An ever-growing collection of poignant, amusing, revealing, or just plain memorable things that people have written or said. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. -- Anonymous Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. -- Anonymous When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl. -- Anonymous The perfect is the enemy of the good. -- Anonymous If we had bacon, we could have bacon and eggs, if we had eggs. -- Anonymous If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance. -- Anonymous Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. -- Anonymous Men marry women hoping they will not change, and women marry men hoping that they will. Both are disappointed. -- Anonymous I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. -- Douglas Adams There is a theory that states: "If anyone finds out what the universe is for it will disappear and be replaced by something more bizzarely inexplicable." There is another theory that states: "This has already happened." -- Douglas Adams (from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") Arthur hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realised there was a contradiction there and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife. -- Douglas Adams (from "Life, The Universe, And Everything") Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. -- Scott Adams Who is to bell the Cat? It is easy to propose impossible remedies. -- Aesop Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly. -- Edward Albee (from "The Zoo Story") I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. -- Woody Allen Teaching is the process by which the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either. -- Woody Allen More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly -- Woody Allen We are here on Earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I do not know. -- W. H. Auden You have given your life to become the person you are today. Was it worth it? -- Richard Bach Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own. -- John M. Barrie Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- D. P. Barron I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man with no feet, so I took his shoes. -- Dave Barry Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them, and you have their shoes. -- Dave Barry (what is it with him and shoes??) And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. -- The Beatles Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. -- Hector Berlioz Egotist: A person more interested in himself than in me. -- Ambrose Bierce Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. -- Ambrose Bierce Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. "There is one favor that I should like to ask," said he. "Name it." "Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws." "What, wretch! You, his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul - you ask for the right to make his laws?" "Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself." It was so ordered. -- Ambrose Bierce Be excellent to each other! -- Bill and Ted Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier. -- Blore's Razor Eternity is a long time, especially the end. -- Niels Bohr Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. -- Napoleon Bonaparte What is the difference between a violin and a viola? The difference is that a viola burns longer. -- Victor Borge I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants. -- A. Whitney Brown Some people think the glass is half full. Others think it is half empty. I think the glass is too big. -- George Carlin You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. -- Al Capone In the end, everything is a gag. -- Charlie Chaplin Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe. Sometimes I think we're not. In both cases the thought is equally shocking. -- Arthur C. Clarke Frostily patient, Determined falcon giggles; Deceptive lamb quacks. -- Computer-generated Haiku But Charlie, remember what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted. . . . He lived happily ever after. -- Roald Dahl (from "Charley And The Chocolate Factory") So little of what might happen does happen. -- Salvador Dali I gotta be me. -- Sammy Davis, Jr. Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -- Philip K. Dick Consequences, shmonsequences, as long as I'm rich. -- Daffy Duck We should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- Albert Einstein Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. -- Albert Einstein A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes. -- James Feibleman I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain. -- Pierre de Fermat We must all hang together, or we will surely all hang separately -- Benjamin Franklin You can run away from home and join a circus, but you can't run away from the circus and join a home. -- Fred the Clown, from the National Shrine Circus In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on. -- Robert Frost All I really need to know . . . I learned in kindergarten. -- Robert Fulghum Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. -- Mahatma Gandhi The graveyards are full of indispensable men. -- Charles de Gaulle I am an atheist. I don't believe in Zeus. -- Graffiti There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in. -- Graham Greene I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to. -- Jimi Hendrix To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. -- Hippocrates It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. -- John Andrew Holmes You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose. -- Lou Holtz The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. -- Hubert Humphrey Maybe this world is another planet's hell. -- Aldous Huxley Live all you can. -- Henry James I don't wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone. -- Javan Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it. -- Soren Kierkegaard In a mad world, only the mad are sane. -- Akiro Kurosawa Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis. -- Pierre Laplace, to Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God. Is that all there is? -- Peggy Lee Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. -- John Lennon The average person thinks he isn't. -- Father Larry Lorenzoni It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. -- H.L. Mencken 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 When you fall on somebody, it's not enough to say you didn't mean to; after all, he probably didn't mean to be underneath you. -- A. A. Milne (through Winnie The Pooh) One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. -- A. A. Milne Listen, strange women, lyin' in ponds, distributin' swords, is no basis for a system of government. -- Monty Python And The Holy Grail I can complain because rosebushes have thorns, or rejoice because thornbushes have roses; it's all how you look at it. -- J. Kenfield Morley Loving is so short and forgetting so long. -- Pablo Neruda If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. -- Friedrich Nietzsche Insanity is the exception in individuals. In groups, parties, people, and times, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche When anyone says "theoretically," they really mean "not really." -- David Parnas When I was a child, my mother said to me, "If you become a soldier you'll be a general. If you become a monk you'll end up as the pope." Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso. -- Pablo Picasso Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?" Brain: "The same thing we do every night, Pinky . . . try and take over the world!" -- Pinky and the Brain She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you? -- from "Psycho" I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way. -- Jessica Rabbit O Lord, if there is a Lord, save my soul, if I have a soul. -- Ernest Renan When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. -- Jacob Riis I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. -- Stephen Roberts Don't dream it. Be it. -- from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong -- but that's the way to bet. -- Damon Runyon The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. -- Bertrand Russell The only possible conclusion that social sciences can draw is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- Carl Sagan "It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If for example, you came at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is ready to greet you . . . . One must observe the proper rites . . . ." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery (from "The Little Prince") Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. -- George Santayana There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. -- George Santayana Hell is other people. -- Jean-Paul Sartre A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure. -- Segal's Law How did it get so late so soon? It's night before its afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon? -- Dr. Seuss There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. -- William Shakespeare (from "Hamlet") Isn't it surprising how many things, if not said immediately, seem not worth saying ten minutes from now? -- Arnot Sheppard, Jr. Weaseling out of things is what separates man from the animals -- well, except for the weasel. -- Homer Simpson Jim: Are you happy at this very moment? John: In one way yes; in another way, no. Jim: Can you be more explicit? John: Yes. I have just heard the first really convincing argument for the immortality of the soul. Now I know for sure that I will survive my bodily death. This makes me very happy. On the other hand, my steak is overdone. -- Raymond Smullyan Sanity is a cozy lie. -- Susan Sontag Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. -- Benjamin Spock A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. -- Joseph Stalin There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it. -- Tom Stoppard (from "Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead") No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful. -- They Might Be Giants (from "Don't Let's Start") One world at a time. -- Henry David Thoreau, when asked about the hereafter When I was young, I could remember anything, whether it happened or not. -- Mark Twain It is not enough to succeed, others must fail. -- Gore Vidal If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him. -- Voltaire Who was the first guy that look at a cow and said, "I think that I'll drink whatever comes out of those things when I squeeze them?" -- Bill Watterson (from "Calvin And Hobbes") If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer. -- Alfred North Whitehead Life is too important to be taken seriously. -- Oscar Wilde We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. -- Robert Wilensky |