Any sufficient technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke A computer's attention span is only as long as it's power cord. Anonymous Anthony's law of force: Don't force it, get a larger hammer. Atwood's Fourteenth Corollary: No books are lost in lending except those you particularly wanted to keep. Avery's law of lubrication: Everything needs a little oil now and then. Blaauw's Law: Established technology tends to persist in the face of new technology. Bombeck's rule of medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. Boob's Law: You always find something the last place you look. Boozer's Revision: A bird in the hand is dead. Boren's Law of the Bureaucracy: 1) When in doubt, mumble. 2) When in trouble, delegate. 3) When in charge, ponder. Borkowski's Law: You can't gaurd against the arbitrary. Bowie's Theorem: If an experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment. Brooks's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Canada Bill Jones's Supplement: A Smith and Wesson beats four aces. A pipe gives a wise man time to think, and a fool something to stick in his mouth. A bird in hand is safer than one overhead. A cup of coffee does not a breakfast make. But a cup of coffee and a cigarette... now you're talking! No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. Modern technology requires millions of dollars to make things smaller and smaller, but laundries have been doing the same thing for years, free of charge. Seattle PI Chuckle 10/27/83 Wolf's Axiom: Love stinks. Small change can often be found under seat cushions. Excerpt from the notebook of Lazarus Long It pays to be obvious... Especially when you have a reputation for subtlety. Never try to outstubborn a cat. Excerpt from the notebook of Lazarus Long Never play cards with a man named "Doc", never eat at a diner named "Mom's", and never get involved with a woman who's problems are worse than yours. Woman's great strength lies in being late or absent. Alain There are more dusty Bibles than dusty books of pornography. Russian Proverb He who wishes to be benevolent will not be rich. Mencius What most people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidities. Arthur Schopenhauer A man who causes fear cannot be free from fear. Epicurus I have lived fifty years to know the mistakes of the forty-nine. Chinese Saying A thing that nobody looks for is seldom found. Pestalozzi A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. Mark Twain Things looked at patiently from one side after another generally end up showing a side that is beautiful. R. L. Stevenson Fleas are, like the remainder of the universe, a divine mystery. Anatole France All religions issue Bibles against Satan, and say the most injurious things against him, but we never hear his side. Mark Twain A fly is as untamable as a hyena. Ralph Waldo Emerson Believe the doubter, and doubt when you are told to believe. Ludwig Borne There are more fools than sages, and even in a sage there is more folly than wisdom. Nicolas Chamfort A man who knows he is a fool is not a great fool. Chuang Tse Take things always by their smooth handle. Thomas Jefferson I believe in getting into hot water. I think it keeps you clean. G. K. Chesterton Dirt is almost as omnipresent as God. Friedrich Hebbel The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself. Oscar Wilde Nothing happens to you that hasn't happened to someone else. William Feather Is Paris burning? Adolph Hitler There is nothing more horrible than imagination without taste. Goethe There's another advantage to being poor -- a doctor will cure you faster. Kin Hubbard How many joys are crushed under foot because people look up at the sky and disregard what is at their feet. Goethes Mother Be frank and explicit. That is the line to take, when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the mind of others. Disraeli It is in human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion. Anatole France There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others. Montaigne Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects. Pascal There is no medicine, there are only medicine men. There are no diseases, there are only patients. Salvador de Madriaga Some mens memory is like a box where a man should mingle his jewels with his old shoes. Lord Halifax Muddle-headedness is a condition precedent to independent thought. Alfred North Whitehead It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart, the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you. Mark Twain Nature is visible thought. Heinrich Heine "It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always say in Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man's head off." Charles Dickens I can stand any kind of society. All I care to know is that a man is a human being--that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. Mark Twain A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. Oscar Wilde The golden rule is that there are no golden rules. G. B. Shaw There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun. Pablo Picasso If the government were as afraid of disturbing the consumer as it is of disturbing business, this would be some democracy. Kin Hubbard Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life. C.G. Jung He calls it loyalty to his party: but it's only laziness; he doesn't want to get out of his bed. Frederick Nietzsche It is said that passion makes one think in a circle. Oscar Wilde Just when you're beginning to think pretty well of people, you run across somebody who puts sugar on sliced tomatoes. Will Cuppy Accident: An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws. Ambrose Bierce There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper. John Ruskin An ambitious man can never know peace. J. Krishnamurti Fun is like life insurance: the older you get, the more it costs. Kin Hubbard How much depends on the way things are presented in this world can be seen from the very fact that coffee drunk out of wine-glasses is really miserable stuff, as is meat cut at the table with a pair of scissors. Worst of all, as I once actually saw, is butter spread on a piece of bread with an old though very clean razor. G. C. Lichtenberg All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher. Ambrose Bierce Pessimism is essentially a religious disease. William James Nobody can become perfect by merely ceasing to act. Bhagavad-Gita Music is a higher revelation than philosophy. Ludwig van Beethoven A person who is going to commit an inhuman act invariably excuses himself by saying, "I'm only human, after all". Sydney Harris It isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so. Mark Twain Repartee: Any reply that is so clever that it makes the listener wish he had said it himself. Elbert Hubbard Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together. George Santayana Genealogy: An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own. Ambrose Bierce This man must be very ignorant, for he answers every question he is asked. Voltaire We are wicked because we are frightfully self conscious. Okahura Kakuzo As bees extract honey for thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so sensible men often get advantage and profit from the most awkward circumstances. We should learn how to do that and practise it, like the man who flung a stone at his dog but missed it and hit his stepmother, whereupon he exclaimed, "Well, not so bad after all." Plutarch When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation. Samuel Johnson The fool wonders, the wise man asks. Benjamin Disraeli Hire a servant and do it yourself. Yiddish Proverb The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. William Blake The hen is an egg's way of producing another egg. Samual Butler Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, not silence. Samuel Butler A simple life is it's own reward. George Santayana He who sins against Heaven has nowhere left for prayer. Confucious He that sleeps feels not the toothache. Shakespeare It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class except Congress. Mark Twain Well enough for old folks to rise early, because they have done so many mean things all their lives they can't sleep anyhow. Mark Twain Men heap together the mistakes of their lives and create a monster they call destiny. John Oliver Hobbes One can acquire anything in solitude, except character. Stendahl When you are ashamed to speak, speak up at once. Robert Louis Stevenson Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. Oscar Wilde Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. Charles F. Kettering What a good thing Adam had--when he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before. Mark Twain Such is the human race. Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party didn't miss the boat. Mark Twain Everywhere there are spectators-people who are interested in something they are not interested in at all. Peter Altenberg If someone gives you so-called good advice, do the opposite; you can be sure it will be the right thing nine out of ten times. Anselm Feuerbach Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. Kin Hubbard The epithet "beautiful" is used by surgeons to describe operations which their patients describe as ghastly, by physicists to describe methods of measurement which leave sentimentalists cold, by lawyers to describe cases which ruin all the parties to them, and by lovers to describe the objects of their infatuation, however unattractive they may appear to the unaffected spectators. G. B. Shaw There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it and when he can. Mark Twain A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible. Bertrand Russell Games lubricate the body and the mind. Benjamin Franklin Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another. Eric Hoffer Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it. Henry David Thoreau The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing. Jean Cocteau You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner. Aristophanes Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Oscar Wilde When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth. G. B. Shaw I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am the most certain of the first time. Josh Billings The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature. Alfred North Whitehead Turtles can tell more about the roads than hares. Kahlil Gibran A man that steps aside from the world and has leisure to observe it without interest and design, thinks all mankind as mad as they think him. Lord Halifax The sun will set without thy assistance. Talmud To have a true idea of man, or of life, one must have stood himself on the brink of suicide, or on the door-sill of insanity, at least once. Hippolyte Taine A gentleman is a man, more often a woman, who owes nothing and leaves the world in debt to him. It is better to die a gentleman than a martyr. G. B. Shaw The Master would not discuss prodigies, prowess, lawlessness, or the supernatural. Sayings of Confuscious Deep-seated preferences cannot be argued about--you cannot argue a man into liking a glass of beer. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. If all the people in the world should agree to sympathize with a certain man at a certain hour, they could not cure his headache. E.W. Howe He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. George Bernard Shaw Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. E. B. White We can hardly realize now the blissful quietude of the pre-telephone epoch. Norman Douglas It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time. Winston Churchill Of all sexual aberrations, perhaps the most peculiar is chastity. Remy de Gourmont Our ideas are for the most part like bad sixpences, and we spend our lives in trying to pass them on one another. Samuel Butler The aim of the theatre is to penetrate the soul of the audience. Constantin Stanislavski Do not remove a fly from your friend's forehead with a hatchet. Chinese proverb I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. Oscar Wilde Exile: One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador. Ambrose Bierce Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring bad habits than in aquiring as few habits as possible. Eric Hoffer There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it. G. B. Shaw Life is short; live it up. Nikita Khrushchev A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left. Marcel Proust He who advertises his name, loses it; he who does not increase [knowledge] diminishes it; he who refuses to learn, merits extinction; and he who puts his talent to selfish use, commits spiritual suicide. Talmud Happiness is a Swedish sunset--it is there for all, but most of us look the other way and lose it. Mark Twain Kleptomaniac: A rich thief. Ambrose Bierce Great men, by teaching weak minds to think, have put them on the road to error. Vauvenargues God is a thing that thinks. Spinoza It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed. Kin Hubbard Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses. Confucius There are many things that we would throw away, if we were not afraid that others might pick them up. Oscar Wilde It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something. Samuel Butler I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out. Diderot Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game. Goethe Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains. Eric Hoffer It is better to have never been born. But who among us has such luck? One in a million, perhaps. Alfred Polgar You see things and say "Why?" But I dream things that never were, and I say "Why not?" G. B. Shaw The ways of tradition inevitably lead to mediocrity, and a mind caught in tradition cannot perceive what is true. J. Krishnamurti If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor. Albert Einstein A man seldom thinks of taking Turkish baths until it is too late. Robert Benchley The only rational way of educating is to be an example--if one can't help it, a warning example. Albert Einstein If you get gloomy, just take an hour off and sit and think how much better this world is than hell. Of course, it won't cheer you up much if you expect to go there. Don Marquis One should absorb the color of life, but one should never remember details. Details are always vulgar. Oscar Wilde Were the works of God readily understandable by human reason, they would be neither wonderful nor unspeakable. Thomas A Kempis I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Abraham Lincoln Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forgo an advantage. Benjamin Disraeli Work teaches work. Indian Proverb People always get what they ask for; the only trouble is that hey never know, until they get it, what it actually is that they have asked for. Aldous Huxley It is only the shallow people who do not judge by appearance. Oscar Wilde If you are not very clever, you should be conciliatory. Disraeli I have indeed now and then a little compunction in reflecting that I spend time so idly; but another reflection comes to relieve me, whispering, "You know that the soul is immortal; why then should you be such a niggard of a little time, when you have a whole eternity before you?" So, being easily convinced, and, like other reasonable creatures, satisfied with a small reason, when it is in favor of doing what I have in mind to, I shuffle the cards again and begin another game. Benjamin Franklin Everyman's nose will not make a shoe-horn. Let us leave the world as it is. Cervantes A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down. Robert Benchley The world gets better everyday-then worse again in the evening. Kin Hubbard It is often harder to boil down than to write. Sir William Osler A man must love a thing very much if he not only practises it without any hope of fame and money, but even practises it without any hope of doing it well. G. K. Chesterton There is sort of magic in the written word. The idea acquires substance by taking on a visible nature, and then stands in the way of its own clarification. W. Somerset Maugham Q. If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here? A. Why do men go to zoos? H.L. Mencken He that won't be counseled can't be helped. Benjamin Franklin Never give advice in a crowd. Arab proverb It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal. Oscar Wilde Someone asked me how it felt to be so old and still active. I answered it felt good. One of the reasons is that I have no more enemies because they are all dead. Herman Smith-Johnson (on the eve of his 100th birthday) Become old early if you wish to stay old long. Cato the Censor When in doubt, tell the truth. Mark Twain It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art. Oscar Wilde When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, one-hundred. Thomas Jefferson Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Noel Coward We must learn to live together as brothers or perish togather as fools. Martin Luther King, Jr. The business of America is business. Calvin Coolidge Things do not change; we change. Henry David Thoreau Universal suffrage is a hoax... Popular government, like monarchy, rests on fiction and lives by expedient. Anatole France If one person tell thee thou hast ass's ears, take no notice; should two tell thee so, procure a saddle for yourself. Hebrew proverb There is no man so good who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. Mantaigne In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass, and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity. Ambrose Bierce Character is much easier kept than recovered. Thomas Paine You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough. William Blake The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp. John Berry Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you. Satchel Paige Acquaintance: A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor and obscure, and intimate when he is rich and famous. Ambrose Bierce An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. Oscar Wilde The true test of civilization is not the census nor the size of cities nor the crops- no, but the kind of man the country turns out. Ralph Waldo Emerson He who hesitates is sometimes saved. James Thurber The more advanced the civilization, the less powerful the individual. Sir Arthur helps Only a fairy tale calls a constant condition happiness. When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong. Oscar Wilde As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. Josh Billings There are in Nature neither rewards nor punishments -- there are consequences. Robbert G. Ingersoll A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case. Finley Peter Dunne Life would be tolerable but for its amusements. G. B. Shaw Conversation should touch everything but should concentrate itself on nothing. Oscar Wilde Everything is funny as long as it happened to somebody else. Will Rogers Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. Thomas Jefferson Thou hast the keys of Paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty opium. Thomas De Quincey Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. Mark Twain Never learn to do anything. If you don't learn you'll always find someone else to do it for you. Mark Twain's mother A man who knows he is a fool is not a great fool. Chuang-Tse When a learned man errs he makes a learned error. Arab proverb Zoroaster said, "When in doubt, abstain," but this does not always apply. At cards, when in doubt take the trick. Josh Billings Sooner murder an infant in his cradle than nurse unacted desires. William Blake Bore: a person who talks when you wish him to listen. Ambrose Bierce Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects. Will Rogers Impiety: Your irreverence toward my deity. Ambrose Bierce There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. Thomas Huxley It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. Oscar Wilde Even if a farmer intends to loaf, he gets up in time to get an early start. E. W. Howe The Created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity. Sir Thomas Browne Facts are stuborn things. Tobias Smollett Whenever one has anything unpleasent to say one should always be quite candid. Oscar Wilde The thing generally raised on city land is taxes. Charles Dudley Warner Nobody shoots at Santa Claus. Alfred E. Smith To a lady who asked whether he believed in ghosts: No, ma'am, I've seen too many. Samuel Taylor Coleridge It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something. Samuel Butler By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another mans, I mean. Mark Twain With history piling up so fast, almost every day is the anniversary of something awful. Joe Brainard It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all. Henry David Thoreau If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. G. K. Chesterton Many a man that can't direct you to a corner drugstore will get a respectful hearing when age has further impaired his mind. Finley Peter Dunne A highbrow is a person educated beyond his intelligence. Brander Matthews We always like those who admire us. La Rochefoucauld I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped. Feodor Dostoevski There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying. Josh Billings On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia. W. C. Fields' epitaph It's sweet to be remembered, but it's often cheaper to be forgotten. Kin Hubbard Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Mark Twain Fish and visitors smell in three days. Benjamin Franklin Duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself. Oscar Wilde Every custom was once an eccentricity; every idea was once an absurdity. Holbrook Jackson I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing. Oscar Wilde The highest condition of art is artlessness. Henry David Thoreau Departures should be sudden. Disraeli The law, in it's majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France It is my certain conviction that no man loses his freedom except through his own weakness. Ghandi Historian: An unsuccessful novelist. H. L. Mencken Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is very good company by the way. Lord Halifax When you say that you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. Bismark Never chew your pills. C. H. Spurgeon Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Mark Twain There are more dusty Bibles than dusty books of pornography. Russian proverb Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has a friend; be discreet. Talmud A man should live forever, or die trying. Spider Robinson Books are always the better for not being read. Look at our classics. George B. Shaw The happiest time in any man's life is when he is in red-hot pursuit of a dollar with a reasonable prospect of overtaking it. Josh Billings In language clarity is everything. Confucius A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget. Samuel Butler "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz) Micro rule of escapism: When in doubt, power down. Anonymous Franklin's law: Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed. Gene Franklin Froud's law: A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. Geanangel's law: If you want to make an enemy, do someone a favor. Gilb's First Law of Unreliability: Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Corollary to Gilb's First Law of Unreliability: At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer, you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. Gilb's Second Law of Unreliability: Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. Gilb's Fourth Law of Unreliability: A system tends to grow in terms of complexity rather than of simplification, until the resulting unreliability is intolerable. Gilb's Fifth Law of Unreliability: Self checking systems have a complexity in proportion to the inherent unreliability of the system in which they are used. Gilb's Sixth Law of Unreliability: The error-detection and correction capabilites of any system will serve as the key to understanding the type of errors which they cannot handle. Gilb's Seventh Law of Unreliability: Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited. Gilb's Eigth Law of Unreliability: All programs contain errors until proved otherwise- which is impossible. Gilb's Ninth Law of Unreliablity: Investment in reliablity will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until somebody insists on getting some useful work done. Hartley's law: You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back you've got something. Herblock's law: If it's good they'll stop making it. Hoare's law of Large Programs: Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out. Inertia, Law of: Given enough time, what you put off doing today will eventually get done by itself. Jones's law: The man who can smile when things go wrong as thought of someone he can blame it on. Kaplan's law of The Instrument: Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. Abraham Kaplan Kerr's three rules for trying new foods: 1) Never try anything with tomatoes in it. 2) Never try anything bigger than your head. 3) Never, NEVER try anything that looks like vomit. Then as he says, he broke all three rules by discovering pizza. There's a sucker born every minute. P. T. Barnum Reports of my death have been greatly exagerated. Mark Twain Never have I lied in my own interest; but often I have lied through shame in order to draw myself from indifferent matters. Jean-Jacques Rousseau The urge to destroy is a creative urge. Mikhail Bakunin Logic is a club kept in the corner for use on the occasional non-initiate happening by with hard questions. W. Light Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Albert Einstien When something defies description, let it. Arnold H. Glasow In most instances, all an argument probes is that two people are present. Tony Pettito Hors d'oeuvres: A ham sandwich cut into forty pieces. Jack Benny Learning is like rowing upstream: Not to advance is to drop back. Chinese proverb There are already too many 'N' numbers on. Chas Douglass
