing your own bash at a conference instead of just leaching off everyone else's, but hey, free beer, right?" - Rob Malda link


"As for two years from now... who know where it'll be. I think we'll ideally be doing a lot of the same stuff, but maybe with spell checking." - Rob Malda link


"I don't want parole; I'm too busy working on my web site." - Charles Manson, 3/27/97 link


Post mortem debugging can be fun, especially when you get to see the victim die over and over again in slow motion! - Greg Marriott link


There is a growing tendency to think of Man as a rational being, which is absurd. There is simply no evidence of any intelligence on the earth. - Marvin Martian link


"All I know is that I am not a Marxist." - Karl Marx link


"My Pappy always said, 'A coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but one.' A thousand to one is pretty good odds." - Bret Maverick link


"If at first you don't succeed, try something else." - Pappy Maverick link


"A man does what he has to do -- if he can't get out of it." - Pappy Maverick link


"Never cry over spilt milk. It could've been whiskey." - Pappy Maverick link


"Son, stay clear of weddings because one of them is liable to be your own." - Pappy Maverick link


"Son, hard work never hurt anyone -- who didn't do it." - Pappy Maverick link


"Ah -- love -- the walks over soft grass, the smiles over candlelight, the fights over just about everything else...." - Max Headroom link


"I have never liked working. To me a job is an invasion of privacy." - Danny McGoorty link


"AT&T has Bell Labs, and we have Bill Joy. We get a lot more for our money." - Scott McNealy link


"I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing." - H. L. Mencken link


Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. - H. L. Mencken link


"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." - H. L. Mencken link


"All Government, in its essence, is oganized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man." - H. L. Mencken link


Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent. - H. L. Mencken link


"No sane man objects to palpable lies about him; what he objects to is damaging facts." - H. L. Mencken link


Benson, you are so mercifully free of the ravages of intellect. -Evil (Time Bandits) link


People who say that money can't buy happiness are just no good at shopping. - Brian Micklethwait link


"Bill Gates is a monocle and a Persian Cat away from being the villain in a James Bond movie." - Dennis Miller link


Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them. - Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 US 436 p. 491 link


"Anybody who says 'violence never solved anything' hasn't properly applied it." - Tim Mitchell link


"If you are sure you understand everything that is going on, you are hopelessly confused." - Walter Mondale link


Micky: "So this is the world of television." Peter: "That's funny; it doesn't look like a vast wasteland." link


"Life is not all thorns and singing vultures." - Morticia Addams link


"Find bad web sites 8x faster." - Motorola ISDN modem ad link


"We already did this function." - Apple MPW C Compiler link


"Too many errors on one line (make fewer)." - Apple MPW C Compiler link


"This struct already has a perfectly good definition." - Apple MPW C Compiler link


"...And the lord said, 'lo, there shall only be case or default labels inside a switch statement.'" - Apple MPW C Compiler link


"A typedef name was a complete surprise to me at this point in your program." - Apple's MPW C Compiler link


"If she doesn't come to me of her own free will, then I say bring her in on a rope." - Mr. Ed link


"If it's against state law, it's generally considered a breach of Etiquette." - Miss Manners link


"My loathings are simple: stupidity, opression, crime, cruelty, soft music." - Vladimir Nabokov link


Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. -Napoleon Bonaparte link


"In the U. S. Government, there is a lot more incompetence and a lot less conspiracy than is generally believed." - a NASA spokesperson link


Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. - Reinhold Niebuhr link


"Windows '98 is so similar to Windows '95 because Apple hasn't invented anything worth copying since 1995." - Jakob Nielsen link


"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche link


The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad. - Friedrich Nietzsche link


"I despise mystics, they fancy themselves so deep, when they aren't even superficial." - Friedrich Nietzsche link


"Woman was God's second mistake." - Friedrich Nietzsche link


Ah women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. - Friedrich Nietzsche link


"Baseball is great because anything can happen through the ninth inning." - Richard M. Nixon, July 22, 1969 link


If Unix is so damned useful, why is "no" in /usr/dict/words, but "yes" isn't? link


I'm definitely not wearing my underwear. -Raymond (The Rain Man) link


"It seems the only aspect of Microsoft NT which scales well is the price." - <a href="http://www.ntk.net/">Need To Know</a> link


"I may not know karate, but I know crazy." - Roy O'Bannon ("Shanghai Noon") link


"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke link


"This country was founded by religious nuts with guns." - P.J. O'Rourke link


"Making fun of born-again christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope." - P.J. O'Rourke link


"The Middle Eastern states aren't nations; they're quarrels with borders." - P.J. O'Rourke link


"If it works, it must be obsolete." - Ray Albers, Asst VP for Technology Planning at Bell Atlantic link


"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." - Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment, 1977 link


"We're selling more than a cracker here. We're selling the salty, unctuous illusion of happiness." - The Onion link


"Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket." - George Orwell link


"I love my blubber. It keeps me warm, it keeps me company, it keeps my pants up." - Oscar Madison link


"Avoid running at all time." - Satchel Paige link


"Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness." - Thomas Paine link


Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. - Tom Paine "Common Sense" link


Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind. - Tom Paine "The Rights of Man" link


"Hey! Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?" - Seen on the web link


Pass the Word. Eat a Bible. link


"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me." - General George S. Patton link


Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security. - Norman Vincent Peale link


When I was young we didn't have MTV; we had to take drugs and go to concerts. - Steven Pearl link


"In many ways, the media today makes dictatorship impossible. But it also makes democracy intolerable." - Shimon Peres, Fall 1998 link


"I'm dreaming ... from the waist on down!" -Pete Townshend link


"Stamp out philately!" - graffito, Fort Belvoir, VA Library link


"The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee." - Regis Philbin link


"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso link


Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. - William Pitt link


"He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato link


"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." - Plato link


"You remind me of a poem I can't remember, and a song that may never have existed, and a place I've never been to." - Abraham J. (Grandpa) Simpson link


"Poland and Ireland are the only two Caholic countries which thrive on a diet of potatoes and hard spirit." - unattributed link


"It's only premarital sex if you're going to get married." - Anonymous link


"The police are not here to create disorder. They're here to preserve disorder." Former Chicago Mayor Daley during the 1968 Democratic Convention link


"Americans have different ways of saying things. They say 'elevator', we say 'lift'...they say 'president', we say 'stupid psychopathic git'...." - Alexi Sayle link


"This is a one line proof... if we start sufficiently far to the left." - Cambridge University math professor link


A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history, with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. - Mitch Ratliffe in Technology Review link


"I like my mixed metaphors shaken, not stirred, thank you." - Eric S. Raymond link


"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." - Ronald Reagan link


"Do not adjust your mind -- there is a fault in reality." - Graffito, Balliol College, Oxford University, 1972 link


"I am a man... I can change... If I have to... I guess... amen." - Red Green "The Man's Prayer" link


If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. - Red Green link


"If salad is so good for you, how come you can't barbecue it?" - Red Green link


"And remember, this fix is only temporary, unless it works." - Red Green link


"Hey, Alex--You know the really great thing about television? If something important happens, anywhere in the world, night or day ...you can always change the channel." - Reverend Jim Ignatowski link


"I moved to Minneapolis, where it was cold... I figured I'd keep better." - Rhoda Morgenstern link


"I'm still uncertain about the language declaration syntax..." - Dennis Ritchie on C, as quoted in LinuxFocus, Feb 15, 1999 link


"Steve Jobs has said that Xwindows is brain-damamged and will disappear in two years. He got it half-right." - Dennis Ritchie link


"Typos in Finnegans Wake? How could you tell?" - Kim Stanley Robinson link


"Never miss a good opportunity to shut up." - Will Rogers link


The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets. - Will Rogers link


You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one. - Rush Limbaugh, 1993 link


There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. - John Ruskin link


"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence." - Bertrand Russell link


One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. - Bertrand Russell link


"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation." - H. H. Munro (Saki) link


I'm an idealist: I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way. - Carl Sandburg link


To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood. - George Santayana link


"Oh, a sarcasm detector. *That's* useful." - Comic Book Guy, "The Simpsons" link


"I knew it! Satan is a woman!" - Country Dick Montana "The Home Front" link


"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Norman Schwartzkopf link


The 'active' in Microsoft's Active Server Pages means they're always moving from one place to another. -Eric Scouten link


"The chief cause of problems is solutions." - Eric Sevaried link


"The death of mankind is not only a conceivable result of the triumph of socialism -- it constitutes the goal of socialism." - Igor Shafarevich "The Socialist Phenomenon" link


MacDuff: "What three things does drink especially provoke?" Porter: "Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance..." - William Shakespeare "Macbeth" Act II, Scene III link


"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw link


"Liberty means responsibility; that is why most men dread it." - George Bernard Shaw link


"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid." - George Bernard Shaw link


"[Dean Martin] is an absolute, unqualified drunk. And if we ever develop an Olympic drinking team, he's gonna be the coach... Dean Martin has been stoned more often than the United States embassies." - Frank Sinatra link


"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day." - Frank Sinatra link


"Don't hate yourself in the morning. Sleep till noon." -Graffito link


Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient. - Rev. Sydney Smith link


"Laws are like spider's webs: if some poor weak creature come up against them, it is caught; but a bigger one can break through and get away." - Solon link


"O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet." - St. Augustine link


Standards are industry's way of codifying obsolescence. link


"I believe we were born with a mouth to do more than just suck, spit, and whistle." - Ralph Steadman link


"Irresponsibility isn't a sickness -- it's an art." - Remington Steele link


"The only excuse for God is that he doesn't exist." - Stendhal link


In a way, staring into a computer screen is like staring into an eclipse. It's brilliant and you don't realize the damage until its too late. - Bruce Sterling link


"Man cannot live by words alone, though he is sometimes forced to eat them." - Adlai Stevenson link


"Harpists spend ninety percent of their lives tuning their harps and ten percent playing out of tune." - Igor Stravinsky link


"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves." - August Strindberg link


If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done? link


"Who tackles all the big issues even more efficiently and succinctly than the Bible does? The band Yes, of course." - Suck link


Lois Lane: "Clark, does spring mean anything to you?" Clark Kent: "Baseball." Lois: "Do you think spring means anything to Superman?" Clark: "He doesn't have time for baseball." link


"I AM the supreme being, I'm not entirely dim." -Time Bandits link


Lord, I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing! - Jonathan Swift link


Law is a bottomless pit; it is a cormorant, a harpy that devours everything. - Jonathan Swift link


Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. - Jonathan Swift link


"Rambo is a pussy." - Ray Tango (Sylvester Stallone) "Tango and Cash" link


Give a man a beer and he wastes an hour. Teach a man to brew and he wastes a lifetime. link


Sure I've got a permit. It's called the Second Amendment. - Ted Nugent on Gun Control link


"I heard guys say they got into rock and roll to pick up women. I didn't get into rock to pick up women, but I sure adapted." - Ted Nugent link


To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic. -Ted Nugent link


When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane. link


"An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do." - Dylan Thomas link


Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning. - Marlo Thomas (That Girl) link


"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." - Hunter S. Thompson link


"Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!" - Henry David Thoreau link


"Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes." - Henry David Thoreau link


"I consider exercise vulgar. It makes people smell." - Alec Yuill Thornton link


Rock and roll never sleeps. It just passes out. -George Thorogood link


"I hate women because they always know where things are." - James Thurber link


"Must...defy...laws...of...physics..." - The Tick link


The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. - Alexis de Tocqueville link


"I must first reveal my personal bias in this discussion, since I worship at the First Church of PDF Really Sucks." - Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini link


"What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness." - Leo Tolstoy link


Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them? link


"It's terrible feeling like an eligible bachelor but no women seeming to agree with you." - Pete Townshend discussing "A Legal Matter" link


The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. - Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to W. S. Smith, 13 Nov. 1787) link


"Trust in Allah, but tie your camel." - Arabian proverb link


"When angry, count four; when very angry, swear." - Mark Twain link


"Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough." - Mark Twain link


"Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside." - Mark Twain link


"Golf is a good walk spoiled." - Mark Twain link


"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." - Mark Twain link


"Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper." - Mark Twain link


"Often it seems a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat." - Mark Twain link


"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." - Mark Twain link


"It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand." - Mark Twain link


"Children are all criminally insane, and must be destroyed!" -Jhonen Vasquez link


Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. - Bill Vaughan link


"No job too big; no fee too big!" - Dr. Peter Venkman, "Ghostbusters" link


"I'm a born again atheist." - Gore Vidal link


"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." - Voltaire link


"I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire link


"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire link


"Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." - John von Neumann link


"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - unknown link


"You're never too old to do goofy stuff." - Ward Cleaver link


"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine." - George Washington link


"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like a fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - attributed to George Washington, but apocryphal link


"Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" - Bullwinkle J. Moose link


"Never apologize, Mister. It's a sign of weakness." - John Wayne (in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon") link


"Life is tough. Life is tougher if you're stupid." - John Wayne link


"The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you're on the job." - Slappy White link


"Action: the last recourse of those who know not how to dream." - Oscar Wilde link


"Work is the curse of the drinking class." - Oscar Wilde link


"Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde link


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


I've found that you don't need to wear a necktie if you can hit. - Ted Williams link


All good work is done in defiance of management. - Bob Woodward link


If work is so terrific, how come they have to pay you to do it? link


"When in doubt, worry." - graffito link


"24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence?" - Steven Wright link


"Kissing is a means of getting two people so close together that they can't see anything wrong with each other." - René Yasenek link


"The problem with some people is that when they aren't drunk, they're sober." - William Butler Yeats link


I hated going to weddings. All the grandmas would poke me saying "You're next". They stopped that when I started doing it to them at funerals. - scirDSL <http://www.bash.org/?83627> link


"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." - Henny Youngman link


"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer." - Frank Zappa link


"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." - Frank Zappa link


"Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." - Frank Zappa link


"Using these toolkits is like trying to make a bookshelf out of mashed potatoes." - Jamie Zawinski link


Zenophobia: the irrational fear of convergent sequences. link


"How can I miss you if you won't go away?" - Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks link


"If they could just pass a few more laws, then we could all be criminals" - Vinnie Moscaritolo link


"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?" - <xterm> link


Copyright 2004, Dave Polaschek. Last updated on Thu, 05 Aug 2004 07:54:37.