Aldis, Brian W., "Space Odysseys"
At the Oxford city library, on the title page of a biography of Werner von Braun, "Reaching for the Stars,"someone penciled a subtitle: "Sometimes I Hit London."
Aldis, Brian W., "Space Odysseys"
When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them. They show us the state of our decay.
Allen, Woody
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies.
Anderson, Bruce, Anderson Valley Advertiser, Nov. 15, 1989
All newspaper editorial writers ever do is come down from the hills after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
Anderson, Poul, "The Communicators"
Conquest may be the wrong word. Maybe they think of it as "help," like evangelists bringing a true faith to the pagans with fire and sword, or a technological advanced society choking a pastoral one by sheer weight of economics.
In the end, technological society ends inevitably with replacing silly, limited organic life by efficient computers and robots.
Andrews, F. Emerson, "Saturday Review"
THE NINE AGES OF MAN
Not old enough to know better
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Annan, Kofi, U. N. Secretary General (Ghana, then age 17)
One day our headmaster walked into the classroom and put up a broad white sheet of paper with a small black dot in the corner. "Boys," he asked, "what do you see?" All of us shouted in unison, "A black dot!" Then he said, "So not a single one of you saw the broad white sheet of paper? Don't go through life with that attitude."
Arabic Proverb, The Four Types of Man
He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not.
He who knows not, but knows that he knows not.
He who knows, but knows not that he knows.
He who knows, and knows that he knows.
Arbiter, Karl: former teacher of Albert Einstein, Omni, March 1988
You're aware the boy failed my grade school math class, I take it? And not that many years later he's teaching COLLEGE. Now, I ask you: "Is that the SORRIEST indictment of the American educational system you ever heard?" [Pauses to light cigarette.] No aptitude at all for long division, but never mind. It's him they ask to split the atom. How he talked his way into the Nobel prize is beyond me. But then, I suppose it's like the man says, "It's not what you know..."
Arbiter, Petronius, 210 B.C.
We trained hard... but every time we formed up teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn that we meet any new situation by reorganizing. And a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.
Argentinian, (met in Israel, 1986)
By 1978 Bolivia had 147 years of freedom; and 150 governments.
Asimov, Isaac, "Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts"
After the Athenians had driven out the tyrant Hippias in 510 B.C., they tried to work out methods to prevent the establishment of another tyranny. Once a year they set up an opportunity for a vote that was aimed not at electing someone, but at exiling someone. Each Athenian could write down the name of the politician he felt was growing too dangerously powerful for the good of the state. If a total of 6000 votes were cast and one man received a majority, he was forced to remain away from Athens for ten years. It was not a disgraceful exile: his property was not confiscated, his family was not mistreated, and, when the decade was up, he was welcomed back. He understood that he had been sent away to be kept from the temptation of trying to upset the democracy.
Asimov, Isaac, "The Last Man on Earth", Introduction
The biblical version of the tale of Gilgamesh was accepted as sober history for thousands of years. It wasn't until about 1800 that geologists began to realize that there had never been a worldwide flood on Earth.
And even TODAY there are many who are certain there was indeed a worldwide flood "because the Bible says so." This includes the "creationists," who are very anxious to teach their version of Babylonian mythology in the schools as "science," by George - so don't tell ME that science fiction writers don't have influence.
Astor, Lady Nancy, Life Quotes
One reason I don't drink is that I want to know when I'm having a good time.
Averre, Berton
To err is dysfunctional, to forgive co-dependent.
Aviator
Hours of boredom, punctuated by moments of sheer terror.
Baal Shem Tov
The secret of redemption is remembering, and exile is the price of forgetting.
Baltimore Grotto (Caving Society), Motto of the...
Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints. Kill nothing but time.
Balzac, Honore' de
Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.
Banks-Smith, Nancy, "Four Hours in My Lai"
Lt. Caley was charged with one hundred and nine murders, got life and served three days.
Barnard, Dr. Christian; Description of first heart-transplant patient
If a lion chases you to the bank of a river filled with crocodiles, you will leap into the water convinced you have a chance to swim to the other side when you would never accept such odds if there were no lion.
Barnum, Phineas Taylor
Every crowd has a silver lining.
Barrett, Edward, Dean; Pulitzer School of Journalism
The key journalist of the future must be able to relate today's event to yesterday's fact in a way that helps indicate tomorrow's meaning.
Barrymore, John
It is slander to say my troubles come from chasing women. They begin when I catch them.
Basta
Man loves little and often,
Women much and rarely.
Bates, Henry, "A Matter of Size"
To trap their secret he constructed colossal edifices of metaphysical cunning, performed prodigies of deduction, all the while he swam oceans, plunged through fire, sank through bottomless ooze in his running fight with the demons that beset him; but always at the moment of knowing he would forget what he was looking for and have to begin over.
Bates, Marston
Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
Bateson, Gregory, "Mind and Matter"
In the transmission of human culture, people always attempt to replicate, to pass on to the next generation the skills and values of the parents, but the attempt always fails because cultural transmission is geared to learning, not DNA.
Beddoe, Sandy, D.D.S., Fort Bragg, Ca.
We are no better than the soil of the ground that the food we eat is grown on.
Ben Gurion, David, Warsaw, 1904
And there a mighty poet will arise and sing an exalted wonderful song which will resound in all the strings of our hearts, of a small but great people risen to new life and of the great hero and fighter who with all his mighty strength awakened the dwellers in the tombs from the slumbers of the shadow of death.
Benchley, Robert
Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.
Benny, Jack
I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either.
Bergeron, Tor, from a June, 1971 letter to Nobel Laureate Irving Langmuir
Vor lauter Objektivitat kein Fortscritt. [From pure objectivity, no progress.]
Berman, Moshe, M.D., Israel
There are no local health problems, there are only local symptoms. It is always the entire organism which suffers, and it is the entire organism which must be diagnosed, treated and rehabilitated.
Bester, Alfred
An inductor can observe and appraise separate, apparently unrelated facts, and add them up to a conclusion about a whole scene that hasn't occurred to anyone else.
Bester, Alfred, "The Computer Connection"
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, but Cryology recycles ontogeny.
Bialik, Chaim Nachman
The Jews would become a nation on the day a Jewish cop arrested a Jewish whore who was sentenced by a Jewish judge.
Bierce, Ambrose, "Fantastic Fables"
A Man died leaving a large estate and many sorrowful relations who claimed it. After some years, when all but one had had judgement given against them, that one was awarded the estate, which he asked his Attorney to have appraised.
"There is nothing to appraise," said the Attorney, pocketing his last fee.
"Then," said the Successful Claimant, "what good has all this litigation done to me?"
"You have been a good client to me," the Attorney replied, gathering up his books and papers, "but I must say you betray a surprising ignorance of the purpose of litigation."
Bierce, Ambrose, "The Devils Dictionary"
Fiddle: An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
Bierce, Ambrose, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Foreign Aid: When the poor people of a rich nation send their money to the rich people of a poor nation.
Bierce, Ambrose, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Interpreter: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
Bingham, Nat, Mendocino Commentary, Dec. 17, 1987
...the Mendocino Hotel, an institution which has come to symbolize what is swiftly going wrong with Mendocino. I refer to the hotel policies regarding their employees which specify that "the help" shall not be allowed to use the front door to go to work, and further that employees of the hotel are not welcome on the premises when they are not working.
Bion
The boys throw rocks at the frogs in jest.
But the frogs die in earnest.
Black Elk
It may be that some root of the scarred tree is still living. Nourish it then that it may live and bloom with singing birds.
Blumenfeld, Gerry
The four seasons in Miami Beach are: Mustard, Horseradish, Garlic and Vinegar.
Blummer, Richard
We drink for joy and become miserable.
We drink for sociability and become argumentative.
We drink for sophistication and become obnoxious.
We drink to help us sleep and awake exhausted.
We drink for exhilaration and end up depressed.
We drink to gain confidence and become afraid.
We drink to make conversation flow and become incoherent.
We drink to diminish our problems and see them multiply.
Bomber, Relatively Sane, Anderson Valley Advertiser, 11/22/89
The advantages of thermite are many.
1) It is easy to make and involves no risk to the maker or to innocent bystanders.
2) It will totally destroy anything made of metal.
3) The ingredients are cheap, readily available, and totally untraceable. They consist of powdered aluminum, iron oxide, and a strip of magnesium which is used as an ignition fuse. The mix is three parts iron oxide to one part aluminum powder (by weight). The strip of magnesium is partially embedded in the powdered mix and can be ignited with a match. (More magnesium interspersed throughout the mix will speed the reaction). The device should be housed in a clay or ceramic container with a metal bottom.
4) Thermite burns at a temperature in excess of 3000 degrees centigrade. Since the melting temperatures of all steel compositions are less than 1600 degrees, the substance, when placed on machinery, simply melts its way down through said machinery. The reaction cannot be quenched since the source of oxygen is the iron oxide which is separated by the heat of the reaction.
Bonaparte, Napoleon (1769-1821)
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
Borenstein, Nathaniel
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
Bowles, Colin, Inglish Spocken Here
Found in the washroom of a Sydney hotel:
"Shake excess water from hands, push button to start, rub hands rapidly under air outlet and wipe hands on front of shirt."
Bowles, Colin, Inglish Spocken Here
The elevator of a Bucharest hotel once displayed this sign: "The lift is being fixed for the next days. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable."
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
One sort of sea slug takes on the characteristics of whatever it eats. If it eats orange coral, it turns orange. If it eats stinging jellyfish, it develops its own stingers. It's called the nudibranch.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
"How many slaves worked Mount Vernon when George Washington got it? How many did he add?"
There were 18 when he took over. He pushed the number up to 200.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
A HUGUENOT named Bernard Palisay expressed the opinion in 1589 that fossils were the remains of living critters. Those who didn't agree burned him at the stake.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Among newborn babies, the ratio of sons to daughters remains fairly stable, except immediately after every big war. Then, the returning soldiers father a much higher proportion of sons. Explanations vary.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Average annual snowfall at Santa Fe, N.M., is greater than that of Fairbanks, Alaska.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Christopher Columbus on his explorations expected to find people so primitive that they'd speak Hebrew, so he took along Jewish interpreters.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
El Salvador is another of those countries that penalizes drunken driving with death by firing squad.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Garbage thrown into the oceans annually outweighs the fish taken out of them 3 to 1.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
How come Tennessee is called the Volunteer State ?
The federal government in 1846 asked it to send 2800 men to fight in the Mexican War. It sent 30,000.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
I just read the phrase "a dupondius' worth of candidates." What's that?
Unkind is what it is. A dupondius was an old Roman coin "equal in value to two asses."
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
If a Platypus closes its eyes, ears and nose when hunting underwater, how does it find its prey?
By sensors in its duckbill. They detect electrical impulses from the prey's muscle movements.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
If the Sun were the size of a cherry stone, the Earth would be about as big as a grain of sand three feet away.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
If you were to count one bill per second, it'd take you about 16 minutes, 40 seconds to count $1,000 in singles. To count $1 trillion in singles at that rate, it'd take you 32,000 years.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
In Britain, if there's no traffic light at the place to cross the street, it's called a "zebra crossing." If there is a traffic light there, it's a "pelican crossing."
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
John Hanson was elected President in 1781 by Congress Assembled.
George Washington addressed him as President after the Battle of Yorktown.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Late in his life, Vladimir Lenin, the foremost father of the early Soviet fight against capitalist decadence, routinely rode around in a chauffeured Rolls-Royce.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Los Angeles and New York City are closer to each other than are the opposite ends of Indonesia.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
More than a hundred years before George Washington was even born, 23 Jewish refugees from Brazil arrived in New York, then known as New Amsterdam, and started the first Jewish settlement in the United States.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
More people live in New York City than in all of Alaska, Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and the District of Columbia combined.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Most famous speech ever made in America was delivered by a man with smallpox. Ask your friend, the history wiz: Who was that man? No doubt you'll hear: Abraham Lincoln, who suffered a mild case when he gave his "Gettysburg Address."
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
No, not every coin with a "D" was minted in Denver. From 1836 to 1861, coins so marked were stamped out in Dahlonega, Ga.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Nome is farther west than Honolulu.
The center of the Earth is hotter than the Sun.
The size of one of Alaska's glaciers is bigger than Switzerland.
In 1913, the tax on $4,000 annual income was one penny.
Atop the Andes are fossil seashells.
Chicago has more lawyers than all of England.
The 1941 annual median income was $1070. About $20 per week.
None of Mexico is due south of Los Angeles.
In Saudi Arabia, a gallon of gasoline cost 31 cents. A watermelon costs $16.
Practicing law without a license is a crime in all states except Arizona.
Just the insects eaten by spiders every year outweigh all the people alive.
Under Greenland's ice are fossilized fig trees.
The only mammals that stay awake all day and sleep all night are humans.
A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself because he can't help himself.
What was the original toll on the Brooklyn Bridge? A nickel a cow.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Once a male bird with an elaborate courtship ritual gets started, he loses himself in his own performance, evidently. Take the female away and he doesn't even notice her absence until he's finished the whole show.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
The flag that Francis Scott Key saw by the dawn's early light had 15 stripes, 15 stars and 11 holes in it.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Q. If you mix white paint into red, you get a tint. If you mix black paint into red, you get a shade. What do you get if you mix both white and black paint into red?
A. A tone.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Q. "Wasn't Vermont a country once?"
A. So history records. From 1777 to 1791, it coined its own money, set up its own postal service, and elected its own president.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Right of way of traffic on trails:
Hikers yield to joggers,
Joggers yield to bikers,
Bikers yield to riding horses.
Pack animals yield to everybody in the wide places and to nobody in the narrow.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Spain's Barcelona is closer to Russia's Moscow than Perth is to Sydney in Australia.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
The New York Yankees' spring training facility, Legends Field, is in Tampa, Fla. The number on the door of the umpire's room there is in brail.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
The Iroquois respected George Washington well enough, according to the historians, but in their language he wasn't known as the "Great White Father," but as "Destroyer of Villages."
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
The atmosphere is now 21 percent oxygen.
If it were 16 percent there could be no fires.
If it were 24 percent the Earth would burst into flame.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
The count of people per square mile in the United States is 66. In the Soviet Union, it's 32. In Australia it's, 7. But worldwide - note this - it's 93.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Thomas Edison's formal education consisted of three months attendance at a Michigan public school.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
Was a time in Beaumont, Texas, when water sold for $6 a barrel and oil sold for 3 cents a barrel.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
What, you can't name the pilot who first flew an airplane solo in Australia? None other than Harry Houdini. So renowned was he as an escape artist, little mention is made of his accomplishments in flight.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
When the Soviets sent the first man into space on April 12, 1961, they didn't know how weightlessness ought to affect him. So Vostok I was guided entirely from the ground. Yuri Gagarin had no control whatsoever.
Boyd, L. M., Grab Bag
When the United States jumped into World War I, its army ranked 17th in size among military powers. Even Portugal's was bigger.
Boyd, L.M., Grab Bag
Two hundred and sixteen car drivers started out in 1903 on a 870-mile race from Paris to Madrid. Few people along the route ever before had seen a car. So they waited in the road. By the time the lead car had gone 343 miles -- when the whole thing was called off -- the racers had killed 550 spectators.
Brandeis, Louis, Supreme Court Justice, 1916-1939
We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few; but we can't have both.
Brandreth, Gyles, "The Joy of Lex"
Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.
Brandreth, Gyles, "The Joy of Lex"
Krushchev, when he was still master of Russia, was discoursing before a large audience on the iniquities perpetrated by Stalin, when a voice at the back of the hall cried out:
"You were one of his colleagues, why didn't you stop him?"
In the terrible silence which followed not a man in the audience moved a muscle.
Raking the assembly with his eyes, Krushchev thundered:
"Who said that?"
But still not a man moved and the tension was becoming unbearable, when Krushchev said quietly:
"Now you know why."
Brandreth, Gyles, "The Joy of Lex"
Toity poiple boids
Sitt'n on der coib
A' choipin' and a' boipin'
An' eat'n doity woims.
Brandreth, Gyles, "The Joy of Lex"
Wash your face in the morning and neck at night.
Brautigan, Richard
Everybody wants to go to bed with everybody else, they're lined up for blocks. So I'll go to bed with you, they won't miss us.
Brown, Rita Mae
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
Bruce, Lenny
There are no Jewish midgets.
Brunner, John
The Moslem war lord who burned the library at Alexandria, did so on the grounds that if the manuscripts therein agreed with the Koran, they were superfluous, and if they disagreed they were heretical.
Buber, Martin, "Forgetting"
At first glance, it is not clear why God created forgetfulness. But the meaning of it is this: If there were no forgetting, man would incessantly think of his death. He would build no house, he would launch no enterprise. That is why God planted forgetting within him. And so one angel is ordered to teach the child in such a way that it will not forget anything, and the other angel is ordered to strike him on the mouth and make him forget.
Buber, Martin, "The Maggid of Mezritch"
THE TEN PRINCIPLES OF SERVICE
From the child you can learn three things:
He is merry for no particular reason;
Never for a moment is he idle;
When he needs something, he demands it vigorously.
The thief can instruct you in seven things:
He does his service by night;
If he does not finish what he has set out to do, in one night, he devotes the next night to it;
He and those who work with him, love one another;
He risks his life for slight gains;
What he takes has so little value to him, that he gives it up for very small coin;
He endures blows and hardship, and it means nothing to him;
He likes his trade and would not exchange it for any other.
Bumper Stickers
Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.
I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go.
Men are idiots, and I married their King.
Nothing can replace the dollar, and it almost has.
Nuclear War will never determine who is right. Only who is left.
Sex is evil, Evil is sin, Sins are forgiven, Sex is in.
Bundock, Lee - Caspar
"I'm tired of going to wakes trying to find an attractive girl with whom to have a meaningless relationship."
Bunker, Archie
Jesus was a Jew, yes, but only on his mother's side.
Burns, George
Too bad the only people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.
Bush, Vannevar, Lawson Software Brochure
The total of human knowledge is expanding exponentially. However, the means of threading through that knowledge maze to the important item of the moment is as circuitous and cumbersome as trying to navigate an old square-rigged sailing vessel into the wind.
Butler, Samuel
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
Byrne, Gabriel, "Siesta" (movie)
To me, the only falling that doesn't mean failing is falling in love.
Cafavy (1863-1933)
When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Do not fear the Lestrygonians
and the Cyclopes and the angry Poseidon.
You will never meet such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your body and your spirit.
You will never meet the Lestrygonians,
the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not raise them up before you.
-
Then pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many,
that you will enter ports seen for the first time
with such pleasure, with such joy!
Stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,
and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds,
buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can;
visit hosts of Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from those who have knowledge.
-
Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all that you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
-
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have taken the road.
But she has nothing more to offer you.
-
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you.
With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much experience,
you must surely have understood by then what Ithacas mean.
Calder, Christopher; Willits, Mendocino Commentary, June 15, 1988
Tobacco alone kills more people in one year than have been killed by heroin and cocaine in our entire history. Marijuana has never killed any American citizen directly! It is our drug laws that make illegal drugs so dangerous.
Here are the 1987 death totals: Tobacco 320,000; Alcohol (not including traffic deaths) 125,000; Heroin 4,000; Cocaine 2,000; Marijuana 0! Why are the 6,000 illegal drug deaths so important, and the 445,000 legal drug deaths so unimportant? Is the theft and murder our "prohibition" causes not a major health risk to the non-drug user?
California Constitution, Article I, Section I
All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.
California Judge
Let one brother divide the estate. Then let the other brother have first choice.
California Law 16102; Exemptions, Veterans., Business and Professions.
Every soldier, sailor or marine of the United States who has received an honorable discharge or release from active duty under honorable conditions from such service may hawk, peddle and vend any goods, wares or merchandise owned by him, except spirituous, malt, vinous or other intoxicating liquor, without payment of any license, tax or fee whatsoever, whether municipal, county or State, and the board of supervisors shall issue to such soldier, sailor or marine, without cost, a license therefore.
Campbell, John
Man will fight and die for what he has not, woman will fight and die for what she has. Man will sacrifice everything he has for something he hopes for, an ideal. But, while woman will fight for an ideal, she will not give up the good she has to get it.
Capra, Fritjof, "The Tao of Physics"
To see the nucleus, we would have to blow up the atom to the size of the biggest dome in the world, the dome of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. In an atom of that size, the nucleus would have the size of a grain of salt! A grain of salt in the middle of the dome of St. Peter's, and specks of dust whirling in the vast space of the dome - this is how we can picture the nucleus and the electrons of an atom.
Carroll, Lewis
What I tell you three times is true.
Carroll, Lewis, "The Garden of Live Flowers"
A slow sort of country, said the queen. Now HERE, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.
Carson, Johnny
Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president.
Carson, Johnny
For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.
Castenanda, Carlos, "The Teachings of Don Juan"
For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly.
Catechism, 1994
Israel is the priestly people of God, 'called by the name of the Lord,' and 'the first to hear the word of God,' the people of 'elder brethren' in the faith of Abraham.
Cerf, Bennet, "The Sound of Laughter"
They say a key man at the Income Tax Bureau is writing a potential best seller called: "How We Collected $1,800,000 from the Fellow Who Wrote a Book about Making $2,000,000 in the Stock Market."
Chadbourn, W.R., "How to speak L.A."
In France, you are what you eat.
In N.Y., you are what you do.
In L.A., you are what you drive.
Avoid late-model green Dodge sedans.
Chamberlain, Neville, British Prime Minister, 1938
This morning I had another talk with the German chancellor, Herr Hitler. And here is the paper which bears his signature and mine... We regard the agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.
Cherne, Leo
The computer is incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Man is unbelievably slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. The marriage of the two is a force beyond calculation.
Chinese Child
An American is a man with two arms and four wheels.
Chinese Proverb
If you want to be happy for an evening, drink some rice wine.
If you want to be happy for a week, butcher a pig.
If you want to be happy for a year, get married.
If you want to be happy for a lifetime, become a gardener.
CHINESE
Bu dung, bu hsi: [Not east, not west.]
CHINESE
Years or Hours:
Hare, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Cock, Dog, Boar, Rat, Ox, Tiger.
Christ, Jesus, Luke 14:26
Unless you hate your father and mother and wife and brothers and sisters, and, yes, even your own life, you can't be my disciple.
Churchill, Winston
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Churchill, Winston
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
Churchill, Winston
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Churchill, Winston
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Ciardi, John
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students.
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the principle difference between a dog and a man.
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne
A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, "The Curious Republic of Gondour"
I found that the nation had at first tried universal suffrage pure and simple, but had thrown that form aside because the result was not satisfactory. It had seemed to deliver all power into the hands of the ignorant and non-tax-paying classes; and of a necessity the responsible offices were filled from these classes also.
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
Clinton, William, President, State of the Union address, S.F. Examiner, 1/26/95
By the end of the week, 28 days into the new year, each congressman has already earned as much in congressional salary as people who work under minimum wage make in an entire year.
Cockburn, Alexander, A.V.A., Jan. 11, 1995
If in 1881 Alexander III, new Czar of all the Russias, had not made life even harder for the Jews, then the family of Louis B. Mayer would not have left Lithuania; Louis Zelnick (later Selznick) would have stayed in Kiev and William Fuchs (later Fox) in Tulcheva, Hungary; the Warner family might have stayed loyal to Krasnashiltz, Poland; Adolph Zucker to Ricse, Hungary; Carl Laemmle to Wurtemberg; and Schmel Gelbfisz (later Sam Goldwyn) to Warsaw. But Alexander III did not care for the Jews, so the whole gang listed above, born within a 500-mile radius of Warsaw, saw the writing on the wall as did 1.5 million other Jews in the same period and headed west.
You could say that Czar Alexander III founded Hollywood. He hanged Lenin's elder brother, too, and so maybe there would have been no Russian Revolution either. This Czar made the world what it is today.
Cocks, Sir Barnett
A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.
Collins, Larry & Dominique Lapierre, "O Jerusalem"
In 1948, Golda Meir arrived in New York with ten dollars in her pocketbook and left a month later with fifty million.
Confucius; 551 - 479 B.C.
It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep than a sheep at the head of an army of lions.
Confucius; 551 - 479 B.C.
Men do not stumble over mountains, but over mole-hills.
Coolidge, Calvin
When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.
Coon, Carleton S., "The Story of Man"
You stay in your village, and I will stay in mine. If your sheep come to eat my grass, I will kill you. However, I may need some of your grass for my own sheep. Anyone who makes us try to change our ways is a witch and we will kill him. Stay out of our village.
Coonts, Stephen, "Intruders"
It isn't the fall that kills you, or even the stop at the bottom - it's the sudden realization that, indeed, you are this fucking stupid.
Coonts, Stephen, "Intruders"
In every war America fought before Vietnam, the people who led the military to victory were never the people in charge when the shooting started. U.S. Grant and William T. Sherman weren't even in the army when the Civil War started. Phil Sheridan was a captain. Eisenhower and George Patton were colonels at the start of World War II, Halsey and Nimitz were captains.
In peacetime the top jobs go to politicians, men who can stroke the civilians and oil the wheels of the bureaucracy. During a war the system works the way it is supposed to - men who can lead other men are pulled to the top and given command. In Vietnam this natural selection process was stymied be the politicians. It was a political war all the way and the last thing they wanted was to relinquish the controls to war fighters. So we lost. And you know something funny? We could afford to lose because we didn't have anything important at stake in the first place.
Coonts, Stephen, "Intruders"
Why do we do this shit? Because we're too lazy for honest work and too stupid to steal.
Cooper, Henry S. F., Jr., "A House in Space", 1976
"You don't realize how much ocean there is on earth until you see how much time you're looking at water." Gerald M. Carr.
"You don't comprehend it by looking at a globe. But when you're traveling at four miles a second, and it still takes you twenty-five minutes to cross it [the Pacific], you know it's big." Paul J. Weitz.
Cooper, Henry S. F., Jr., "A House in Space", 1976
Gibson turned Skylab so that the tall telescope tower on top of the docking adapter, which housed the six solar cameras, pointed at the sun - a position called the solar-inertial attitude. Three huge wheels called momentum-control gyros, which had been mounted at right angles to each other inside the telescope tower and which rotated nine thousand times a minute, kept the space station pointing the right way through their spinning; Gibson adjusted Skylab's attitude by adjusting the speeds of the different wheels.
Coppel, Alfred
A Zionist is a man who persuades another man to give money to a third man to send a fourth man to Palestine.
Corey, Lee, "The Easy Way Out"
It is difficult to conceive of any planetwide intelligent life form that uses more than one type of communication symbol code. Here, there are many. It leads me to believe that this planet may have evolved several high life forms, each communicating differently.
Cosby, Bill
Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home.
Cotopaxi, Colorado, tombstone depicting two young girls:
Born a year apart
Died a day apart
Buried a hand apart
Cringely, Robert X.; InfoWorld
If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
Crisp, Quentin
"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?'"
Crisp, Quentin
Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors.
Crosby, Norm
When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
Crowley, "Sleepy Jim", Notre Dame Football Great
Our boys destroyed six bridges, blew up two ammunition depots, and demolished a key military installation. Then we were sent overseas.
Crystal, Billy, "City Slickers II" (movie)
This, in geologic terms, is an igneous, polygamous, Jurassic, Hasidic region.
Daley, Richard; Mayor of Chicago
Get this straight - the policeman isn't there to CREATE disorder. The policeman is there to PRESERVE disorder.
Darwin, Charles Galton, "The Next Million Years", 1952
Now uranium is a fairly common element, commoner than silver but not as common as lead.
Darwin, Charles Galton, "The Next Million Years", 1952
Among the inherent tendencies of people toward happiness or unhappiness, there is one characteristic, and a very sinister one, which cannot be overlooked. In any boys' school where discipline gets at all slack it is practically universal for there to be bullying. This means that there are many of mankind who positively enjoy making their fellows miserable; it is by no means a majority, but it is certainly not a negligible minority. It is no use arguing that this is only a boyish failing and that in later life the bully will become a virtuous citizen. Conditions in this country give little scope for the exercise of brutality by adults, but this has not always been so, and it is not so in many parts of the world even now; it is the strong arm of the law, and not a change in his nature, that has restrained the bully. It is not easy to see anything that will tend to eliminate him, because his selfishness is a positive help to his survival in all conditions but those of the highest and most stable civilization, and even these conditions only check the expression of his propensities without destroying them. In thinking of the future happiness of mankind, it is a sobering thought that there will be quite a perceptible fraction of humanity that definitely gets satisfaction, and so presumably happiness, from making its fellows unhappy.
Darwin, Charles Galton, "The Next Million Years", 1952
Man's direct influence on geography is really quite negligible. On the other hand his indirect influence on geography has been more considerable, since he has made very perceptible changes in climate by the felling of forests. This felling tends to remove the spongy cover of the ground which acts as a reservoir for water, and it leads to consequent erosion of his fields.
Darwin, Charles Galton, "The Next Million Years", 1952
Not long ago the province of Sind (India) was mainly desert; the ground was quite fertile but there was no rainfall. A great engineering undertaking, the Sukur barrage, has spread the waters of the Indus over a very wide area, and turned much of the desert into a garden. According to the universally accepted standards this was a great benefit to the world, for it made possible the adequate feeding of a people previously on the verge of starvation. But things did not work out like that, for after a few years the effect was only to have a large number of people on the verge of starvation instead of a small number.
Darwin, Charles; Full title of his famous book:
"On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection, - or - The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life"
Davidson, Lionel, "Making Good Again"
No, you can't be a Christian and a lawyer. Not in a practical way. There's the law of damages, you see. There are several other laws. If a man takes my client's coat I couldn't advise him to give up his cloak, too. I'd have to advise him to sue for the return of the coat.
Dayan, Moshe
The battle is over but there is no end to our struggle. Those who rose up against us have been vanquished but they have yet to make peace. Return your swords to your scabbards but keep them ready, for the time has not come when you may beat them into plowshares.
Days of the Week
LATIN PLANET FRENCH SPANISH GERMAN SCANDINAVIAN
Dies Solis Sun Dimanche Domingo Sonntag
Dies Lunae Moon Lundi Lunes Montag
Dies Martis Mars Mardi Martes Dienestag Tiw
Dies Mercurii Mercury Mercredi Miercoles Mitwoch Woden
Dies Jovis Jupiter Jeudi Jueves Donnerstag Thor
Dies Veneris Venus Vendredi Viernes Freitag Fria
Dies Saturni Saturn Samedi Sabado Samstag (Sonnabend)
de Camp, L. Sprague, "The Great Fetish"
We believe that if a child or young person is thwarted or curbed in any way, he will grow up into a sour, frustrated, mentally diseased adult. So they are allowed to do pretty much as they please, on the theory that they will work off all their antisocial impulses before reaching their majority.
de Camp, L. Sprague, "The Unbeheaded King"
gang of scroyles =
wight = a human being
cozen = to cheat
wist = sadly longing
lief (liefer) = willingly, rather
lemen = sweethearts, mistresses
hinds = the female of the stag or red deer
swink =
yare (yarely) = ready, dextrous, promptly
burthen =
lustrum (lustral) = used in purification
durance = imprisonment
diligence = a carriage
destrier = a horse, steed, or charger
cavils = to raise frivolous objections, carp at
tussocks = tuft, clump, or small hillock of grass
de Camp, L. Sprague, "The Ancient Engineers"
One of the world's largest and best preserved castles, Kerak des Chevaliers, was built in Syria for the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem in the late +XII. It is curious that the best example of medieval European castle architecture should stand today in a Muslim land, while the finest medieval Muslim palace, the Alhambra at Granada, is in Christian Spain.
de Camp, L. Sprague, "Reward of Virtue"
Sir Gilbert de Vere was a virtuous knight;
He succored the weak and he fought for the right,
But cherished a goal that he never could sight:
He wanted a dragon to fight.
-
He prayed all the night and he prayed all the day
That God would provide him a dragon to slay;
And God heard his prayer and considered a way
To furnish Sir Gilbert his prey.
-
And so, to comply with Gilbert's demand,
But having no genuine dragons to hand,
God whisked him away to an earlier land,
With destrier, armor, and brand.
-
And in the cretaceous, Sir Gilbert de Vere
Discovered a fifty-foot carnosaur near.
He dug in his spurs and he leveled his spear
And charged without flicker of fear.
-
The point struck a rib, and the lance broke in twain.
The knight clapped a hand to his hilt, but in vain:
The dinosaur swallowed that valorous thane,
And gallant Sir Gilbert was slain.
-
The iron apparel he wore for his ride,
However, was rough on the reptile's inside.
That dinosaur presently lay down and died,
And honor was thus satisfied.
-
But Gilbert no longer was present to care.
So hesitate God to disturb with your prayer -
He might grant your wishes, but then how you fare
Is your, and no other's affair!
de Camp, L. Sprague & Catherine C. de Camp, "The Day of the Dinosaur"
The dense, radioactive metal uranium, like other radioactive elements, breaks down, an atom at a time, into other substances. Each atom, after a long series of changes, ends its career as an atom of a particular kind of lead, called lead-206. This disintegration takes place at a uniformly decreasing rate. Of any lump of uranium, one percent will change into lead-206 in about 66,000,000 years. During the next 66,000,000 years, 1% of the remainder changes into lead-206. Thus the amount of uranium in the sample constantly decreases but never reaches zero.
de la Paz, Bernardo
Anything you get for free costs more than its worth - but you won't find it out until later.
de Mille, Nelson
A reluctant killer, like a soldier in times of peace, would not take up arms.
De Gaulle, Charles
China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
Democritus, 460 - 370 B.C.
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space. All else is opinion.
Dick, Philip K., "Oh, To Be a Blobel!"
Hitler had once said that the true victory of the Nazis would be to force its enemies, the United States in particular, to become like the Third Reich - IE, a totalitarian society - in order to win. Hitler, then, expected to win even in defeat. As I watched the American Military/Industrial complex grow after World War II, I kept remembering Hitler's analysis, and I kept thinking how right the son of a bitch was. We had beaten Germany, but both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were getting more and more like the Nazis with their huge police systems every day... Look what we had to become in Viet-Nam just to lose, let alone win; can you imagine what we'd have to become to win?
Dick, Philip K., "Autofac"
It is fruitless to consider this computer as human, and engage it in discussions for which it isn't equipped. Although purposeful, it is not capable of conceptual thought; it can only reassemble material already available to it.
Dickson, Gordon
Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books. For to you kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned with the flick of a finger.
Dillard, Annie, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"
An Eskimo hunter asked the local missionary priest, "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Eskimo earnestly, "did you tell me?"
Dillard, Annie, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"
If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is 136 atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen arranged in an exact relationship around a central ring. At the ring's center is a single atom of magnesium. Now if you remove the atom of magnesium and in its exact place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin.
Dirksen, Everett, Senator (1896-1969)
A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.
Disabled American Veterans Magazine, Dec. 1987
America's Wars (Timespan) Participants Deaths
American Revolution (1775-1784) 290,000 4,000
War of 1812 (1812-1815) 287,000 2,000
Mexican War (1846-1848) 79,000 13,000
Civil War (1861-1865)
Union 2,213,000 364,000
Confederate 1,000,000 133,821
Indian Wars (1817-1898) 106,000 1,000
Spanish-American (1898-1902) 392,000 11,000
World War I (1917-1918) 4,744,000 116,000
World War II (9/16/40-7/25/47) 16,535,000 406,000
Korean Conflict (6/27/50-1/31/55) 6,807,000 55,000
Viet Nam Era (8/5/64-5/7/75) 9,200,000 109,000
Disraeli, Benjamin
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Disraeli, Benjamin
Two nations, between whom there is no intercourse, and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings as if they were inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws... the rich and the poor.
Dizengoff
A man will not make a good conservative at forty if he does not throw bombs when he is eighteen.
Doctorow, E. L., "Welcome to Hard Times"
Really how life gets on is a secret, you only know your memory, and it makes its own time. The real time leads you along and you never know when it happens, the best that can be is come and gone.
Dole, Bob
The Internet is a great way to get on the net.
Donaldson, Stephen, "What Makes Us Human"
Determination required an object: people had to know what they wanted. The alternative was a history full of wars, since determined people who didn't know what they wanted tended to be unnecessarily aggressive.
Dowling, Colette, "The Cinderella Complex"
The need for love that goes unfulfilled in childhood can lead to a passive and potentially destructive wish to give oneself up to anyone.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, "Sherlock Holmes"
...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, "The Sign of the Four"
My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routines of existence. That is why I have chosen my particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world... I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my particular powers, is my highest reward.
Drexler, K. Eric, "Engines of Creation"
Arranged one way, atoms make up soil, air, and water; arranged another, they make up ripe strawberries. Arranged one way, they make up homes and fresh air; arranged another, they make up ash and smoke.
Duell, Charles H., Office of Patents, 1899
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
Dundes, Alan, "Cracking Jokes"
In England ist alles erlaubt, was nicht verboten ist.
In Deutschland ist alles verboten, was nicht erlaubt ist.
In Frankreich ist alles erlaubt, und auch wenn es verboten ist.
In Russland ist alles verboten, auch wenn's erlaubt ist.
-
In England everything is permitted that's not forbidden.
In Germany everything is forbidden that's not permitted.
In France everything is permitted, even if it's forbidden.
In Russia everything is forbidden, even if it's permitted.
Dylan, Bob, "Ramona"
You've been fooled into thinking the finishing end is at hand - yet there's no one to beat you, no one to defeat you except the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.
Editorial, Courts and Drugs, S.F. Chronicle, Feb. 14, 1990
California's court system - which already is larger than the entire federal judiciary or the legal system of any nation in the free world...
Egers, Akiva
The tragedy of this world is not that there is a lack of capital, it is that there is a surplus which cannot find its way into the qualified hands which can generate proper investment, management, production and a fair return.
Einstein, Albert
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Einstein, Albert
A mathematician is a device for converting coffee into formulas.
Einstein, Albert
What is radio?
You see, wire telegraph is a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?
And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
Einstein, Albert
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Einstein, Albert
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
Einstein, Albert
The serious research scholar in our generally materialistic age is the only deeply religious human being.
Einstein, Albert
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive a move toward higher levels. At present atomic energy is not a boon to mankind but a menace.
Einstein, Albert
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Einstein, Albert
The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the power of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
The Cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest main-spring of
scientific research.
Einstein, Albert
The attitude the Jewish people adopt towards the Israeli Arabs will determine our moral character in the last half of the twentieth century.
Einstein, Albert
The most important tool of the theoretical physicist is his wastebasket.
Einstein, Albert, "Essays in Science"
It seems that the human mind has first to construct forms independently before we can find them in things. Kepler's marvelous achievement is a particularly fine example of the truth that knowledge can not spring from experience alone but only from the comparison of the inventions of intellect with observed fact.
Einstein, Albert, 1932
There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
Einstein, Albert, 1934
If my theory of relativity is proved successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will claim me as a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will say that I am a Jew.
Eisenberg, Dennis, Eli Landau, & Menachem Portugali, "Operation Uranium Ship"
Ninety-nine point three percent of the uranium in nature exists in the form of the isotope U-238, so numbered because it has 146 neutrons and 92 protons. This is the normal form of uranium. However, point seven percent of uranium exists as U-235, which has 143 neutrons and 92 protons. It is this rare form of uranium that interests us. And the reason is its three-neutron deficit. The nucleus of U-235 seeks to achieve internal balance by acquiring the three neutrons it lacks.
Therefore, if you bombard the outer wall of the U-235 nucleus with a neutron, it ruptures the wall relatively easily and penetrates the nucleus. The energy released when this happens is enormous. It can, in fact, be calculated without much difficulty according to Einstein's formula: energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared.
Eisenhower, Dwight D., General
A Soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains.
Eisenhower, Dwight D.
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
Eisenstein, Phyllis, "Shadow of Earth"
Modern medicine, taken for granted by the inhabitants of the United States, had made natural immunity redundant. The diabetic, the asthmatic, the anemic, the too-susceptible were kept alive to transmit their defective traits to the next generation...
And even for the robust males, who had never faced the strains of childbearing, death lurked in every village and rode the wind and the water: anthrax, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid fever, plague - all the diseases that had ravaged and limited human population for millennia.
Eliot, T.S.
A people without history is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern of timeless moments.
Ellis, Havelock
To dance is to take part in the cosmic control of the world.
Enderbery, Keppel, Former Australian Cabinet Minister
Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas.
English Law, 1720
"All women of whatever age, rank, profession or degree, whether virgin, maid or widow, that shall impose upon, seduce, and betray into matrimony any of His Majesty's subjects by scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, iron stays, hooks, high-heeled shoes, or bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanors, and that marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void."
English Professor, Ohio University:
I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.
Ertz, Susan
Millions of persons long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy afternoon.
Feiffer, Jules, 1983
Druze kill phalangists...
Who kill Syrians...
Who kill P.L.O....
Who kill rival P.L.O.
Palestinians kill any Palestinian who suggests we should recognize Israel.
But in our hearts we all recognize Israel.
Without Israel, whom can we kill but ourselves?
Feiffer, Jules, 1985
What's wrong with the Pentagon spending $500 on ashtrays?
Or $7,500 on coffee pots?
What's wrong with defense contractors padding their bills?
And charging vacations and country club membership to the military?
If the business of defense is not to defend business...
Then why are we fighting Communism?
FitzGerald, Edward, "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"
Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough
A flask of wine, a book of verse
And thou beside me singing in the wilderness
And wilderness is Paradise enow.
FitzGerald, Edward, "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"
The moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on:
Nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back,
To cancel half a line.
Nor all thy tears wash out half a word of it.
Flanagan, Dennis, "Flanagan's Version," 1989
A not unfamiliar expression in the description of human relations is "the Hawthorne effect," Many people assume that the Hawthorne somehow refers to a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, but actually it is the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago. There in 1924 C. E. Snow of the National Research Council undertook to study the influence of lighting on the productivity of industrial workers, in this case women working on assembly lines making telephone components such as electrical relays.
At first Snow and his colleagues measured the productivity at the normal level of illumination. Then they raised the level of illumination. The productivity of the workers increased. Then they raised the level again; the productivity increased again. They raised it still more; the productivity continued to increase.
Being good scientists, Snow and his colleagues now LOWERED the level of illumination below what it had been at first. To their surprise, the productivity continued to increase. They lowered the level of illumination still more, with the same result. Finally when the level was so low that the workers could hardly see what they were doing, the productivity fell off. It suddenly dawned on everyone. The workers were not responding to the changes in illumination. THEY WERE RESPONDING TO SOMEONE'S PAYING ATTENTION TO THEM. That is the Hawthorne effect.
Flynn, Errol
My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.
Flynn, Michael F., "The Forest of Time"
There are two kinds of doubts. One says: What is the right thing to do?
The other says: Have I done the right thing?
Flynn, Michael F., "In The Country of the Blind"
They're trying to breed a nation of techno-peasants. Educated just enough to keep things going, but not enough to ask tough questions. They encourage any meme that downplays thoughtful analysis or encourages docility or self indulgence or uniformity. In what other society do people use "smart" and "wise" as insults? We tell people "don't get smart." Those who try, those who really like to learn, we call "nerds." Look at television or the press or the trivia that passes for political debate. When a candidate DOES try to talk about the issues, the newspapers talk about his sex life. Look at Saturday morning cartoon shows. Peasants, whether they're tilling fields or stuffing circuit boards, are easier to manipulate. Don't question; just believe. Turn off your computer and Trust the Force.
Or turn your computer on and treat it like the Oracle of Delphi.
That's right. They've made education superficial and specialized. Science classes for art majors? Forget it! And how many business or engineering students get a really good grounding in the humanities? When did universities become little more than white collar vocational schools?
Follet, Ken, "The Key to Rebecca"
Egyptian men working on the Suez canal were issued special shirts, printed "Working on Government Service"...WOGS
Follet, Ken, "The Key to Rebecca"
He was amused by a street vendor who had filthy pictures in the left-hand side of his jacket and crucifixes in the right. He saw a bunch of soldiers collapse with laughter at the sight of two Egyptian policemen patrolling the street hand in hand.
Follet, Ken, "The Key to Rebecca"
He studied the key. Today was May 28. He had to add 42 - the year - to 28 to arrive at the page number in the novel which he must use to encode his message. May was the fifth month, so every fifth letter on the page would be discounted.
He decided to send HAVE ARRIVED. CHECKING IN. ACKNOWLEDGE. Beginning at the top of page 70 of the book, he looked along the line of print for the letter H. It was the tenth character, discounting every fifth letter. In this code it would therefore be represented by the tenth letter of the alphabet, J. Next he needed an A. In the book, the third letter after the H was an A. The A of HAVE would therefore be represented by the third letter of the alphabet, C. There were special ways of dealing with rare letters, like X.
Follet, Ken, "Triple"
All the political parties were against the Fascists, of course - but it was the Reds who gave out pickaxe handles and crowbars and built barricades.
Follet, Ken, "Triple"
There was something about her which filled men with the desire to possess her, a desire not so much like lust as greed; the need to OWN such a beautiful object, so that it would never be taken away.
Fortune Cookie File
If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it.
Fortune Cookie File
In the garden of Eden sat Adam
Massaging the bust of his madam
He chuckled with mirth
For he knew that on earth
There were only two boobs, and he had `em.
Fortune Cookie File
The first ninety percent of the task takes ten percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
Fortune Cookie File
There are more things in heaven and earth than anyplace else.
Fortune Cookie File
There was a young lady from Hyde
Who ate a green apple and died.
While her lover lamented
The apple fermented
And made cider inside her inside.
Fortune Cookie File
Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will reject the proposal.
Fortune Cookie File
When Marriage is outlawed, only Outlaws will have In-laws.
Forward, Robert L.
Tight premises, narrow conditions... surprise conclusions! Fun!
Frank, Phil, "Travels With Farley"
So your next question will be.."Why's a gal like you with a degree in psychology working in a diner?"
..Because the only place in Burns, Oregon, where a gal with a Ph.D. in Psychology could find a job closed down last year..
What was it?
The Lumber mill.
Frank Rizzo, Former Philadelphia Mayor and Police Chief
The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people that make them unsafe.
Franklin, Benjamin
Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or we will all hang separately.
Franklin, Benjamin
Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones, the difference is only in the price.
Free Voice of Labor, 1980 Film
If God really existed, He would have to be abolished.
French slogan
I am a Marxist--of the Groucho tendency.
Friedman, Thomas L., "From Beirut to Jerusalem", p.228
Few of them could distinguish between Chuck Berry and Little Richard, or early Beatles and late Beatles, but by their fifteenth birthdays practically all of them could distinguish between a Katyusha rocket and a 155-mm mortar just by listening to the sound of the incoming whistle.
Friedman, Thomas L., "From Beirut to Jerusalem", p.224
So it is with men who know that no matter where they go and no matter how long they live they will never feel at home again.
Friedman, Thomas L., "From Beirut to Jerusalem", p.407
Still, the truth is that the reluctance of Israelis to deal with Arafat exists not only because some cannot hear him and others do not trust him, but also because most of them don't want to hear him. All you have to do is ride the New York subway to understand why. Sometimes you get on the subway at Grand Central Station and take the last seat in the car. The train moves on to the next station and who should get on but a little old lady carrying two big grocery bags. What is the first thing you do? You take The New York Times you are reading and put it up in front of your face, covering your eyes, because if your eye meets her eye, you are going to have to give up your seat.
So it is with the Israelis and Arafat. The Jews have been standing on the subway of life for two thousand years. One day, in 1948, they finally got a seat. Ever since then, there has been this lady carrying two shopping bags standing over them, shouting, "Hey, Jew, you're in my seat. I've got that reservation. Get up." When the Jew refuses, she starts throwing cans and bottles, and everyone else in the car starts in: "Hey, Jew, get up. You're in the lady's seat." After forty years of this, though, the lady gets tired. She stops throwing cans and instead just pokes the Jew in the side with her umbrella, while mumbling under her breath that she would now be ready to share the seat with the Jew peacefully - if he would just move over a bit. But the Jew has gotten used to the whole seat. It is more comfortable and secure for him that way. After forty years of fighting with this woman, he prefers holding the whole seat over the psychological uncertainties involved in sharing it - even with this lady poking him in the side all the time. So he keeps The New York Times locked in front of his face and mumbles back at the little old lady from behind his newspaper, "Speak up, I can't hear you!" The lady eventually starts shouting at the Jew: "I am ready to share. I am ready to share," but the Jew just sits there with the newspaper in front of his face, saying, "I can't hear you. I can't hear you."
Fuller
He that at first thought ten thousand pounds too much for any one man will afterwards think ten million too little for himself.
Fuller, R. Buckminster
Wealth is made up of two parts: energy which transforms and knowledge which always only grows.
Fuller, R. Buckminster, "Intuition"
Environment
To each must be
All that is
That isn't me.
-
Universe
In turn must be
All that is
Including me.
-
The only difference between
Universe and
Environment is ME -
The experiencing observer.
Fuller, R. Buckminster, "Intuition"
Every event is triplex consisting of an action that has both a reaction and a resultant. These three inseparable functions of an event are nonidentical and non-simultaneous.
Fuller, R. Buckminster, "Intuition"
Fire is the sunlight, unwinding from the log.
Fuller, R. Buckminster, "Intuition"
Love
Is omni-inclusive,
Progressively exquisite,
Understanding and tender,
And compassionately attuned
to other than self.
Fuller, R. Buckminster, "Ideas and Integrities"
When a great airliner moving along at five times hurricane speed runs into one of these thermals and rises and drops hundreds of feet, the physical dimensions and stresses involved are precisely those of taking the QUEEN MARY over Niagara Falls at full speed and doing it so capably that the passengers believe it's only a "little bump."
Fulton, Doc - Caspar, 1973
There are three types of people in the world: there are the followers, the leaders, and the leader's friends.
Gabor, Ava
Darling, I'm a wonderful housekeeper. After every divorce I keep the house.
Gabor, Zsa Zsa
Husbands are like fires. They go out if untended.
Gallagher
Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.
Galloway, Joe, UPI Correspondent 1965-1972 Viet Nam
We could have nuked the place. We could have turned all of North Viet Nam into a glass-floored self-lighting parking lot.
Gann, Earnest K., "Masada"
There were always delays and mistakes in any army, if only because rank so rarely matched talent.
Gann, Earnest K., "Masada"
He crossed a dusty wadi then passed on to terrain which was mostly shale and sand and red boulders scattered across iron-hard earth. How much things of little consequence had come to mean! Now it was like viewing the gardens of Rome to discover a few pitiful wisps of vegetation.
Garb, Doug
Primary control involves gaining rewards by changing existing realities:
Secondary control is based on getting satisfaction by accommodating oneself to reality.
Gardner, Fred, Personnel, notes from the city. A. V. A., 8/23/89
For openers, we need a safe and extensive mass transit system along the line of the light electric rail lines that once cris-crossed America. (They were bought up and dismantled over the course of several decades by Greyhound, with the secret backing of General Motors and Standard Oil.)
GERMAN
Endloesung: [Final Solution}
Mosaisch: [Jewish] People of Moses
SD: sicherheitsdienst: [Security service].
SS: Schutztaffeln
SA: Sturmabteilung
Sonderbehandlung: [Special Treatment] = Gas Chamber
Totenkopfverbaende: [Death's head, SS].
V1: Vergeltung: [Vengeance]
GERMAN
Abschuesse: [Planes shot down]
GERMAN
Nacht und nebel - rueckkehr unerwuenscht: [Night and fog - return not required]
GERMAN
Vernichtung durch arbeit: [Extermination through labor].
GERMAN, Quantas Airways brochure
Die infolge der Zeitverschiebungen bei Flügen mit Düsenmaschinen auftretenden Müdigkeitserscheinungen: [Jet Lag]
Getting Off
Asceticism, Alchemy, Astrology, Breathing, Chanting, Concentration, Conjuring, Conversation, Dancing, Discipline, Divining, Endurance, Electrotherapy, Fasting, Fung-shui, Games, Hypnotism, Mantra, Martial-arts, Meditation, Painting, Pilgrimage, Prayer, Psychedelics, I-Ching, Ritual, Sex, Study, Wizardry, Yoga.
Gies, Miep, with Alison Leslie Gold, "The Woman Who Hid Anne Frank"
Money was being paid for each Jew in hiding. Times were such that a thief was safe and a Jew was not.
Gilbran, Kahlil
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow which you can not visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backwards nor tarries with yesterday.
Gilbran, Kahlil
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you be alone, even as
the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver to the same music.
Gilbran, Kahlil
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Gilliam, Harold, Seven Arguments for The Elimination of the Automobile
Every year, on the average, more Americans die on the roads than have been killed in any year of any of the wars the United States has fought in this century.
Gillilan, Strickland W., The Reading Mother
I had a mother who read to me,
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath.
I had a mother who read me lays,
Of ancient and gallant and golden days.
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.
I had a mother who read me things,
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings -
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold,
Richer than I, you can never be.
I had a mother who read to me.
Gilmore, L. R., Letters to the Editor, S. F. Chronicle
In 1645 one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England
In 1649 one vote caused Charles I of England to be executed.
In 1776 one vote gave America the English language instead of German.
In 1839 one vote elected Marcus Morton governor of Massachusetts.
In 1845 one vote saved President Andrew Jackson from impeachment.
In 1876 one vote gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency of the United States.
In 1876 one vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic.
In 1923 one vote gave Adolf Hitler leadership of the Nazi Party.
Glenn, John, D-Ohio, Associated Press, July 2, 1988
Those who would choose to poison our own people in order to make nuclear weapons should be asked what the weapons are supposed to protect us from.
Goering, Herman, [Second in Command to Hitler]
"Why of course people don't want war... why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter, in Germany.
That is understood. But after all, it is the LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along.
Whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship... voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Gogol, Nikolai
Innumerable as the sands of the sea are the passions of man, and all are different, and all, base and noble alike, are first under a man's control and afterwards cruel tyrants dominating him.
Goldberg, Whoopi, "Clara's Heart", movie
Funny thing about being alone: you start to talk to yourself and you stop listening, and then you forget that you're there.
Goldwyn, Samuel
A verbal contract isn't worth the money it's written on.
Graffiti; Honolulu Intl. Airport, 1962
"I am too shoddy a specimen to create anything of worth.
But I can deface, and this proves: I, too, have been.
Graffiti; Los Angeles
I shot an arrow into the air, and it stuck.
Grantham, Gregg, North Coast News, Letters to the Editor, Jan 21, 1988
If, for instance, the money we pour into the protection of Middle Eastern oil fields ($47 billion in 1985 alone) were applied to the weatherization of our buildings, we could eliminate the need to import any oil from the Middle East.
Gremlins 2, (Movie)
The only thing that scares them is getting sober and finding work.
Griffin, Russell M., "The Blind Men and the Elephant"
Confidentially, the Russians and Americans have this top-secret "Please Nuke" list. In the event of nuclear war, we promise to bomb Rumania, and they're pledged to hit Butler, Bridgeport, North Philadelphia, and Parma, Ohio.
Griffin, Russell M., "The Blind Men and the Elephant"
Jokes were acts of love because they made light of a world of abominations and chaos.
Gunn, James E.
A susurration of surreptitious sibilants - sugar, shoe, issue, fuchsia, mansion, schist, nation, chaperon, suspicion, conscious, ocean, nauseous.
Gunn, James E.
A dwarf standing on the shoulder of a giant may see further than the giant himself.
Gurdiieff
A man is satisfied not by the quantity of food but by the absence of greed.
Habart, Mary Ann, "Captivity"
The Inn of the First Happiness concerns itself with longevity,
the Second - wealth,
the Third - health,
the Fourth - virtue,
the Fifth - peaceful departure, death,
the Sixth - the joy of living.
Hair, rock musical
The draft is white people sending black people to fight yellow people to "protect" the country they stole from red people.
Hall, Edward T., "The Dance of Life"
...the Japanese are more aware of synchrony than the average Westerner. Those tremendous Sumo wrestlers, for example, must synchronize their breathing before the referee will allow the match to begin, and the audience is fully aware of what is happening.
Hall, Edward T., "Differences: How To Communicate with the Germans"
M= Monochronic Cultures, P= Polychronic Cultures
-
M-Do one thing at a time.
P-Do many things at once.
-
M-Involved with doing the job.
P-Involved with family, friends, customers, relationships.
-
M-Concentrate on the job.
P-Highly distractable.
-
M-Take deadlines, schedules seriously.
P-Take time commitments lightly.
-
M-Follow plans.
P-Change plans.
-
M-Concerned about not disturbing others. Follow rules of privacy and consideration.
P-Only concerned with close relations, friends, close business associates.
-
M-Have private offices (managers and employees separated).
P-Have public spaces (managers and employees sharing space and information).
-
M-Need information; low context.
P-Already have information; high context.
-
M-Have great respect for private property and seldom borrow or lend things.
P-Always borrowing and lending.
-
M-Emphasize promptness.
P-Almost never on time.
-
M-Deal in short-term relationships.
P-Build lifetime relationships.
Hall, Edward T., "The Dance of Life"
The Japanese take an extremely dim view of anyone who changes his mind or the rules of the game once an agreement has been reached. To fall back on some legal technicality, a policy change, a shift in the political climate, or the thought that a better deal can be made elsewhere, will only make enemies who will take revenge later. You may not even know when it happens.
Hall, Edward T., "The Dance of Life"
When the Julian calendar had slipped so far out of line because of the computation of leap year, it was necessary to recalibrate it. Pope Gregory XIII tried to alter the calendar by cutting out ten days. People responded by rioting, shouting, "Give us back our ten days."
Halsey, Admiral, "Gallant Hours" (movie)
There are no great men. There are only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet.
Hamburg, Dan, Ukiah City Hall 1/18/91, in Mendocino Commentary
My personal guess is that Bush and his crew, in the worst traditions of American Covert diplomacy and secret government, wanted to precipitate just this kind of crisis in order to avoid the possibility that, with the eclipse of the Cold War, the political economy of the country might move away from the militarized stance it has maintained since the creation of the "national security state" at the end of World War II. It is this state, with its grotesquely bloated military budgets and aggressive foreign policy that is the real crisis we face as a nation. Not Saddam. Not Noriega. Not Daniel Ortega or Khaddafi or the FMLN or any of the other phony demons thrown up to the media as the latest, greatest incarnation of evil in the world. As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Hamilton, Edmond, "Day of Judgement"
We men came from the forest-folk long ago, though our pride grew so great that we forget that fact. Yes, long and long ago we sprang from soft-skinned, weak, fumbling creatures of the forest world, creatures that had no claws or strength or swiftness.
But one thing those creatures had, and that was curiosity. And curiosity was the key that unlocked for them the hidden powers of nature, so that they grew strong. So strong we grew, so great we deemed ourselves, that we thought ourselves a different order of beings and oppressed and tyrannized the other creatures of Earth.
Hardiman, Larry
The word "politics" is derived from the word "poly", meaning "many", and the word "ticks", meaning "blood sucking parasites".
Harness, Charles L., The New Reality (Analog)
We condemn you, Galileo Galilee, to the formal prison of this Holy Office for a period determinable at Our pleasure, and by way of salutary penance, We order you, during the next three years, to recite once a week the seven Penitential Psalms.
Harness, Charles L., The New Reality (Analog)
Woman started man on his acquisition of knowledge and self-destruction, and ever since has tried futilely to halt the avalanche.
Harper's Index, October 1989
Estimated amount of glucose used by an adult human brain each day, expressed in M&Ms: 250
Harrison, Gregory, "Oceans of Fire" (movie), 1987
Reality is for people who can't take booze.
Harwood, Barbara, Letters to the Editor, North Coast News, 2/18/88
I do hope that NW ("Name Withheld") is beginning to realize that those government employees on the DAIS are not the government. The PEOPLE are the government. It is the PEOPLE you should talk to and it is the PEOPLE who will make the final decision.
Hegle, Mary C., "Foods that Alkalinize and Heal"
The farmer has long known that his livestock thrived or did poorly, was prime or ill-conditioned, according to the feed utilized. Horse breeders know that a stall-fed horse, lacking green and varied feed, will develop congestion, infections, corns, puffs, heaves or distemper. The owner knows that the tissues of the animal are heavily laden with the waste products of digestion and assimilation of highly concentrated food, that it lacks certain vital food elements, that the way to get the horse back into condition is to turn him out to pasture.
Heine, Heinrich, R. D., 2/91
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
Heinl, Robert D. Jr., Colonel, Armed Forces Journal, 6/71
By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state of approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or refusing combat, murdering their officers and non-commissioned officers, drug-ridden and dispirited where not near-mutinous. Word of the deaths of officers will bring cheers at troop movies or in bivouacs of certain units. In one such division, the moral-plagued Americal, fraggings during 1971 have been running about one a week... Another Hamburger Hill is definitely out. As early as mid-1969 an entire company of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade publicly sat down on the battlefield. Later that year, another rifle company, from the famed 1st Air Cavalry Division, flatly refused - on CBS TV - to advance down a dangerous trail... Combat refusal has been precipitated again on the frontier of Laos by Troop B, 1st Cavalry's mass refusal to recapture their captain's command vehicle containing communications gear and other secret operation orders...
Heinlein, Robert A., "Time Enough for Love"
$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000 - by which time it will be worth nothing.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Methuselah's Children"
...a committee is the only known form of life with a hundred bellies and no brain.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Life-Line"
Suppose we take you as an example. Your name is Rogers, is it not? Very well, Rogers, you are a space-time event having duration four ways. You are not quite six feet tall, you are about twenty inches wide and perhaps ten inches thick. In time, there stretches behind you more of this space-time event reaching to perhaps nineteen-sixteen, of which we see a cross-section here at right angles to the time-axis, and as thick as the present. At the far end is a baby, smelling of sour milk and drooling its breakfast on its bib. At the other end lies, perhaps, an old man someplace in the nineteen-eighties. Imagine this space-time event which we call Rogers as a long pink worm, continuous through the years, one end at his mother's womb, the other at the grave. It stretches past us here and the cross-section we see appears as a single discrete body. But that is illusion. There is physical continuity to this pink worm, enduring through the years. As a matter of fact there is physical continuity in this concept to the entire race, for these pink worms branch off from other pink worms. In this fashion the race is like a vine whose branches intertwine and send out shoots. Only by taking a cross-section of the vine would we fall into the error of believing that the shootlets were discrete individuals.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Friday"
A bribe is never a bribe; any such transfer of valuta must save face for the recipient. No matter how lavishly overpaid, civil servants everywhere are convinced that they are horribly underpaid - but all public employees have larceny in their hearts or they wouldn't be feeding at the public trough...Be careful! - a public employee, having no self respect, needs and demands a show of public respect.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Time Enough for Love"
A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay - such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?
It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And ENORMOUSLY higher than that of professors.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Time Enough for Love"
An adult who died saving its progeny had to be counted a pro survival whereas a cat that ate her own young was contra survival no matter how long she lived.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Job: A Comedy of Justice"
Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything - just give him time to rationalize it.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Glory Road"
As courage is bravery in the face of fear, virtue is right conduct in the face of temptation. If there is no temptation, there can be no virtue.
Heinlein, Robert A., "The Door into Summer"
Cat protocol is based on self-respect and mutual respect and it has the same flavor as the DIGNIDAD DE HOMBRE of Latin America which you may offend only at risk to your life.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Stranger in a Strange Land"
It is far, far better to have a bastard in the family than an unemployed son-in-law.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Job: A Comedy of Justice"
Justice is not a divine concept; it is a human illusion. The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and "dying for your sins." Somebody should tell all of Yahweh's followers, Jew and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Time Enough for Love"
The donkey that starved to death between two piles of hay.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Life-Line"
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law.
Heinlein, Robert A., "Time Enough for Love"
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Helenchild, Liz; Mendocino, 1975
Solo
Solo only
So low
Soul, oh so lonely
Frog-throated moan.
Heller, Joseph, "Catch 22"
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
Henderson, Zenna, "The Anything Box"
A child in a meadow of flowers, clutching, grabbing, crumpling and finding
always the next flower fairer.
Time is not hours and days, or the slanting and shortening of shadows. Time
is a held breath and a listening ear.
Taste a little sorrow for those who stubbornly shut their eyes against the
sun and still curse the darkness.
Henderson, Zenna, "The Anything Box"
And then we learned more. We were the greedy woman. We wanted a house, a castle, a palace - power beyond power, beyond power, until we wanted to meddle with the workings of the universe. And then we had to huddle back on the dilapidated steps of the old shack with nothing again, nothing in our lax hands, because we reached for too much.
But then we were the husband, too, who gave in and gave in against his better judgement, against his desires, but always backing away from a NO, until he sat there, too, with empty hands, staring at the nothing he must share. And he had never had anything at all because he had never asked for it. It was a strange, hard, lesson and we studied it again and again until one of us was stranded in greed, another in apathy, and one of us almost knew the right answer.
Henderson, Zenna, "Turn the Page"
Believe again!
You have forgotten how to believe in anything beyond your chosen treadmill. You have grown out of the fairy tale age, you say. But what have you grown into?... With your hopeless scalding tears at night, and your dry-eyed misery when you waken. Do you like it?
Henley, "Twentieth Century Book of Recipes"
Isinglass - soak cotton or linen based paper in a solution of alcohol and all the camphor it will hold.
Wash hands well.
Henniger, Paul, The Betrayal of Czechoslovakia, Datebook, 9/25/88
Hitler had long since made his plans to reclaim the Rhineland and the 3.5 million Sudeten Germans that became part of the new state of Czechoslovakia as mandated in the Versailles peace treaty of 1919.
Henson, H. Keith, "Memetics and the Modular Mind", Analog 8/87
In 1969...a Palo Alto teacher exposed a high school history class to an intensive five day experience with the ideas that made up the Nazi meme; Strength Through Discipline, Community, Action, and Pride. The enthusiasm with which most of the class adopted the memes and spread them to their friends, swelling a 40 student class to 200 in 5 days, made it one of the most frightening events the teacher had ever experienced.
[Memes were defined as replicating information patterns that use minds to get themselves copied much as a virus uses cells to get itself copied.]
Herophilus, 300 B.C.
When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot become manifest, strength cannot be exerted, wealth is useless and reason is powerless.
Heydrich, Reinhard
"Aktion Reinhard" - the Nazi program that killed 6 million Jews, also killed another six million people - homosexuals, Gypsies and political dissidents.
Heydrich, Reinhard
New camps, built with all possible speed, to receive all who misunderstand the aim of the Third Reich which is on a far higher plane than any religious
doctrine.
Hillel
Take care of oneself first, but having done so, to work to better the lot of others.
Hilton, Bruce, Bioethics, S.F. Chronicle, Nov 26, 1989
The last note a doctor wrote on the chart of a newly dead patient: "Failed to fulfill his wellness potential."
Hindu proverb
That which is here, is elsewhere,
That which is not here, is nowhere.
Hirschfeld, Burt, "Behold Zion"
When he sounded the most positive, most confident, he was merely hunting blindly for an answer to a question he had yet to formulate.
Hitchens, Christopher
Better to be judged by twelve
Than carried by six.
Hitler, Adolf
When a people begin to cut down their trees without making any provision for re-afforestation - and thus rob nature's wise irrigation system of its most essential prerequisite - you may be sure it is a sign of the beginning of their cultural degeneration.
Hitler, Adolf, Hamburg, 1932
The streets of our country are in turmoil. The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. We are in danger from within and without. What we need now is a restoration of law and order. Elect us and I promise you that bringing back law and order to our streets, our courts, and our schools will be our first obligation.
Hodgman, Charles D., Editor, "Handbook of Chemistry and Physics," 1936
A Pound of Feathers Weighs More Than a Pound of Gold.
Feathers are weighed "avoirdupois" [16 oz = 1 lb.]
Gold is weighed in "troy" [12 oz = 1 lb.]
Hodgman, Charles D., Editor, "Handbook of Chemistry and Physics," 1936
Intrinsic brilliancy of light sources:
Candle flame 0.4 - 0.6 cd/cm squared
The Sun 160,000 cd/cm squared
Algol 840,000 cd/cm squared.
Hoffer, Eric
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Hoffer, William, "A Magic Ratio Occurs Throughout Art and Nature"
The curves of seashells and galaxies, the proportions of playing cards and the Parthenon are all based on the ratio of .618034.
Hogan, James P.
A fat, round object presents less surface area per unit volume than a long, thin one and thus loses less heat. Contrast the compact build of the Eskimo with the long limbs of the Negro.
Hogan, James P.
...be sent to places he'd never heard of by people he'd never met in order to kill other people he didn't know.
Hogan, James P., "Code of the Lifemaker"
"The main problem with today's high-technology society is that we allow politicians to run it instead of people equipped with the wherewithal to understand it. Their mentalities are still in the nineteenth century. How can they hope to manage complex economies when they're not competent to run a yard-sale. What can they do that requires even a smattering of knowledge or intellect?"
"People let them get away with it. If people are gonna elect turkeys to tell them what to do, then the people are gonna have problems. You can't blame the turkeys. The Constitution never guaranteed smart government; it guaranteed representative government. And it works - that's what we've got."
"The trouble with the damn system is that it selects for the skills needed to get elected, and nothing else... which requires only an ability to fool a sufficient number of people for just long enough to get the votes.
Unfortunately the personal qualities necessary for attaining office are practically the opposite of those demanded by the office itself. A test that you can pass only by cheating can't possibly select honest people, can it?"
Hogan, James P.
Wondering how a world that accepted as normal the nightly spectacle of people discussing their constipation, hemorrhoids, dandruff, and indigestion in front of a million strangers could possibly find something obscene in the sight of pretty girls taking their clothes off.
Hogan, James P.
All living organisms take into their bodies known proportions of the radioactive isotope of carbon and certain other elements. During life, an organism maintains a constant ratio of these isotopes to "normal" ones, but when it dies and intake ceases, the active isotopes are left to decay in a predictable pattern. This mechanism provides, in effect, a highly reliable clock, which begins running at the moment of death. Analysis of the decay residues enables a reliable figure to be calculated for how long the clock has been running.
Hogan, James P.
An area drenched with napalm and saturated with high-explosives was subject to "exploratory aggressive reconnaissance"; and a village flattened as a warning against harboring insurgents became an object of "protective reaction".
Hogan, James P.
And does it not seem strange that eternal salvation for the many, in a hereafter which they are asked to accept on mere assurances, should be attainable in no other way than by their enduring hardships gratefully and laboring their lives in wretchedness for the further enrichment of a pious few who exhibit a suspiciously unholy interest in the quality of their own herenow?
Hogan, James P.
Education is incompatible with unquestioning obedience.
Hogan, James P.
Keep `em working hard, give `em a cause to believe in, and don't teach `em to think too hard. The last thing you want is an educated, affluent, and emancipated population. Power hinges on the restriction and control of wealth.
Therefore, science and technology have to be controlled. Knowledge and reason are enemies - myth and unreason are the weapons you fight them with... side by side with the inquisition that had forced Galileo to recant, the bishops who had opposed Darwin and the politicians on both sides of the iron curtain who had seized the atom to hold the world ransom with bombs.
Hogan, James P.
Let thy words be keen heeders of the truth, for truth is no heeder of words.
.
Hogan, James P.
Phylum Vertebrata: An internal skeleton of bone or cartilage and a vertebral column. The vertebrate has two pairs of appendages, which may be highly developed or degenerate, likewise a tail. It has a ventrally located heart, divided into two or more chambers, and a closed circulatory system of blood made up of red cells containing hemoglobin. A dorsal nerve cord which bulges at one end into a five-part brain contained in the head. It also has a body cavity that contains most of its vital organs and its digestive system.
Hogan, James P., "The Two Faces of Tomorrow"
The form of the verb varies according to its subject: I am firm; You are obstinate; He is pigheaded.
Hogan, James P.
To make a difficult decision quickly: forget the issue itself and consider the alternatives - if none of them is acceptable, the decision is made.
Holm, Celeste
We live by encouragement and die without it - slowly, sadly, angrily.
Household, Geoffrey, "The Dance of the Dwarfs"
The eye is only a camera, the picture has to be interpreted by the brain. When the brain has no experience of the object photographed, it interprets the message of the eye as it pleases. So what you think you are recording has far more relation to your beliefs than to the facts.
Howe, Irving & Kenneth Libo, "How We Lived"
In this country we get stuck with taxes. In the old country we used to get stuck with bayonets.
HUNGARIAN, Graffiti
Budapesti villamos,
Padlora kopni tilos,
De en ezen rohogok,
Es en plafonra kopok.
[On the streetcars of Budapest,
Spitting on the floor is forbidden.
But I just laugh,
And spit on the ceiling.]
Hunt
Few people, rich or poor, make the most of what they possess. In their anxiety to increase the amount of means for future enjoyment, they are too apt to lose sight of the capability of them for the present.
Hunter, 1839
Every part of the body sympathizes with the mind, for whatever affects the mind, the body is affected in proportion.
Hunter, Edward, "Brainwashing"
The Reds had found that the easiest way to subdue any group of people was to give its members a guilt complex and then lead them on from self-denunciation to self-betrayal. All that was required to put this across was a sufficiently heartless exploitation of the essential goodness in people, so that they would seek self-sacrifice to compensate for their feelings of guilt. The self-sacrifice obviously made available to them in this inside-out environment is some form of treason.
Hyatt, Richard
Body and Mind not two.
Indian, American
A young man can have fine cloth like an elder, but he can never have rags like an elder.
IRISH
USQUE-BAUGH: [water of life] (whiskey)
Israeli Army
No smoking in this office please.
I probably enjoy sex more than you enjoy smoking.
Since I don't screw in your office,
Please don't smoke in mine.
Israeli Army
When you shout, I hear you
When you speak, I understand.
Israeli intercept
Telegram sent by Arab President to Moscow, 1967:
"STOP SENDING SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILES.
SEND SURFACE-TO-AIRCRAFT MISSILES."
ISRAELI, Secret Service
Ha Mossad L'tafkidim Meyubadim
Ivanov, Vsevolod, U.S.S.R.
The roaring of ocean waves, which begin far out at sea, then break on the beach, and end up playing gently with pebbles they find there.
Ives, Lt. Joseph, Grand Canyon, 1861.
Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality.
Jallberg, Mogens
In democracy its your vote that counts.; In feudalism its your count that votes.
JAPANESE
THANK YOU!
Arigato [This difficult thing]
Katajikenai [I am insulted]
Kino doku [This poisonous feeling]
Sumimasen [I'm sorry]
JAPANESE
Gashin-shotan: [Sleep on kindling and lick gall.]
{To suffer hardships and privations repeatedly in order to take revenge}.
JAPANESE
I ro ha
Ni ho he to
Chi ri nu ru o wa ka
Yo ta re so tsu ne na ramu
U i no oku yama
Ke fu ko e te
Asa ki yume mi shi
E hi mo se su.
Jazz Musician's Poster
God respects us when we work, but loves us when we dance.
Jefferson, Thomas
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
Jessel, George, 1898 - 1981
The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.
Johnsen, William H.
IF IT IS TO BE
IT IS UP TO ME.
Johnson, Bernard, A. V. A., Oct. 12, 1994
A neurotic is the man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. And a psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.
Johnson, Samuel, Dr.
It has been the endeavor of all those whom the world has reverenced for superior wisdom, to persuade man to be acquainted with himself, to learn his own powers and his own weakness, to observe by what evils he is most dangerously beset, and by what temptations most easily overcome.
Jolson, Al: Radio interview on warm English beer
As far as I'm concerned they can pour it back into the horse.
Jones, R.F., "The Non-Statistical Man"
As with most instruments of mass communication, television finds man in the astonishing position of having vast resources for exchange of intelligence, but no intelligence to exchange.
Joseph, Chief; Surrender, 1877
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed... The old men are all dead... It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death... I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.
Judaeus, Philo, 100 A.D.
The most sacred spot on earth is the mind of a thinking man.
Judaeus, Philo, 100 A.D.
They avoid the cities... They stand almost alone in the whole of mankind because they have become moneyless, by deliberate action, rather than lack of good fortune.
Kahane, Rabbi Meir, Mendocino Megillah
I understand that you are upset with us, here in Israel. Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry. (Outraged?) Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset over us. Today, it is the "brutal repression of the Palestinians"; yesterday it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War and the Sinai campaign. It appears that Jews who triumph and who, therefore, live, upset you most extraordinarily.
Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we the Jewish people, upset you. We upset a German people who elected a Hitler and we upset an Austrian people who cheered his entry into Vienna and we upset a whole slew of Slavic nations - Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Ukranians, Russians, Hungarians, Rumanians. And we go back a long, long way in the history of world "upset." We upset the Cossaks of Chmielnicki who massacred tens of thousands of us in 1648-49; we upset the Crusaders who, on their way to liberate the Holy Land, were so upset at Jews that they slaughtered untold numbers of us. We upset, for centuries, a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to define our relationship through inquisitions, and we upset the arch-enemy of the Church, Martin Luther, who, in his call to burn down the synagogues and the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian ecumenical spirit.
And it is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world, that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish a Jewish state. The reasoning was that living in close contact with you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that comprise you, we upset you, irritate you, disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave you and thus love you - and have you love us? And so we decided to come home to the same homeland from which we were driven out 1900 years earlier by a Roman world that, apparently, we also upset.
Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please. Having left you and your pogroms and inquisitions and Crusades and Holocausts, having taken our leave of the general world to live alone in our own little state - we continue to upset you. You are upset that we repress the poor Palestinians. You are deeply angered over the fact that we do not give up the lands of 1967, which are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Moscow is upset and Washington is upset. The "radical" Arabs are upset and the gentle Egyptian moderates are upset.
Kahn, Alice, S.F. Chronicle
Dr. Doom tastes one of my prawns and comments, "Delicious, very fresh. Some real person caught these - some poor person making less than a dollar an hour. They put the shrimp on a 747, where half the crew is on drugs or smuggling them. They brought your shrimp here and sold it to you at a ridiculous price."
Kaul, Donald, Washington correspondent
I think the world's reaction to India's testing of an atomic bomb is just a tad hypocritical, don't you?
If nuclear weapons are such a good thing for us and England and France and China and Russia, why are they such a terrible thing for India?
It's as though the Crips and the Bloods got together to lobby for a prohibition on little old ladies buying derringers for self-protection.
Kelly, Michael, Memo, August 25, 1995
When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, he not only gave his famous One Step for Man speech, but followed it with several remarks. It ended with "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky." Over the years many people have asked him what he meant, but he wouldn't tell. Two weeks ago, while answering questions following a speech, he finally responded; Mr. Gorsky had died and so he felt he could answer. When Neil was a kid, he was playing ball. His brother hit a fly ball which ended up under the Gorsky's bedroom window. As Neil leaned down to pick it up, he heard Mrs. Gorsky, inside, shouting at Mr. Gorsky. "Oral sex, oral sex you want? You'll get oral sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"
Kennedy, John F.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Kepler, Johannes, 1571
I do not know what I may appear to the world - but to myself I seem to have been only a boy, playing at the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Ketcham, Hank, "Dennis the Menace"
"Oh gimme a home in Buffalo or Rome where the deer in the cantaloupe play."
Kidd, Jason
We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees.
Kilmurry Churchyard, Erin
This stone was raised to Sarah Ford
Not Sarah's virtues to record -
For they're well known to all the town -
No Lord, it was raised to keep her down.
Kingsbury, Donald, The Moon Goddess and the Son, "The Endless Frontier"
A luminous hand was reaching out for the stars and that hand was a mosaic of little men held together by little hands in the pockets of the men above. Each little man was complaining about somebody else's greed. The conquest of space was not, at the moment, a glorious cooperative venture. It was a war of pickpockets.
Klarwein, Abdul Mati, "God Jokes"
I waited for a hundred years.
All I did was wait.
Everyday.
All day.
Now when I look back it seems
That I waited for only one day,
A day that lasted a thousand years.
Klarwein, Abdul Mati, "God Jokes"
I used to dream sex.
Now I dream dope.
Soon I'll dream light.
Thank God there's still hope.
Klarwein, Abdul Mati, "God Jokes"
I'll climb up that hill
A million times
Just to see you.
But I refuse to come down.
Klarwein, Abdul Mati, "God Jokes"
It's only my obsessions that
Give me pleasure and pain
And my only obsession is pleasure.
Klarwein, Abdul Mati, "God Jokes"
She thought that maybe
I'd lost my mind
And that she was going to help me look for it
Pretending it was hers.
Klarwein, Abdul Mati, "God Jokes"
Do you seriously believe that
By being serious you'll
Live forever.
Klien, Joe, "Playback, 5 Marines"
By 1980, more Viet-Nam veterans had died since they came home than had been killed in the war.
Koestler, Arthur, "Promise and Fulfillment," 1948
Ay, don't we know the Bottle and what it does to the goy (non-Jew) - songs at the top, sentimentality in the middle, and the pogrom at the bottom.
Koestler, Arthur, "Promise and Fulfillment," 1948
In all branches of science the observation of freak phenomena yields important clues to general laws. Dwarf stars and human giants, radioactivity and parthenogenesis, prophets, maniacs and saints are all freaks which carry the conditions of normality to a pointed and profiled extreme.
Koestler, Arthur, "Thieves in the Night," 1939
The khamsin is a hot, dry, easterly wind blowing from the Arabian desert. The name is of Egyptian origin and signifies "fifty" - the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost on which the khamsin is said to be particularly frequent.
Koestler, Arthur, "Thieves in the Night," 1939
A considerable section of the Hebrew youth had by that time become convinced that restraint was not the proper answer to disaster. For twenty years they had practiced loyalty and restraint, and were now on the point of losing everything; whereas their opponents had practiced rebellion and violence, and were to be rewarded by the granting of all their demands.
Kovacs, Ernie
Television - a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well-done.
Kurosawa, "Ra'n" (movie)
Man is born crying. When he is done crying, he dies.
Kuttner, Henry
There was something to be said for intelligence after all. In the jungle, a monkey with a red flannel coat would be torn to pieces by its undressed colleagues.
Kuttner, Henry, "Mutant"
We're in the position of a Unicorn in a herd of horses. We daren't use our
horn to defend ourselves, we've got to pretend to be horses.
Kuttner, Henry, "Mutant"
A pogrom is the most indefensible concerted action a group can be guilty of. It's always an attack by a large majority on a defenseless minority. These people would have killed us without a qualm, if they could. They're lucky we aren't as vicious as they were. They deserve a lot worse than they are getting, if you ask me. We didn't ask to be put in a spot like this.
Kuzmin, A. D., Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow
The first German bomb to fall on Leningrad in World War II killed the only elephant in the Leningrad zoo.
Laing, R. D.
What we think is less than what we know.
What we know is less than what we love.
What we love is so much less than what there is.
And to that precise extent we are so much less than what we are.
Lao-Tzu
A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.
Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.
A tree that is unbending is easily broken.
The hard and the strong will fall.
The soft and the weak will overcome.
Lao-Tzu
Softness triumphs over hardness, feebleness over strength. What is more
malleable is always superior over that which is immoveable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation.
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Index
Amount the Air Force has spent since 1981 on matchbooks and playing cards for Air Force One and Two: $115,634
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Index, May 1990
Average ratio of a CEO's salary to that of a blue-collar worker at major Japanese automobile manufacturers: 20 to 1.
Average ratio at major U.S. automobile manufacturers: 192 to 1.
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Index, May 1990
Estimated number of people per square mile during peak season in Yosemite Valley: 3,320
Estimated number of people per square mile in Houston: 2,986
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Index, June 1989
Estimated number of languages spoken by students in the Los Angeles public school system: 80
Estimated number of languages spoken in Africa: 1,000
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Index, July 1988
Number of people worldwide who have died of AIDS since 1981: 72,504.
Number of people who have died of measles since then: 14,000,000.
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Index, June 1989
Percentage of all oil spilled in tanker accidents during the past year that is accounted for by the Exxon spill: 8
Percentage of all oil released into the oceans last year that was the result of "routine operations": 33
Daily wage Exxon paid workers in Alaska this spring to scrub off coastal rocks:
$234
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Magazine (R. D., July, 1991)
A democracy supposedly derives its strength and character from the diversity of its many voices, but the politicians in the Capitol speak with only one voice, which is the voice of the oligarchy that buys the airline tickets and the television images. Among the company of legislators in Washington or Albany, N.Y., or Sacramento, Calif., I look in vain for a representation of my own interests or opinions, and I never hear the voice of the scientist, the teacher, the plumber, the police officer, the farmer, the merchant. I hear instead the voice of only one kind of functionary: a full-time politician, often a lawyer, who spends most of his time raising campaign funds and re-distributing the national income into venues convenient to his friends.
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Index
Percentage of Americans who know CPR: 51
Who know how to jump-start a car: 70
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Index
Proceeds of the 175 circuses held by the Shriners for charity in 1984: $17,500,000
Amount the Shriners donated to charities in 1984: $182,000
Lapham, Lewis H., Harper's Index, July 1988
U.S. military spending during the Reagan administration, per second: $8,607.
Average hourly rate Chrysler paid Lee Iacocca last year: $8,608.
Larson, Doug
Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.
Later, they tried a few more people on the reservation to translate and every person they asked would chuckle and then refuse to translate. Finally, with cash in hand, someone translated the message, "Watch out for these guys, they come to take your land."
LATIN
Quod licet jovi
Non licet bovi
[What is permitted the Gods,
Is not permitted the cattle.]
LATIN
Si non oscillas, Noli tintinnare.
[If you don't swing, Don't ring.]
LATIN
Mica, mica, parva stella;
Miror queenam sis tambella;
splendens eminis in illo;
Alba, vaelut, gemma caelo.
[Twinkle, twinkle, little star...]
Lawrence, T. E., "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"
Even the wells and trees had their masters, who allowed men to take firewood of the one and drink of the other freely, as much as was required for their need, but who would instantly check anyone trying to turn the property to account and to exploit it or its products among others for private benefit. The desert was held in a crazed communism by which nature and the elements were for the free use of every known friendly person for his own purposes and no more.
Lawrence, T. E., "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"
The paradox of tribe and city - the collective responsibility and brotherhood of the desert, contrasted with the isolation and competitive living of the crowded districts.
Lawrence, T. E., "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"
And that in all my life objects had been gladder to me than persons, and ideas than objects.
Lawrence, T. E., "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"
True there lurked always that will uneasily waiting to burst out. My brain was sudden and silent as a wild cat, my senses like mud clogging its feet, and my self telling the beast it was bad form to spring and vulgar to feed upon the kill. So meshed in nerves and hesitation, it could not be a thing to be afraid of: yet it was a real beast, and this book its mangy skin, dried, stuffed and set up squarely for men to stare at.
Lawrence, T. E., "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"
Yet the craving for solitude seemed part of the delusion of self-sufficiency, a fictitious making-rare of the person to enhance its strangeness in its own estimation.
Leach, E. R., "Rethinking Anthropology", 1961
...we create time by creating intervals in life. Until we have done this, there is no time to be measured.
Leahy, William, Admiral, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project
The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.
Lehrer, Tom
The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on ability.
Leiber, Fritz, "Game for a Motel Room"
Bodies do not automatically grow less beautiful with age, but a lot of bodies are neglected, abused, and even hated by their owners: women in particular are apt to grow contemptuous and ashamed of their flesh, and this shows. They start thinking old and ugly and pretty soon they look it. Like a car, a body needs tender constant care, regular tune-ups, an occasional small repair, and above all it needs to be intimately loved by its owner and from time to time by an admiring second party, and then it never loses beauty and dignity, even when it corrupts in the end and dies.
Leinster, Murray
The ethical equations link conduct with probability. Probability and ethics are interlinked, so that admirable results cannot be expected from unethical beginnings.
Leinster, Murray, "Space Tug"
The strength of muscles depends on their cross-section, but their weight depends on their volume. The strength of a man varies as the square of his size, but his weight as the cube.
Leinster, Murray, "Space Tug"
They had only steering jets, now, for all navigational purposes. These were jets of high pressure steam, obtained by pumping 70 percent hydrogen peroxide into a spray of manganese permanganate solution. Both solutions burst instantly into steam, which could be released to change the direction of a ship in emptiness, or actually to increase its or decrease its speed by a minute amount.
Leinster, Murray, "Talents, Incorporated"
There are three kinds of people in every community: the barbarians, the tribesmen, and the civilized. If there was progress, the civilized men brought it about. In every village are tribesmen, men who placidly accept the circumstances into which they were born, and who wish no change at all. And everywhere and at all times there are barbarians. They seek personal triumphs. They thrive on high emotional victories. At no time will barbarians ever leave civilized men or tribesmen alone. They crave triumphs over them and each other, and they create disaster everywhere, until they are crushed.
Leinster, Murray, "Time Tunnel"
There has been much progress in how to do things. It was regrettable that there was less progress in knowledge of things worth doing.
Leinster, Murray, "Time Tunnel"
In 1800, on the entire continent of Europe there was no single room in which candles gave as much light as modern man considered a minimum for comfort.
Lem, Stanislaw
Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
Silently scheming,
Sightlessly seeking
Some savage, spectacular suicide.
Lem, Stanislaw
Who derives happiness from doing good? Not he who must forever pat his fellow on the head, roar with delight and remove stumbling blocks, but he who is able to brood, to sob, to do his fellow in, yet voluntarily and cheerfully refrains from such things.
Lennon, John
Dreaming of his loved wombs back home.
Lennox, Lucky
The ship is red, the ship is black
Her plates are caked with rust
The planks are old
The boilers cold
But sprinkled with gold dust
And silver striping
Over sassy red paint job
To advertise her craft:
To tow you out upon the sea
And set your soul adrift -
And make your life into a sail
That will billow in the wind......
Lennox, Lucky
Build your home on a rock -
it will never float away.
Or build your home in the sand,
in your head & your heart -
and live there every day.
Now I'm gonna tell you a new kinda song
about my brother Charlie Brown
He'd been aloft in space craft and he
knew his way around -
and he spoke of better days
and tried to figure out new ways
to spread the message,
sow the seed.
He drank tequila and smoked good Weed
and he slept in the meadow with the skins
and goes on rhyming 'till eternity
it's just the way it comes...
And I sing glory, glory hallelujah !
just to get attention
to congregate with the wise.
Cause truth shown thru simplicity -
to a conditional mind
would sound like lies.
So now we'll spend the rest of
the Kali Yuga
just listenin' to the sound of
the Sunrise.
Nada Brahma is the sound
And God, the only poet, is everywhere
and all around.
Call it love, and preach the gospel
as the word travels over
stormy seas.
But this same sound will bring you
back again, to live your life with ease
of an easy conscience...
Just ask and you will receive.
And the only directions you will ever find
is simply to believe.
LePatner, Barry
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
Levinson, Sam, "In One Era and Out the Other"
If you want your dreams to come true, don't sleep.
Levinson, Sam, "In One Era and Out the Other"
It would take fifty people working day and night for two hundred years to make the same mistake an electronic computer can make in two seconds.
Levinson, Sam, "In One Era and Out the Other"
The "New-consciousness" is nostalgic for a past they never knew, back somewhere between the Fall and the fallout.
They do not believe in ritual. Like pilgrims, they come barefoot from all corners of the earth for festivals, but they do not call them pilgrimages. They will gather before an illuminated stage in the woods, but they do not call it a shrine. They will partake of bread and wine, but they do not call it communion. They wear peace medals, and love medals, but they do not call them sacred medallions. They marry under green bowers, but do not call them canopies. They take vows, but do not call them oaths. They hold silent vigils, but do not call them retreats. They practice transcendental meditation, but do not call it prayer. They have gurus, but do not call them prophets. They will congregate for sit-ins, love-ins, and talk-ins, but do not call them congregations. They will not say "Amen", but they do say "Right-on." They have come not to the end but to the beginning of tradition. So many of our late pagans have become early Christians and even earlier Jews. Welcome home!
Levinson, Sam, "In One Era and Out the Other"
The same book can be listed in the library catalogue under Fiction, Clinical Psychology, Psycho pathology, Bedroom Furnishings and Popular Mechanics.
Levinson, Sam, Answer to an Anti-Semite
It's a free world; you don't have to like Jews, but if you don't, I suggest that you boycott certain Jewish products, like the Wassermann Test for syphilis; digitalis, discovered by a Dr. Nuslin; insulin, discovered by Dr. Minofsky; chlorohydrate for convulsions, discovered by Dr. Lifreich; the Shick Test for diphtheria; vitamins discovered by Dr. Funk; streptomycin, discovered by Dr. Z. Woronan; the polio pill by Dr. A. Sabin and the polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk.
Good! Boycott! Humanitarian consistency requires that my people offer all these gifts to all people of the world. Fanatic consistency requires that all bigots accept syphilis, diabetes, convulsions, malnutrition, infantile paralysis and tuberculosis as a matter of principle.
You want to be mad? Be mad! But I'm telling you, you ain't going to feel so good!
Lewis, Sharon Mantik and Idolia Cox Collier, "Medical-Surgical Nursing"
Suffixes Describing Surgical Procedures
Suffix Meaning Example
-ectomy Excision or removal of Appendectomy
-lysis Destruction of Electrolysis
-orrhaphy Repair or suture of Herniorrhaphy
-oscopy Looking into Endoscopy
-ostomy Creation of permanent opening into Colostomy
-otomy Cutting into or incision of Tracheotomy
-plasty Repair or reconstruction of Mammoplasty
Liddy, G. Gordon; One of the Watergate burglars
Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime.
Lilly, John, "The Human Biocomputer"
I have found that as soon as I go commercial, go political or any other motivational endeavor, I lose what I personally prize most - my objectivity, my dispassionate appraisal, my freedom to explore the mind within my own particular limits.
To make money, to cure someone, to rule, to be elected, to grant money, to be a specialist in one science are all necessary and grand human enterprises needing of persons of high intellectual and dedicated maturity. I do not seem to be of those (maybe I do or did not choose to be.)
Lincoln, Abraham
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
Lincoln, Abraham
The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, and the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Lindberg, Anne Morrow
Not knowing how to feed the spirit, we try to muffle its demands in distractions. Instead of stilling the center, the axis of the wheel, we add more centrifugal activities to our lives - which tend to throw us off balance.
Lindstrom, Sandra
Unrequited love is its own reward.
Livermore, Lawrence D.; Laytonville, S. F. Chronicle Letters to Editor
Instead of expensive, and (some say) illegal Vietnam-style search and destroy missions, why doesn't the government attack the problem of marijuana cultivation using the same logic it applies to most agricultural problems: Simply pay the farmers not to grow the stuff. An equally effective (and more economical) method might be the institution of a Payment in Kind program that would return last year's confiscated marijuana to this year's non-growers.
Lockhorns, The
Loretta's meals are from the four basic food groups... frozen, canned, take-out and leftover.
Locks, Renee & Joseph McHugh, "The Apple and the Egg"
We shall be called to account for all permitted pleasures we failed to enjoy.
Lord, Athena V., "Pilot for Spaceship Earth"
While at Harvard everybody talked about specializing, the Navy gave its brightest students a general course, one that gave them a picture of the whole system.
Lorenz, Konrad K., "King Solomon's Ring"
If an animal finds the outlet for some instinctive action blocked by a conflicting drive, it often finds relief by discharging an entirely different instinctive movement.
Lupoff, Richard A., "Sword of the Demon"
One can attain enlightenment through the performance of good works as well as through the study of scripture or the contemplation of puzzles.
Mackey, Mary
Sometimes in my dreams
I still see
my Kentucky grandmother
thin, strong, and hungry
holding her egg money
out to me
saying:
buy land, Mary
buy land
buy land while it lasts
they stopped making it.
MacLean, Katherine, "The Gambling Hell and the Sinful Girl"
Everyone jumped up and grabbed a handful of feathers and a balloon. ...pointing to a hissing hole with a pile of white feathers trying to suck in. ...I heard the slap and clunk as they let a balloon suck through their hole and pull its sticky patch into place.
MacNelly, "SHOE"
General, I have a question about defense spending. Why is it, Sir, that I can go into any hardware store and buy this wood screw for two cents...but the Air Force pays $372.17 for the same screw?
It's very simple, Mr. Fishhawk...You pay two cents and YOU get a wood screw...We in the Air Force pay $372.17, BUT...WE get the M-18 fully-slotted, Manually activated, fiber-intrusive materials securing unit.
Main
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
Malone, Marita
Faster horses
Younger women
Older whiskey
More money.
Mandel, Bill, Billy Awards, S.F. Chronicle, 12/31/89
A $140 million "Star Wars" eye-in-the-sky satellite proved useless because its lens cap was on.
Mandel, Bill, S.F. Chronicle, January 1, 1989
The White House proclaimed October as National AIDS Awareness Month on Nov 1...
Mandel, Bill, S.F. Chronicle
A Toronto man was found not guilty of killing his mother-in-law when the jury accepted the defense theory that he drove 14 miles to her house, hit her with an iron bar and stabbed her while sleepwalking.
Mandell, Morris, Analog, April 1988
The sun is so large that, if it were hollow, it could contain more than one million worlds the size of our earth. There are stars in space so large that they could easily hold 500 million suns the size of ours. There are about 100 billion stars in the average galaxy - and at least 100 million galaxies in known space. Who says it's a small world?
Marx, Groucho
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Masterson, Bat, last words typed as Sportswriter, N.Y. Morning Telegraph
In this life we all get an equal share of ice. The rich get it in the summer and the poor get it in the winter.
Mathis, Andrew
It's bad luck to be superstitious.
Mauldin, Bill, "Up Front," 1945
The Germans seemed to go out of their way to sabotage wineries. They were just like dogs; what they couldn't eat or drink or carry away, they messed up so nobody else could use it.
McCaffrey, Anne, "The Ship Who Sang"
The medulla handles reflex action at birth. The pons, maturing at 20 weeks,
directs crawling on the stomach. By 25 weeks, the midbrain has begun to function and the child begins to learn to creep on hands and knees. By 60 weeks, the cortex begins to act and controls walking, speech, vision, hearing, tactile and manual competence.
McClary, Michael
Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called "rain".
McD., Scotty, U.S. Navy (Retired), Dear Abby, SF Chronicle, April 23, 1989
So we do nothing but travel and take cruises? I'm 72, and the only cruise I ever took was the one that began in San Diego and went to Hawaii, Okinawa, Guam, Midway and Iwo Jima.
Meluch, R. M., "Jerusalem Fire"
Wolf wore his virtues on a leather thong around his right wrist. He had four: lapis for courage, beryl for kindness, diamond for honor, zircon for modesty...
Onto his leather bracelet Wolf had added turquoise, which was patience, topaz, which was wisdom, and sapphire, which was control and strength...
An opal, which was integrity, soundness, wholeness. The gem was his eighth.
The last.
Mencken, H. L.
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
Mencken, H. L.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
Michener, James A., "Poland"
As a friend treacherous, as an enemy venomous.
Able in all things, reliable in nothing.
Uses words to obscure truth, and truth to obscure justice.
Bathed in self-pity, he envies everyone who does better than he.
A cruel master, a contentious equal and a craven subordinate.
Has a lust for property, and an aversion to working for it.
He is a man to be avoided, for he can never be trusted.
Michener, James A., "The Drifters"
Five rules for successful travel:
Never eat at a restaurant called "Mom's."
Never play poker with anyone called Doc.
Get your laundry done at every opportunity.
Never refuse sex.
Michener, James A., "The Drifters"
For 364 days a year, the black man puts up with an agony that would drive the white man to suicide. On the 365th day he escapes by staying home drunk and then the social worker reports: "He was incapacitated, as usual."
Michener, James A.
The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.
Michener, James A., "The Bridges at Toko-Ri"
The beer barrel is my shepherd
I shall not crash
He maketh me to land on flat runways:
He bringeth me in off rough waters.
He restoreth my confidence.
Yea, though I come stalling into the groove at sixty knots I shall fear no evil:
For he is with me, his arm and his paddle, they comfort me.
He prepareth a deck before me in the presence of mine enemies,
He attacheth my hook to the wire,
My deck space runneth over.
Michener, James A., S. F. Chronicle
This year's election scared me. It was conducted with a brutality and lack of attention to basic issues which appalled, and the success of its ugly strategies flashed signals that this was the kind of electioneering we should expect during the next three national campaigns of this century.
What frightened me? The tactics that proved so effective were those which Joseph Goebbels found useful in destroying the German Republic in the 1930s.
First, the big lie, the endless repetition until it becomes accepted truth, and the desire to destroy the opposition rather than refute its arguments.
Second, appropriating the emotional symbols of nationhood such as the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, prayer in schools, exaltation of the family, opposition to abortion, and a macho boast that all citizens have the right to carry firearms and use them at will.
Third, denouncing anyone who did not pass those self-imposed litmus tests as outside the main stream, unpatriotic and perhaps even treasonous.
Fourth, the callous use of race, in the case of Willy Horton, to inflame prejudices and divide the population.
Michael Dukakis was not defeated, he was destroyed, and that kind of victory does not serve the Republic well. If persisted in, it could lead to American-style fascism.
Middler, Bette
When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still 1938 in London.
Miller, Arthur
The trouble with Italian cooking is that after five or six days you're hungry again.
Miller, Henry
Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation... the other eight are unimportant.
Minahan, John, "Sorcerer"
General Motors converted its assembly lines to war production, not only in the U.S., but in - and for - Nazi Germany as well. General Motors, after the war, had the balls to sue the U.S. Government for wartime damages to its German facilities.
Mizner, Wilson
To my embarrassment I was born in bed with a lady.
Moise, Al, Redwood Printers
If you open it, close it.
If you turn it on, turn it off.
If you unlock it, lock it.
If you break it, repair it.
If you can't fix it, call someone who can.
If you borrow it, return it.
If you use it, take care of it.
If you make a mess, clean it up.
If you move it, put it back.
If it belongs to someone else and you want to use it, get permission.
If you don't know how to operate it, leave it alone.
If it doesn't concern you, don't mess with it.
Mollison
If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it isn't worth doing.
Montalvo, Ordonez de, "Las Serges de Esplandias" (publ. Spain 1500), [carried by Hernan do Cortez to the New World]
At the right hand of India there is an island formed of the largest rocks known and called California, which is very near to the terrestrial paradise. It is inhabited by robust, dark women of great strength and very warm hearts, who live almost as Amazons and no man lives among them. Their weapons are entirely of gold, and no other metal exists on the island. They make excursions to foreign countries, where they catch men whom they carry away and subsequently kill.
Montrose
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all.
Moon Water, Kim, Corners of the Mouth
I am hungry for something I cannot name. I eat and eat and the hunger remains. I watch it and struggle sometimes and scold. I keep eating. The deeper I look the more I see. I am feeding this need in me for pleasure.
Moore, Dudley
The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.
Moravec, Hans P., "The Endless Frontier and the Thinking Machine"
Some dolphin species have body and brain masses identical to ours, and have had them for more generations. They are as good as us at many kinds of problem solving, and can grasp and communicate complex ideas. Killer whales have brains seven times human size, and their ability to formulate plans is better than the dolphins', who they occasionally eat. Sperm whales, though not the largest animals, have the world's largest brains. Intelligence may be an important part of their struggle with large squid, their main food.
Elephant brains are five times human size. Elephants form matriarchal tribal societies and exhibit complex behavior. Indian domestic elephants learn over 500 commands, and form voluntary mutual benefit relationships with their trainers, exchanging labor for baths. They can solve problems such as how to sneak into the plantation at night to steal bananas, after having been belled (answer: stuff mud into the bells). And they never forget (really).
Apes are our 10 million year cousins. Chimps and gorillas can learn to use tools and to communicate in human sign languages at a retarded level. Chimps have one third, and gorillas one half, human brain size.
Moreau, Jeanne
Age does not protect you from love, but love, to some extent, protects you from age.
Morgan, Charles
The stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still.
Morgenstern, S., "The Princess Bride" (Movie)
Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
Morris, Don; Willits, Letters to the Editor, Anderson Valley Advertiser
The most lasting Reagan/Bush legacy other than the Supreme Right is summed up in a current housing industry publication. Since January 1981, the total public debt has increased from $930 billion to $2.5 trillion. The annual budget deficit has increased from $78.9 billion to $152.3 billion. The annual trade deficit has increased from $34.6 billion to $140 billion.
Morrison, Toni, "Song of Solomon"
Grab this land. Take it my brothers, make it, my brothers, shake it, squeeze it, turn it, twist it, beat it, kick it, whip it, stomp it, dig it, plow it, seed it, reap it, rent it, buy it, sell it, own it, build it, multiply it, and pass it on - can you hear me?
Pass it on!
Morrow, Edward
The trouble with television is that it is like a sword rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.
Morse, Rob, S.F. Chronicle, March 12, 1989
The Tower Commission report let Bush completely off the hook in the Iran-contra scandal. It's not really polite to mention the conspiracy theory that Bush made himself slave to the Tower appointment as a way to pay Tower back.
Morse, Rob, S.F. Chronicle, March 12, 1989
Bush's latest solution to the savings and loan crisis is a new financial instrument known as the Quayle Bond. It has no principle, carries no interest and never matures.
Moustakas, Clark, "Loneliness and Love"
This is my dream now: to find the person underneath the mask. To reach for this unique potential, and to develop feelings of human compassion. I am thinking here of the loneliness of pain and anguish in associating with people who are playing roles - of the loneliness of human interaction in which the possibilities for intimacy, communion and love are dormant and unrealized, of lives filled with too many words, pictures, social scenes and sounds.
Mulford, Prentice
But you, having a pleasure in the thought of these things, can draw their force or spirit to you in the city room, though the tall buildings about you almost shut out the sky, they can not shut the forest, the breeze, the white-capped wave out of your mind. Nor can they prevent their spiritual force from coming to you and recuperating you in mind and body. For whatever you open your mind to, that it must attract.
Murphy, Audie, "To Hell and Back"
I haven't had so much fun since a Hog ate my little brother.
Murphy, Audie, "To Hell and Back"
I need to march, to shoot, to destroy, to do anything that creates the feeling of progress and accomplishment.
Nachman, Rabbi of Breslau
The greatest commandment is to be always happy.
Napoleon
Lust and loot are the soldier's pay, but ennui is his lot.
Napoleon, Tisha B'Av, (Jewish Memorial day)
A people who, after so many centuries, can still shed tears over the loss of its land and the destruction of its Temple, is someday bound to regain it.
Nash, Ogden
Incompatibility: He has the income, and she is pattable.
Nearby a Navajo sheep herder and his son were watching the strange creatures walk about, occasionally being tended by personnel. The two Navajo people were noticed and approached by the NASA personnel. Since the man did not know English, his son asked for him what the strange creatures were and the NASA people told them that they are just men that are getting ready to go to the moon.
New York City detective
I've gone into hundreds of [fortune-teller's parlors], and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her.
Niemoller, Pastor Martin
In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Niven, Larry
There comes a point in the downward slide of the human condition when a man ceases to be a man. He may still walk erect, but it is principally a matter of skeletal arrangement, not ethics.
Niven, Larry
He was shaking. A mass verbal attack can do that to a man, can smash his self-respect and set up doubts which remain for hours or days or forever. There are well developed techniques for many to use against one. You never let the victim speak without an interruption, never let him finish a sentence. You interrupt each other so that he can't quite catch the drift of your arguments, and then he can't find the flaws. He forgets his rebuttal points because he's not allowed to put them into words. His only defense is to walk out. If instead you throw him out...
Niven, Larry, "Flash Crowd"
For each human being there is an optimum ratio between change and stasis. Too little change, he grows bored. Too little stability, he panics and loses his ability to adapt. One who marries six times in ten years won't change jobs. One who moves often to serve his company will maintain a stable marriage. A woman chained to one home and family may redecorate frantically or take a lover or go to many costume parties.
Niven, Larry, "Integral Trees"
East takes you out.
Out takes you west.
West takes you in.
In takes you east.
Port and starboard bring you back.
Niven, Larry, "Protector"
A protector has only one genetically implanted objective - to protect his bloodline. A protector without progeny loses the will to live, ceases to be hungry and so dies of starvation. Unless he can find a way to transfer his personal bloodline drive to a more general drive for the survival of the species.
Niven, Larry, "The Ethics of Madness"
Neither years nor scars show in the flesh, nor around the eyes, nor in them. But behind the eyes there are scars. It takes decades to form scars so deeply in the crevices of the brain that they show through to the surface.
Niven, Larry, "World of Ptavvs"
Putting a monkey wrench in machinery is often the only way to force someone to repair, replace, or redesign the machinery, especially legal or social machinery.
Norris, Kathleen; Editorial, Life Magazine, Dec. 1929
Education, government, law - all of these are razed to the ground, and from the fallen bricks we build new temples to our own selfishness and blindness, for our children to destroy.
Ogburn, Charlton, "The Marauders"
Being unready and ill-equipped is what you have to expect in life. It is the universal predicament. It is your lot as a human being to lack what it takes. Circumstances are seldom right. You never have the capacities, the strength, the wisdom, the virtue you ought to have. You must always do with less than you need in a situation vastly different from what you would have chosen as appropriate for your special endowments.
Ojeda, Caspar, 1976
And so, once again the famed warrior, Mighty Midget the great, tall in stature, low in spirit, takes another bite from his Superior Candy bar, and goes galloping off on his wingless steed in hopes of finding Wonder Woman trapped in deadly peril with some horrible, but friendly monster, to go off and live happily ever after in safe, stable, but sickening sterility.
Olson, Ken, president, Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
Oltion, Jerry, "In the Creation Science Laboratory"
A good lawyer should be willing to take either side of any case.
Even if you don't believe in what you're doing?
Even so.
That's just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard of...It makes hypocrisy not only legal but required.
Oltion, Jerry, "In the Creation Science Laboratory"
Most of the righteous are celibate. Evolution can't select for righteousness when the righteous genes never make it back to the gene pool.
Onassis, Aristotle
If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
Op Ed, S.F. Chronicle/Examiner, Sunday, June 16, 1996
Cigarette smoking is blamed for snuffing out more lives prematurely - about 400,000 Americans every year - than the combined total of auto accidents, AIDS, booze, airplane crashes, illegal drugs, murders, suicides and fires.
Open-minded, Dear Abby, S.F. Chronicle, July 11, 1989
Let your kids make some decisions themselves. If they make a mistake, they will have learned something from it. If you make all their decisions, they will lack confidence in their own judgement and will not only think they are incapable of making a decision, they'll be afraid to try.
Oppenheimer, Robert, "Science and the Common Understanding"
If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say "no"; if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say "no"; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say "no"; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say "no."
Osgood, "Nothing Could Be Finer Than a Crisis That is Minor in the Morning."
If you smoke cigarettes, you ought to stop.
But tobacco is still a subsidized crop.
The government frowns on the cigarette -
Warns of its deadly dangers. Yet,
It pays (so the farmers won't go broke)
To grow the tobacco you shouldn't smoke...
Perhaps the way to pull the rugs
From under those narcotic drugs -
Enforcing laws is much too sloppy -
Is to subsidize the poppy?
Make it worth the farmer's trouble!
Buy the stuff and pay him double!
That which you would like to kill,
Buy it and just pay the bill!
That which the government despises,
Notice how it subsidizes.
Oshima, Tsutomu
In order to achieve victory you must place yourself in your opponent's skin. If you don't understand yourself, you will lose one hundred percent of the time. If you understand yourself, you will win fifty percent of the time. If you understand yourself and your opponent, you will win one hundred percent of the time.
Ouspensky, P.D., "Tertiam Organum"
NIRVANA!
The shining sea slips into the dewdrop
Its center everywhere, its circumference nowhere.
The center of a circle which coincides with the center of another circle.
Paley, Grace, "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute"
There is a family nearly everybody knows. The children of this family are named Bobo, Bibi, Doody, Dodo, Neddy, Yoyo, Butch, Put Put, and Beep. Some are girls and some are boys.
Paley, Grace, "The Little Disturbances of Man"
I called on Welfare right after the new year. In no time I discovered that they're rigged up to deal with liars, and if you're truthful it's disappointing to them. They may even refuse to handle your case if you're too truthful.
Pasternak, Monique
We create our dreams and our nightmares by focusing.
Pasternak, Monique
It is necessary to tense, before relaxing. To try to relax won't work. Tense everything, then let go.
Patton, George
Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
Pearce, John Ed
Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.
Pete, Harlem, 1949, A. V. A., 4/23/1997
If you want to be rich, Give!
If you want to be poor, Grasp!
If you want abundance, Scatter!
If you want to be needy, Hoard!
Pfeiffer, Michelle, 17th Annual Women in Film Luncheon, A. V. A. 10/27/93
So this is the year of the woman. Well, yes, it's actually been a very good year for women. Demi Moore was sold to Robert Redford for $1 million, Uma Thurman went for $40,000 to Robert DeNiro, and just three years ago Richard Gere bought Julia Roberts for, what was it, $3,000? I'd say that was real progress.
Physiology
Corpus Callosum: The bridge between the two hemispheres of the brain.
Physiology
CARBOHYDRATE:
Too much: dyspepsia, flatulence, pain in chest, acidity, inflammatory state of entire system.
Too little: lack of vital force, physical exhaustion.
Physiology
PROTEIN EXCESS:
Nervous prostration, drowsiness after meals, constipation, headaches.
Physiology
PSYCHOCHEMICAL REACTIONS:
Restrict sugar and starch severely... alienation from others, suspicion, distrust, lack of ego-strength, loss of confidence and courage.
Physiology
Speech, Thought, Movement, Sight, Hearing, Work, Coition, Smell, Sleep, Anger, Taste, Mirth.
Physiology
Ten parts of the body spelled with three letters:
Eye, Ear, Jaw, Gum, Lip, Arm, Rib, Hip, Leg, Toe.
Pirsig, Robert M., "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
In proportion to his intelligence he was extremely isolated. There's no record of his having close friends. He traveled alone. Always. Even in the presence of others he was completely alone. People sometimes felt this and felt rejected by it, and so did not like him, but their dislike was not important to him.
Pirsig, Robert M., "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
Logic presumes a separation of subject from object; therefore logic is not final wisdom. The illusion of separation of subject from object is best removed by the elimination of physical activity, mental activity and emotional activity.
Pirsig, Robert M., "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
There are two kinds of welders: production welders, who don't like tricky setups and enjoy doing the same thing over and over again; and maintenance welders, who hate it when they have to do the same job twice. If you hire a welder make sure which kind he is, because they're not interchangeable.
Pirsig, Robert M., "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with no artistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all, and the result is not just bad, its ghastly.
Pirsig, Robert M., "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
When you look directly at an insane man, all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he's insane, which is not to see him at all.
Pirsig, Robert M., "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
After Mark Twain had mastered the analytic knowledge needed to pilot the Mississippi River, he discovered the river had lost its beauty.
Plato
It is impossible to join two things in a beautiful manner without a third being present, for a bond must exist to unite them, and this [bond] is best achieved by a proportion.
For, if of three magnitudes the mean is to the least as the greatest to the mean, and, conversely, the least is to the mean as the mean to the greatest - then is the last the first and the mean, and the mean the first and the last. Thus are all by necessity the same, and since they are the same, they are but one.
Plato, "The Republic", Book II. 369C
Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
Playboy Magazine, 1960's
Socialism: You have two cows and you give one to your lazy neighbor.
Communism: You have two cows, the government takes both and gives you a quarter of the milk.
Fascism: You have two cows, the government takes both and sells you the milk.
Nazi-ism: You have two cows, the government takes both and shoots you.
Bureau-ism: You have two cows, the government takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and throws the milk away.
Capitalism: You have two cows, you sell one and buy a bull.
Playboy Magazine, 1960's; GUIDE TO PARTY DIFFERENCES
Democrats buy most of the books that have been banned somewhere.
Republicans form censorship committees and read them as a group.
Republicans employ exterminators.
Democrats step on the bugs.
Democrats eat the fish they catch.
Republicans hang them on the wall.
Republican boys date democratic girls. They plan to marry republican girls, but feel they're entitled to a little fun first.
Republicans sleep in twin beds - Some even in separate rooms.
That is why there are more democrats.
Popular Mechanics, March 1949
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1-1/2 tons.
Potok, Chaim
Within me, where the memory of what I am is still unclouded, a little child is waking up and making an old man's mask weep. A little child looking for mother and father, looking with you for protection from his pleasure and his dreams, and help in order to become what he is without imitating anyone.
Potok, Chaim
The Tzaddik sits in absolute silence, saying nothing, and all his followers listen attentively.
Pound, Ezra
I know not from theory but from practice, that you can live infinitely better with very little money and a lot of spare time than with more money and less time.
Pournelle, Jerry, "King David's Spaceship"
They couldn't change. Insisted that elan and military spirit were more important than weapons and tactics, and they got their regiments butchered for their pains.
Pournelle, Jerry, "King David's Spaceship"
The Church went in and with the best of motives taught practical medicine to primitives. The missionaries were particularly concerned with saving children from infant diseases. They intended to give them some new agricultural and industrial techniques, but the people were not ready for them. They rejected the agriculture and industry, but adopted the medicine. Within fifty years there was famine.
Pournelle, Jerry, "The Mercenary"
Peace is the name of the ideal we deduce from the fact that there have been interludes between wars.
Pournelle, Jerry, The Study Syndrome, "The Endless Frontier"
The SPS study included one of the very few comparative assessments of energy systems. It looked at SPS, fusion, coal, synthfuels, fast breeders, light water reactors, centralized ground-based solar, and exotics like ocean thermal.
But what they never assessed was the cost of doing nothing.
...Doing nothing commits us to coal and oil.
In fact, if I could make one change in the assessment system, I would mandate that all studies examine the effects of doing nothing. I think you'll find it cheaper to start a number of programs, cancel those that don't work, and eat the losses.
...Doing nothing is expensive.
Preudhomme, Law of Window Cleaning
It's on the other side.
Printer's sign
You can have it Cheap.
You can have it Quick.
You can have it Accurate.
Pick any two.
Prochnow, Herbert
A city is a large community where people are lonesome together.
Proctor, George W., "Starwings"
Kirlian force, odie force, bioplasmic energy, life energy, prana, mana, magnale, n-rays, animal magnetism, psychotronic energy, bioenergy, chi, toliner force, atta.
(Also Ki, prahna, spirit.)
Proudhoun
Bureaucracy: Ceaseless activity, all planned in advance, begun at the scheduled second, carefully supervised, scrupulously recorded - but inevitably finished late and poorly done.
Proudhoun
Bureaucracy: to have every operation, every transaction, every movement, noted, registered, counted, rated, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, refused, authorized, endorsed, admonished, prevented, reformed, redressed, corrected.
PS magazine, the Army's magazine of preventive maintenance, 8/93
"A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit."
Quayle, Dan, Vice President
A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President, Nashville, 1989
I am here to urge the leaders of El Salvador to work toward the elimination of human rights in accordance with the pursuit of justice.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President
I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President, 5/22/89:
I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President
I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President
It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President, 1989 Christmas card.:
May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President, 12/6/89:
One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is "to be prepared".
Quayle, Dan, Vice President, 9/15/88:
The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President
We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a "part" of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a "part" of Europe.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President
We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President
Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President
What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President
When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.
Quayle, Dan, Vice President, 9/22/90
We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.
Ranga, Dana, "East Side Story," Movies of Socialism
We don't need a single mile from another land. We won't give a single inch from our own.
Read, Jim; Albion, 1972
The essence of If is Maybe
The essence of Why is Because
The essence of Where is Here
The essence of When is Now
The essence of What is Existence
The essence of How is Knowledge
The essence of Who is Cosmic
The cosmos aware of being here, now, because, maybe.
Reagan, Ronald
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
Reagan, Ronald
Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
Reagan, Ronald, Dallas, 1967
One way to make sure crime doesn't pay is to let the government run it.
Reagan, Ronald, Said during a radio microphone test, 1984
My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.
Recer, Paul, Associated Press
Pangaea broke into two main chunks about 200 million years ago. One piece, Gondwana, included what was to become Africa, Antarctica, South America, Australia, India and Madagascar. It drifted south. The northern continents remained together as a land mass called Laurasia.
Eventually, Gondwana also broke up, forming the present southern continents, India moved north to slam into Asia.
Reid, R. L., A.V.A., April 5, 1995
Consider this people who loved the land, these pioneers rapturous before the majestic plains and mountains, these ranchers and farmers in the red sunset kneeling reverently to the ground and sifting the sweet smelling earth between their fingers.
I do not know how to see it except as a myth. The belief that we loved the land is central to our vision of ourselves as a people. Yet that treasured belief, so necessary if we were to transform that land into the subservient habitation we know today, fails entirely to square with the evidence. Certainly we loved something - the idea of the land, the promise of the land. But the land was forests, which we leveled, and topsoil which we destroyed, and rivers, which we dammed, and streams, which we polluted, and grasses, which we burned, and swamps, which we drained, and Indians, whom we decimated, and wildlife, which we massacred. That is the record, and it does not sound like love.
A poison was on the land. And the poison was this: This land will make you rich.
Reissner, Marc, New York Times
There is nothing new in what I am about to relate, but it startles nearly everyone I tell it to, even people who have been in the water business all their lives.
In California, the single biggest consumer of water is not Los Angeles.
It is not the oil and chemicals or defense industries.
Nor is it the fields of grapes and tomatoes.
It is irrigated pasture: grass grown in a near dessert climate for cows. In 1986, irrigated pasture used about 5.3 million acre-feet of water - as much as all 27 million people in the state consumed, including for swimming pools and lawns.
If you entirely eliminated pasture, alfalfa, cotton and rice (not everyone's idea of an appropriate desert crop, since it only grows in standing water) and substituted nothing else, you would merely reduce agricultural income from $14 billion to $12.3 billion. But you would free up enough water for, God forbid, some 70 million new Californians.
Richelieu, Cardinal
If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him.
Ringer, Robert J., "Looking Out for Number One"
What a Lover Isn't:
A Female lover:
-Isn't a maid who should be expected to be constantly at her chores.
-Isn't a cook whose job it is to have your dinner on the table at a specified time.
-Isn't a governess whose duty it is to shield you from the unpleasantness children can cause.
-Isn't someone whose only male friend is you.
A Male lover:
-Isn't a painter, carpenter, or general handyman.
-Isn't a printing press whose sole function it is to keep rolling off bills in order to support you in the style he can't afford.
-Isn't a Ken-doll to be propped up at social gatherings he'd rather not attend.
-Isn't someone whose only female friend is you.
Ripley, "Wonder Book of Strange Facts"
A sprig of Serpicula Verticillata plant will purify a pail of stagnant water.
Ripley, "Wonder Book of Strange Facts"
In Germany during the nineteenth century all Princes of the blood had their
"Prugelknaben" - that is, a boy who was brought up with the young Prince and who was spanked every time the Prince misbehaved.
Ripley, "Wonder Book of Strange Facts"
The Earth rotates upon its own axis with a speed of about 500 yards per second diminishing from the center toward the poles.
It revolves around the sun with a speed of about 19 miles per second.
It participates in the sun's own forward motion in the direction of the fixed star, Vega, in the constellation of Lyra, with a speed of 12 miles per second.
Ripley, "Wonder Book of Strange Facts"
The largest number that cannot be divided by any other is:
170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,864,105,727.
Ripley, "Wonder Book of Strange Facts"
421,052,631,578,947,368 can be doubled by shifting the last digit to the front.
Ripley, "Wonder Book of Strange Facts"
Waconda Springs, Kansas, 600 miles from the sea, has salt water and a tide that rises and falls exactly as the ocean.
Rizzo, Frank; Former Philadelphia Mayor and Police Chief
The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people that make them unsafe.
Robbins, Tom
Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
Robinson, Edwin A., 1896
Dear friends, reproach me not for what I do,
Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say
That I am wearing half my life away
For bubble-work that fools pursue.
And if my bubble be too small for you
Blow bigger then your own: the games we play
To fill the frittered minutes of a day,
Good glasses are to read the spirit through.
-
And who so reads may get him some shrewd skill;
And some unprofitable scorn resign,
To praise the very thing that he deplores;
So, friends (dear friends), remember, if you will,
The shame I win for singing is all mine,
The gold I miss for dreaming is all yours.
Robinson, Spider
Despairing people solve no problems.
Robinson, Spider, "Night of Power"
A rational anarchist believes that he is solely responsible for his own actions, and admits to no authority higher than his own reason. He believes that governments and corporations and institutions do not exist - only responsible INDIVIDUALS.
Robinson, Spider, "The Magnificent Conspiracy"
Money is a symbol representing the life energy of those who subscribe to it. It is a useful and necessary symbol - but because it is only a symbol, it is possible to amass on paper more profit than there actually is to be made. The more people who insist on making a profit, all the time, in every dealing, the more people who will be required to go bankrupt - to pour their life-energy into the system and get nothing back - in order to keep the machine running. That this analogy holds in emotional and spiritual terms as well only illustrates its basic validity.
Robinson, Spider, "Time Travelers Strictly Cash"
Peter Pepper packed his pipe with paraquat.
Robinson, Spider, "Time Travelers Strictly Cash"
When you share pain, there's less of it, and when you share joy there's more
of it.
Roethke, Theodore, "The Serpent"
There was a serpent who had to sing.
There was. There was.
He simply gave up Serpenting. Because. Because.
He didn't like his kind of life;
He couldn't find a proper wife;
He was a serpent with a soul;
He got no pleasure down his hole.
And so, of course, he had to sing,
And sing he did, like anything!
The birds they were, they were astounded;
And various measures propounded
To stop the Serpents awful racket:
They bought a drum.
He wouldn't whack it.
They sent - you always send - to Cuba
And got a most commodious tuba;
They got a Horn, they got a Flute,
But nothing would suit.
He said: "Look, Birds, all this is futile.
I do not like to bang or tootle"
And then he cut loose with a horrible note
That practically split the top of his throat.
"You see," he said, with a Serpents leer,
"I'm serious about my singing career!"
And the woods resounded with many a shriek,
And the Birds flew off to the end of next week.
Rogers, Will
Just be thankful you're not getting all the government you're paying for.
Rogers, Will
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.
Rogers, Will
If I studied all my life, I couldn't think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of Congress.
Rogoz, Adrian, Rumania
The paradox about speed was that whatever its degree, you soon got used to it and ceased to be conscious of it. Then they increased the speed. This was what made a mess of life: continuous, mad acceleration.
Romulo, Dr., President of the Philippines
Quaker service begins when members leave the church.
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, [Postmortem]
The danger that politicians will accept as inevitable the destruction of innocent people to achieve their goals, that scientists will concentrate on the means and ignore the ends of their research.
Ruskin
Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.
Russ, Joanna
You poor kid. They couldn't get what they wanted out of you, so they applied pressure on your motivational circuits, figuring you were stubborn. And so they made you ashamed - and that's one of the stubbornest places there is.
Perpetuated their own problem. Serves them right - but it doesn't serve YOU at all.
Russ, Joanna
Men, the conception of themselves they find it publicly necessary to live up to.
He's rich enough to take the poor man's Grand Tour, poor enough to need a job, decent enough not to hurt anyone unless he's frightened or hurt himself (which could happen pretty easily), and anxious enough to flatter whomever he thinks can help him.
Russ, Martin, "Tarawa"
To find, dissect, and remedy every fault, in every category that had been exposed.
Russell, Eric Frank, "Wasp"
For months, we have been making triumphant retreats before a demoralized enemy who is advancing in utter disorder.
Russell, Eric Frank, "Mechanical Mice"
Your body moves always in the present, the dividing line between the past and the future. But your mind is more free. It can think, and is in the present. It can remember, and at once is in the past. It can imagine, and at once is in the future, in its own choice of all possible futures.
Your mind can travel through time!
Russell, Eric Frank, "Sentinels From Space"
Bureaucratic love of secrecy again was responsible. The autocratic type of mind insists that news of public interest must not be divulged in the public interest.
RUSSIAN
K.G.B.: Komitet Gossudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
RUSSIAN
Stalin (Man of Steel) - Real name: Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili
S.F. Chronicle
Obviously, the government should make people feel so happy that they will not feel the urge to fill up on chemicals in any form.
S.F. Chronicle
"Salsipuedes", says an old Mexican dare. "Get out if you can."
"Salsipuedes," the Unites States says to Mexico. "Salsipuedes," the Mexican
government says to its people. "Salsipuedes," fathers say to sons.
The dare is Mexico's own personalized version of Catch-22. Save yourself, get
out if you can, it mocks, but remember: There is no way out, no way.
Saberhagen, Fred, "Berserker: Blue Death"
At first he put off answering their questions, wanting to hear from them first whatever news they could tell him of Old Blue.
But the three let him know they didn't consider that subject of much importance. They were good at brushing aside questions, too; as eager to get information from Domingo as he was to obtain news from them, and just as insistent on getting their answers first.
The captain answered one question for them, to show good will. Then he waited to get a helpful answer in return.
Sagan, Carl
It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.
Sagan, Carl
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.
Salanter, Rabbi Israel
A Rabbi whose community does not disagree with him is not really a Rabbi, and a Rabbi who fears his community is not really a man.
Salmonson, Jessica A., "Tomoe Gozen"
Emotions: Hate, Adoration, Joy, Anxiety, Anger, Grief, Fear. These are offset by patience.
Salmonson, Jessica A., "Tomoe Gozen"
Seven virtues: Polite, Courageous, Benevolent, Veracious, Just, Loyal, Honorable.
Salmonson, Jessica A., "Tomoe Gozen"
To survive, one must sever his giri (duty) from his ninjo (conscience), maintaining honor with the first, and despising himself with the second. This separation of self yields insanity and madness.
Salter, Stephanie
They can talk all they want about the "sanctity of life" or about their mission to protect the "rights of the unborn." As they demonstrate daily in their disregard for existing human beings, in their zeal for electric chairs, gas chambers and war, the sanctity of life is lousy with their exceptions. And how serious about the welfare of the unborn can a society be if it won't provide proper medical care for all the pregnant women, be they rich or poor?
Sanderson, James Dean, "Behind Enemy Lines"
Masks were fed high pressure oxygen, exhalation was through the same tube into a canister of soda lime crystals for absorbing carbon dioxide.
Sanderson, James Dean, "Behind Enemy Lines"
I looked no one in the eye, for nothing discourages overtures, friendly or hostile, better than a vague abstracted stare: one doesn't go up to a stranger walking purposefully who, by the look on his face, is absorbed in his thoughts and is only aware of his surroundings.
Scandinavian Toast
SKAL:
Skonhet - beauty
Karlek - love
Ålderdom - long life
Lycka - happiness
Schopf, J. W.
For four-fifths of our history, our planet was populated by pond scum.
Schwadron, "National Review"
Attorney to Judge: "One hundred thousand dollars isn't much of a settlement, Your Honor. After all, my client deserves something too".
Schwadron, "The Pick of Punch"
The government is pleased to announce that there are no more environmental problems. The environment has all been sold to private developers.
Schwartz, Ralph; Gualala, Press Democrat
I read a quote recently that bears repeating. It concerns the Government health plan:
"If past performance is any indication, it will be run with the efficiency of the Post Office and the compassion of the Internal Revenue Service.
Scopes Trial, 1925
Q. Now, Mr. Bryon, have you ever pondered what would have happened to the Earth if it had stood still?
A. No, the God I believe in could have taken care of that Mr. Darrow.
Q. Don't you know that it would have been converted into a molten mass of matter?
A. You testify to that when you get on the stand. I will give you a chance.
Scott, Howard
Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.
Sears, Roebuck, and Co., Consumer's Guide, 1897
If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.
Secretary of Navy, December 4, 1941
No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping.
Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987:
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.
Segan, Carl, "Cosmic Connection"
Freud says somewhere that the only happy men are those whose boyhood dreams are realized.
Segan, Carl, "Cosmic Connection"
Apollo 17 marked the end of the Apollo lunar missions. It seemed clear, at least in the United States, that there will be a hiatus of a decade or more before further lunar exploration and lunar bases are organized. Apollo's primary orientation was never scientific. It was conceived at a time of political embarrassment for the United States. Several historians have suggested that a principal motivation of President Kennedy in organizing the Apollo program was to deflect public attention from the stinging defeat suffered at the Bay of Pigs invasion. Several tens of billions of dollars have been expended on the Apollo program. If the objective had been scientific exploration of the moon, it could have been carried out much more effectively, for much less money, by unmanned vehicles. The early Apollo missions went to lunar sites of little scientific interest, because the safety of the astronauts was the prime, almost the only, concern. Only toward the end of the Apollo series did scientific considerations play a significant role.
Seneca
Worse than war is the fear of war.
Serling, Rod
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
Shakespeare, William
Lechery, lechery - still wars and lechery - nothing else holds fashion.
Shakespeare, William, "Hamlet"
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy.
Shakespeare, William, "Hamlet"
Of each new hatched, unfledged comrade, beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, bear't that the opposed may be ware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice.
Shakespeare, William, "Macbeth"
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creep in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
Their ways to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle,
Life's but a poor player who struts and frets
His hour upon the stage
And is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
Shaw, George Bernard, "John Bull's Other Island"
Some men see things as they are and say "Why?" He dreamed things that never were and said "Why not?"
Shaw, George Bernard
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
Shaw, George Bernard
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Shaw, George Bernard
It is assumed that the woman must wait, motionless, until she is wooed. That is how the spider waits for the fly.
Sheckley, Robert
A dream is the shorter life
A life is the longer dream.
Sheckley, Robert
The criminal works AGAINST society. If you don't have people working AGAINST society, how can you have people working FOR it? There'd be no jobs for them to do.
Sheckley, Robert, "Immortality, Inc."
The mind is considered a high tension energy web that emanates from the body, is modified by the body, and itself modifies the body.
Shelly, "Political Greatness"
Man who man would be, must rule the empire of himself, in it must be supreme, establishing his throne on vanquished will, quelling the anarchy of hopes and fears, being himself alone.
Sherman, Arnold, "Impaled on a Cactus Bush"
By 1965, "there have been over 450 million trees planted since the Jewish resettlement of Palestine, a welcome change from the centuries of goat-nibbling erosion and destruction of forests that had been characteristic of nearly all the preceding regimes."
Shields, Brooke
Smoking kills, and if you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life.
Sign on crosswalk of Ocean Drive, Corpus Christi, TX.
"To Cross Ocean, Push Button, Wait For Walk Sign"
Singer, Isaac Bashevis, "Enemies - A Love Story"
Mishna: And these are the duties the wife performs for the husband. She grinds, bakes, washes, cooks, nurses her child, makes the bed, and spins wool. If she has brought one servant with her, she doesn't grind, bake, or wash. If she has brought two, she doesn't cook or nurse the child; three, she doesn't make the bed or spin wool; four, she sits in the salon.
Rabbi Eleazar says: Even if she brought him a whole houseful of servants, he
would force her to spin wool, because idleness leads to insanity.
Gemara: She grinds? But the water does that - the intention is that she prepares the grain to be ground. Or it can mean a hand mill.
Skinner, John
Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance
Sladek, J. T., "Mechasm"
Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind.
Slaughter, Michael; San Francisco, Letter to the Editor, A.V.A.
But, good American, drive your Pinto (with the Firestone tires), use your Rely, feed your kid apple juice (in a Styrofoam cup), eat a ground-up cow a day, save your Krugerrands, cheer for the contras, put your faith in SDI, expand the military (and the prisons) and the CIA, and pray that someday, some bright day, you will be big and powerful enough to pay the same taxes as the companies that run the country (which is, of course, none or less than none.) You will have arrived. But we may all be dead first.
Smith, Cordwainer
The most ancient prerogative of law was the monopoly of death. Only the state shall kill.
Smith, Cordwainer, "Conversation With the Middle-sized Bear"
She had never before stopped to think how comfortable a bear's mind was. It was like lying in a great big bed and having Mother take care of one when one was a very little girl, glad to be petted and sure of getting well.
Smith, Cordwainer, "Drunkboat"
Watch, but do not govern.
Stop war, but do not wage it.
Protect, but do not control,
And first, survive.
Smothers, Tommy
Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now blue-green meat, THAT'S bad for you!
Snowhite
Love is determined by the level of ones awareness. With a lower level of awareness love is a neurotic dependency relationship characterized by jealous possessiveness.
Sobel, Dava, "Longitude"
Harrison's "Equation of Time" table... enabled the clock's user to rectify the difference between solar, or "true" time (as shown on a sundial) with the artificial but more regular "mean" time (as measured by clocks that strike noon every twenty-four hours). The disparity between solar noon and mean noon widens and narrows as the seasons change, on a sliding scale. We take no note of solar time today, relying solely on Greenwich mean time as our standard, but in Harrison's era sundials still enjoyed wide use. A good mechanical clock had to be reconed with the clockwork universe, and this was done through the application of some mathematical legerdemain called the Equation of Time... Harrison called it "A Table of the Sun rising and Setting in the Latitude of Barrow 53 degrees 18 Minutes; also of difference that should & will be betwixt ye Longpendillom & ye Sun if ye Clock go true."
Sobel, Dava, "Longitude"
Long voyages waxed longer for lack of longitude, and the extra time at sea condemned sailors to the dread disease of scurvy. The oceangoing diet of the day, devoid of fresh fruit and vegetables, deprived them of vitamin C, and their bodies' connective tissue deteriorated as a result. Their blood vessels leaked, making the men look bruised all over, even in the absence of any injury. When they were injured, their wounds failed to heal. Their legs swelled. They suffered the pain of spontaneous hemorrhaging into their muscles and joints. Their gums bled, too, as their teeth loosened. They gasped for breath, struggled against debilitating weakness, and when the blood vessels around their brains ruptured, they died.
Socrates
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Spanish Proverb
It is better to be a mouse in the mouth of a cat than a man in the hands of a lawyer.
St. Louis, Robert, "Bushido"
...As they tiptoed through the minefields of each others secret hurts and longings.
Steinbeck, John, "Cannery Row"
The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. Those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.
Stephenson, William, "Intrepid"
We had learned to distrust an elite class that claimed the privilege of leadership in good times and then, having led the people into calamity, let them fight their own way out.
Stevens, Louis, "A Vet's Perspective," Anderson Valley Advertiser, 1/23/91
Our follow-the-leader me-tooism reflects our collective need to see ourselves as moral crusaders even as our actions repudiate our moral code. For instance, we cannot accept AIDS as a viral epidemic. Instead we see AIDS as the wages of sexual perversion and the solution as the elimination of perversion. For us drug addiction isn't a social problem - it is a failure of individual character that must be individually punished. Teenage pregnancies are not the result of our failure to level with our own children - instead it's the fault of promiscuity and the solution is moralistic blather. Poverty isn't the result of a system that values capital over labor - poor people are ignorant and lazy and the solution is to turn our backs on them. Our lack of compassion for the victims among us is matched only by our phoney concern for our little brown brothers overseas.
Stevenson, Robert Lewis
When I am grown to mans estate I shall be very proud and great. And tell the other girls and boys not to meddle with my toys.
Stevenson, William
When telephones suddenly go dead, trains are sidetracked, signposts turned awry, factories crippled by mass absenteeism, postal services rendered unreliable, then anarchy triumphs.
Stine, G. Harry, "The Third Industrial Revolution"
The human wrist joint is unique among mammals and is a supreme triumph of evolutionary engineering. A human can bend his hand at the wrist so that it is at right angles to his forearm, and he can individually move every one of his fingers while rotating his hand nearly 360 degrees with his forearm. No other animal can do this. The mechanical equivalent of the human wrist-forearm is a very complex machine.
Stine, G. Harry, "The Third Industrial Revolution"
Weightlessness is a natural condition of the universe. Being in a gravity field as we are is the unusual condition.
Stine, G. Harry, "The Third Industrial Revolution"
Steel mills are always located near a source of coal, and the iron ore is transported to the coal because more coal than iron ore is used.
Strang, Mickey; S.F. Chronicle Letters to the Editor, January 19,1989
The Nixon administration promised law and order. And you know what happened.
The Reagan administration promised a balanced budget.
Now, the Bush administration promises a "kinder and gentler" America. Is this enough to scare you, too?
Stuart, Ian
Feedback or be fed back.
Sturgeon, Theodore, "Slow Sculpture"
Only the companion of a bonsai (there are owners of bonsai, but they are a lesser breed) fully understands the relationship. There is an exclusive and individual treeness to the tree because it is a living thing, and living things change, and there are definite ways in which the tree desires to change. A man sees the tree and in his mind makes certain extensions and extrapolations of what he sees, and sets about making them happen. The tree in turn will do only what a tree can do, will resist to the death any attempt to do what it cannot do, or to do it in less time than it needs. The shaping of a bonsai is therefore always a compromise and always a cooperation. A man cannot create bonsai, nor can a tree; it takes both, and they must understand each other.
Sukenick, Ronald, "Up"
There's an art to getting fired - a matter of knowing how to maneuver yourself into a delicate position between working and malingering. It's really an act of economic suicide for the sake of personal salvation.
Sun; Reader's Digest, August 1988
In writing up his resume' for a full-time position, an applicant described his summer job as purchasing, being responsible for the accuracy of daily cash transactions, and maintaining the morale, alertness and well-being of the entire office staff.
Actually - he went out for the coffee.
Svihus, Richard
Disease really begins in our basic attitudes toward life, and then manifests in our life style and habits and in our conscious awareness, and then finally manifests in our body energies and our physical body as a projection from a hologram.
Swift, Jonathan, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Takuan, [Zen Master and Swordsman]
The mind must always be in a state of "flowing," for when it stops anywhere that means the flow is interrupted and it is this interruption that is injurious to the well-being of the mind. In the case of the swordsman, it means death. When the swordsman stands against his opponent, he is not to think of the opponent, nor of himself, nor of his enemy's sword movements. He just stands there with his sword which, forgetful of all technique, is ready only to follow the dictates of the unconscious. The man has effaced himself as the wielder of the sword. When he strikes, it is not the man but the sword in the hand of the unconscious that strikes.
Talmud, The
Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act.
Taylor, Charles F., Jr., "Master Handbook of Microcomputer Languages"
The Ada language was named after Ada, Countess of Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron. She was an associate of Charles Babbage, a nineteenth-century English pioneer in the computer field, and is generally credited with being the world's first computer programmer.
Temple, Shirley
I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.
Tesla, Nicola
It is doubtful whether men who would not be ready to fight for a high principle would be good for anything at all. It is not the mind which makes the man, nor is it the body. Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.
Thatcher, Margaret, 1974
It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister.
The man became very execited and asked if he could send a message to the moon with the astronauts. The NASA people thought this was a great idea so they rustled up a tape recorder. After the man gave them his message, they asked his son to translate. His son would not.
Thompson, Hunter S.
Dope fiends have always been with us, and they are guilty of many things, but a compulsion to rule the world has never been one of them. Power mongers are early risers; opium eaters sleep late. Tojo woke up with the sun, and Hitler was so paranoid that he never slept at all.
Thoreau, Henry David
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
Thornburgh, Richard, [Assistant Attorney General]
If it takes a publisher's computer months to acknowledge the change of address on my magazine subscription, I can imagine how long it will take an inventory control computer to acknowledge the disappearance of merchandise from some far-flung regional warehouse. If we are billed for merchandise we never bought, it is not unreasonable to conclude that someone may be buying merchandise for which they are never billed.
Thucydides
The strong do what they can
The weak do what they must.
Thucydides, Analog, May 1988
Their judgement was based more on wishful thinking than on sound calculation of probabilities; for the usual thing among men is that when they want something they will, without any reflection, leave that to hope, while they will employ the full force of reason in rejecting what they find unpalatable.
Thunen, Erif
Horses sweat
Gentlemen perspire
Ladies glow
Tillman, Henry J.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Today in History, Press Democrat, July 28, 1992
Sixty years ago, on July 28, 1932, Federal troops forcibly dispersed the so-called "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., since May, demanding money they were scheduled to receive in 1925.
Tolstoy, Leo Nikolaevich
All happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Tomlin, Lily
Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then--we elected them.
Tomlin, Lily
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
Trevanian, "Katya"
Confession is good for the spirit. It empties the soul, making space for more sin.
Trevanian, "Loo Sanction"
In a self-satisfied drone of BBC English, a commentator was summing up the industrial situation which, it appeared, was not so bad as it might be. True, the gas workers were on strike, as were the train drivers, the teachers, the hospital workers, the automotive workers, and the truckers - but the dockers might soon return to work, and there was a chance that the threatened strike of the civil servants, the electricians, the printers, the construction workers, and the miners might be delayed if the government conceded to their demands.
Trevanian, "Shibumi"
Such was the nature of compromise: a condition that satisfied no one, but left each with the comforting feeling that the others had been done in too.
Trevanian, "Shibumi"
American devotion to honor varies inversely with its concern for central heating. It is a property of the American that he can be brave and self-sacrificing only in short bursts. That is why they are better at war than at responsible peace. They can face danger, but not inconvenience. They toxify their air to kill mosquitoes. They drain their energy sources to provide themselves with electric carving knives. We must never forget that there was always Coca-Cola for the soldiers in Viet-Nam.
Truman, Harry, Quoted by Merle Miller in "Plain Speaking"
When you get to be President, there are the honors, the 21-gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn't for you. It's for the Presidency.
Tsiolkovski, Konstantin E., 1903
Mankind will not remain on Earth forever, but in its quest for light and space will at first timidly penetrate beyond the confines of the atmosphere, and later will conquer for itself all the space near the sun.
Tsunetomo, Yamamoto, "Hagakure"
Calculating people are contemptible. The reason for this is that calculation deals with loss and gain, and the loss and gain mind never stops. Death is considered loss and life is considered gain. Thus, death is something that such a person does not care for, and he is contemptible. Furthermore, scholars and their like are men who with wit and speech hide their own true cowardice and greed. People often misjudge this.
Tsunetomo, Yamamoto, "Hagakure"
There are two kinds of dispositions, inward and outward, and a person who is lacking in one or the other is worthless. It is, for example, like the blade of a sword, which one should sharpen well and then put in its scabbard, periodically taking it out and knitting one's eyebrows as in an attack, wiping off the blade, and then placing it in its scabbard again.
If a person has his sword out all the time, he is habitually swinging a naked blade; people will not approach him and he will have no allies.
If a sword is always sheathed, it will become rusty, the blade will dull, and people will think as much of the owner.
Tucker, Sophie
From birth to age 18, a girl needs good parents, from 18 to 35 she needs good looks, from 35 to 55 she needs a good personality, and from 55 on she needs cash.
U.S.M.C. to Hayakawa
When you've got them by the balls, surely their hearts and minds must follow.
Ullman, Samuel, Framed copy over desk of Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.
Umeboshi Plum brochure
The pH scale is a system of measurement to indicate the acidity or alkalinity of a solution. When dissolved in water, acid substances release positively charged hydrogen particles (ions) and have a sour taste, and alkaline substances release negatively charged hydrogen-oxygen (hydroxyl) groups, and have a chalky or bitter taste.
The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14. Chemically pure water has a pH of 7 which is the neutral midpoint of the scale. (In water the positive hydrogen ions exactly balance the negative hydroxyl ions.) Numbers above 7 are alkaline, below 7 are acidic.
Unger, "Herman"
I swerve to smell de soup..
De toll booth...
An nuts sing on the roof.
Unger, "Herman" 1985
You expect me to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and then you ask me a question like that?
Unknown
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.
Unknown
All power corrupts, but we need the electricity.
Unknown
An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
Unknown
Better to be engaged in restraining the noble stallion than in prodding the reluctant mule.
Unknown
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
Unknown
Democracy has never worked. The very idea that inferior people should elect superior ones to direct them is ridiculous. They have always proved themselves incapable of doing it.
Unknown
E Z 4 N E 1 2 C Y U
R / weight
U 8 N 8 N 8 N R
active / 2
2 L E V 8 X S N R G.
Unknown
He that has a beautiful wife or a castle on the frontier must be prepared for war.
Unknown
He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.
Unknown
I hear, I forget
I see, I remember
I do, I understand
Unknown
I'm not worried about the bullet with my name on it... just the thousands out there marked "Occupant."
Unknown
In 1966, a NASA team doing work for the Apollo moon mission took the
astronauts near Tuba City where the terrain of the Navajo Reservation looks very much like the Lunar surface. Along with all the trucks and large vehicles, there were two figures dressed in full Lunar spacesuits.
Unknown
It would be a sad day in American legal history when the courts refused protection under the law to the unwashed, unshod, unkempt, untrimmed, and uninhibited.
Unknown
Life is a sexually transmitted disease.
Unknown
A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't.
Unknown
Oak and ash and birch and beech,
Larch and spruce and pine
All will make a fire good
All will brightly shine.
-
Ash and oak are hard and slow
Birch and beech are gay
Larch, spruce, pine will start your flame
In the woodsman's way.
-
Elder, elm and poplar boughs
Smoky fuel seen
Willow wood is never used by a camper keen.
-
Oak or ash or birch or beech
Larch or spruce or pine
Take your pick, but ash is best
Green or dry 'tis fine.
Unknown
Plant a thought, harvest an act.
Plant an act, harvest a habit.
Plant a habit, harvest a character.
Plant a character, harvest a destiny.
Unknown
Seven Dwarfs:
Dopey is a pot-head, good weed.
Grumpy is a speed freak.
Sneezy is a coke sniffer.
Sleepy is a downs popper, Seconal all day.
Happy is an acid freak.
Bashful is a juicer.
Doc is their connection.
And Snow White is their fantasy.
Unknown
The wages of sin are unreported.
Unknown
There is no god, and Murphy is his prophet.
Urbizo, Carlos A.
Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at.
Used People, (Movie)
The only fool bigger than the one who knows it all, is the one who argues with him.
Valdez, Jeff
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.
van Vogt, A. E., "Resurrection"
Electrons do not have life and un-life values. Atoms know nothing of inanimateness. But when atoms form into molecules, there is a step in the process, one tiny step, that is of life - if life begins at all.
Van Gulik, "The Phantom of the Temple"
The horse that breaks loose from the team will roam over the plain, free and untrammeled. But the day will come when it grows lonely and tired. Then it finds itself all alone and lost - the track effaced by the wind, the chariot vanished beyond the horizon.
Verrazanno, Giovanni, Florence, 1524
Manna-ha-ta: [place of drunkenness]
Victoria, Queen of England
Please understand there is no pessimism in this house and we are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist.
Vinge, Joan
We are all on a one way trip into infinity. If we're lucky we're given some lifes work we care about, or some person. Or both, if we're very lucky.
Voltair
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet
Doctors pour drugs of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, into human beings of whom they know nothing.
Von Braun, Werner
Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.
Vonnegut, Kurt, "Galapagos"
A discussion between husband and wife under stress could end up like a fight between blindfolded people wearing roller-skates.
Vonnegut, Kurt, "Venus on the Half-Shell"
Every passing hour brings the Solar System 43,000 miles closer to Globular Cluster M-13 in Hercules. And still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.
vos Savant, Marilyn, Parade
If the world population of about 5.4 billion people were gathered together in one spot, with each person standing on a generous two-by-two-foot patch of ground, we'd cover an area of less than 800 square miles - only about the size of Jacksonville, Fla.
Waldo, Anna Lee, "Sacajawea"
Wild geraniums for healing stomach ulcers.
Skullcap for mild heart trouble.
Crushed violet for lung infection.
Seeds of morning-glory and jimsonweed for serenity of thought.
Peyote for relaxing the crowded mind.
Watkins, Juanita
To be is to do
-- I. Kant
To do is to be
-- A. Sartre
Do be do be do
-- B. Crosby
Yabba-dabba-doo!
-- F. Flintstone
Watson, J. W., 1869
So be your mission one of joy to all the human race.
Watts, Alan, "The Meaning of Happiness"
The free man walks straight ahead; he has no hesitations and never looks behind, for he knows that there is nothing in the future and nothing in the past that can shake his freedom. Freedom does not belong to him; it is no more his property than the wind, and as he does not possess it he is not possessed by it.
And because he never looks behind his actions are said to leave no trace, like the passage of a bird through the air.
Waverley Coffee Shop, New York City
No pay phone
No cigarette machine
No public rest room
No change without purchase
No credit cards
No personal checks
No bare feet
No dogs
No roller skates
No atmosphere
No attitude
-
Enjoy your day.
Enjoy your life.
Wayne, John
I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.
Webster's Dictionary, 1924
EQUITY; just regard to right or claim; impartiality; the administration of law according to its spirit and not according to its letter.
Weisel, Elie
I don't understand, and if it's a question of not understanding something, I prefer Spinosa.
Weiss, Barry
Down is a hundred thousand fathoms, but...
Up is only a few inches. One could dance right over it.
Weiss, Barry
God helps those who help themselves.
The Haight-Ashbury Switchboard helps the rest.
Weiss, Barry
It's amazing how much damage the right hand can do to the left hand without the head's permission.
Weiss, Barry
Jug not, lest ye be jugged.
Weiss, Barry
Men sit at a sports game in an attempt to maintain their count of reality, to collectively witness the score-count in order to prove their own existence.
Weiss, Barry
My cat came in ragged and torn,
Fur ripped, skin worn,
Home from Walpurgisnacht,
The rites of spring.
-
Back from the demonstration,
Long hair flowing, sad nation,
The morning of May day
Mourning the rights of spring.
[Walpurgisnacht {the night of the dance of Witches, on Bracken Peak in the
Hartz Mountain chain} is the first night of the midnight Sun, April 30, {the eve of May Day} after which the Sun remains above the horizon of the Scandinavian countries twenty-four hours each day until it sets on August 12th.]
Weiss, Barry
The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line.
But the fastest that distance may be traversed is a cycloidal curve.
Weiss, Barry
The child, having been taught the alphabet as a song, (H-I-J-K-LMNO-P)
requires an additional eight years of training to learn to pause between each of the letters. Hence the name: L-M-N-O-TARRY School.
Weiss, Barry
Why does an astronaut go to the moon,
And leave his five kids and wife?
Is it adventure in his soul,
Or money in his bowl,
That causes all that strife?
Weiss, Barry, "Ode to Doc"
Never has one man
Left so-o fast
Owing so much
To so many.
Weiss, Barry, 1972
The object of a game of chess is to get all your pawns to the other side of the board, at the loss of only as many pawns, bishops, knights, castles, as is absolutely necessary, in order for the king and queen to safely land on the other shore, to the welcome of all their men faithfully waiting on them, As it was in ancient days, as it is now in Viet Nam, so will it be, as long as the President is allowed to play chess alone.
Weiss, Barry, Nov 27, 1987
Anything that has more than five words must be a lie.
Weiss, Lawrence, [Hungarian]
Az ember ember. De nem minden ember ember, Oz chak ojan ember, ember aki minden emberseges embernek emberseges embersegeket mutot.
[A person is a person, but not every person is a person, only such a person is a
person who shows personality to every personal person.]
Welles, Orson
My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.
Wells, Carolyn
The wages of sin are alimony.
White, E. B., "The Morning of the Day They Did It"
The people here have no capacity for sustained endeavor, but merely tackle things by fits and starts, leaving undone whatever fails to hold his interest, and so by witlessness and improvidence, escape many of the errors of accomplishment.
White, James, "The Dream Millennium"
His had been a long and unhappy childhood completely without warmth or affection or security, and his even longer approach to maturity was a period of unallayed misery.
White, James, "The Dream Millennium"
The most dangerous thing in the world was a coward driven to desperation.
White, James, "The Dream Millennium"
There are the successful candidates, in suspended animation for holding in orbit. In that condition they are not a drain on the ship's consumables. Thus we can train them in small numbers over a considerable period and store them until we have a full complement, and there is less risk of a security leak...
Whitman, Walt, "Leaves of Grass"
You are asking me questions and I hear you. I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself.
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, 1883
Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone.
Wilde, Oscar; last words
Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
Will, George, "Meet Halley's Comet," Newsweek (August 3, 1981), p. 80
To give you an idea how vast the distance between stars is, if there were just three bees in the whole United States, the air would be more congested with bees than space is with stars.
Williamson, Jack, "The Humanoid Touch"
EVOLUTION: The process of change through which the primitive creates the higher. Simple atoms give rise to complex molecules, these give rise to life, life to mind, mind to the computer and the humanoid machine.
Willis, Ellen, A.V.A., March 21, 1990
The essence of McCarthyism, as a specific phenomenon rather than a catch-all synonym for repression, is the attempt to displace people's social and economic anxieties onto an emotionally symbolic scapegoat - communists, drugs, pornography, satanic child molesters - and use the resulting hysteria as an excuse for tightening social controls and limiting constitutional rights.
Wilson, R. A., "Cosmic Trigger"
The selective yogic trance of the average city dweller, which allows him to walk in mindless indifference through noise, filth, pandemonium, misery, neurosis, violence, psychosis, rape, burglary, injustice and exploitation, screening it all out and concentrating only on robot repetition of his assigned role in the hive-economy. One can train oneself to receive a far wider variety of signals than the neurologically untrained realize.
Wilson, Robert Anton, "Illuminatus"
What would you think of a man who not only kept an arsenal in his home, but was collecting at enormous financial sacrifice a second arsenal to protect the first one?
What would you say if this man so frightened his neighbors that they in turn were collecting weapons to protect themselves from him? What if this man spent ten times as much money on his expensive weapons as he did on the education of his children? What if one of his children criticized his hobby and he called that child a traitor and a bum and disowned it? And he took another child who had obeyed him faithfully and armed that child and sent it out into the world to attack neighbors? What would you say about a man who introduced poisons into the water he drinks and the air he breathes? What if this man is not only feuding with the people on his block but involves himself in the quarrels of others in distant parts of the city and even in the suburbs? Such a man would be a paranoid schizophrenic, with homicidal tendencies.
Wilson, Tom
Remember, the future is shaped by the past... So be careful what you do in the past.
Wingate, Orde
Use captured weapons
Break sleeping patterns
Catch rest when feasible
Manage with a minimum of equipment
Complete a mission even if the lowest private has to take command.
Wingate, Orde
Take terrifying gambles, throw away the army manuals, strike without regard for convention, cherish no odd notions of chivalry when a struggle was to the death, place emphasis upon originality, surprise and mobility.
Wise, Phil
If a movie is rated "G", the hero gets the girl;
If it's rated "R", the villain gets the girl;
If it's "X", everybody gets the girl.
Wouk, Herman, "The Winds of War"
He felt as compelled to enter this cloth plane and fly over Berlin, as a murderer is to climb a gallows to be hanged.
Wyndham, John
Time...that rough analogy about the sea freezing. The present was represented by the leading edge of the ice, gradually building up and advancing. Behind it was the solid ice that represented the past; in front, the still fluid water represented the future. You could tell that a given number of the moving molecules which represented the future would become frozen in a given space of time, but you couldn't predict which, nor in what relationship they would be to one another.
About the solid stuff behind, the past, he thought you could probably do nothing; but he reckoned that somehow or other you ought to be able to find a way of pushing out a little ahead of the main freezing line, which is the present. If you could do that you would be creating little advanced bridgeheads of frozen - that is to say, factualized - matter. This MUST, in due course, be overtaken by, and thus become part of, the advancing present. In other words, by going a little bit ahead you would create a bit of future which would HAVE to come true. You couldn't choose which molecules you would bind together, but those you found would be solidified by your finding them, and therefore become inevitable.
Wyndham, John, "Adaptation," 1949
Once upon a time something, an ancestor of ours, came out of the water on to the land. It became adapted until it could not go back to its relatives in the sea. That is the process we agree to call progress.
Wyndham, John, "Re-Birth", 1955
Your work is to survive... they are the crown of creation, they are ambition fulfilled, they have nowhere more to go. But life is change, that is how it differs from the rocks, change is its very nature.
[Wonder where the Jefferson Airplane got the words for their album "Crown of Creation"?]
Wyndham, John, "Re-Birth", 1955
In loyalty to their kind, they cannot tolerate our rise. In loyalty to our kind we cannot tolerate their obstruction.
Yaakov, Rabbi Yitzhak, The Seer of Lublin
Can He be God if He can only be worshiped in one way?
Yardley, Jacob
Business consists of moving things from where they are plentiful to where they are costly.
Yates, W.R., "Diaspora"
Earth shifted unpredictably through the slight interactions of other planets'
gravitational and magnetic fields, the intensity of the solar wind, and the slight relativistic pause that Earth made at perigee.
Yoors, Jan, "The Gypsies"
There are lies more readily acceptable than the truth.
Young, Andrew, [U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations]
Since we've been niggers longer than anyone else, then students as niggers, women as niggers, Chicanos as niggers, Jews as niggers - everybody that shares in the suffering that is created as this society moves forward, has got to be bound together, because nothing happens in America unless it happens from the roots up.
Yu, Anthony, "Journey to the West"
"If they were sky monsters," replied Monkey, "I'd send them to the Jade Emperor, and if they were earth monsters I'd send them to the Earth Palace."
[Wonder where Frank Baum got his ideas for the "Wizard of Oz"?]
Zen saying
The illusion of ownership is the ownership of an illusion.
Zen saying
Now that my house has burned down, I have a much better view of the moon.
Zwanzig, Carl
Duct-tape is like the Force.
It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the Universe together.