Random Quotes

Philosophy

"Life is like Stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink"
— Suzuki Roshi, Zen master
"If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself."
— Alan Watts
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
— Bertrand Russell
"Some would sooner die than think.  In fact, they often do."
— Bertrand Russell
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
— Bertrand Russell
"You are what you don't shit"
— Wavy Gravy
"And life itself confided this secret to me:  'Behold, it said, 'I am that which must always overcome itself.  Indeed, you call it a will to procreate or a drive to an end, to something higher, farther, more manifold...."
— by Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra II 12
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
— Aristotle
"If you don't like the emotional experience you're having, change your mind"
— Peter Russel peterrussell.com
"Whenever you point your finger at someone, you have three pointed at yourself."
— Hindu proverb
"The tragedy of this life is not failure, but low aim."
— Benjamin Mays
"Nothing recedes like success."
— Walter Winchell
"Think universally, Act Selfishly"
— Unknown
"Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across."
— Sun Tzu

Politics

"Every nation gets the government it deserves."
— Joseph de Maistre
"I have opinions of my own— strong opinions— but I don't always agree with them."
— George H.W. Bush
"And let me say in conclusion, thanks for the kids. I learned an awful lot about bathtub toys— about how to work the telephone. One guy knows— several of them know their own phone numbers— preparation to go to the dentist. A lot of things I'd forgotten. So it's been a good day."
— George H.W. Bush
"Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."
— George Bush I discussing a Walter Mondale comment that he didn't have the manhood to apologize for an incorrect assertion.
"The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."
— Frederic Bastiat
"psychedelic drugs cause paranoia, confusion, and total loss of reality in politicians that have never taken them"
— Dr. Timothy Leary
"Democracy is the worst system possible except for any other."
— Winston Churchal
"There is no better argument against democracy than a five-minute conversation the common man"
— Winston Churchill
"I said a lot of stupid things when I was with the Conservative Party, and I left them, because I did not want to go on saying stupid things."
— Winston Churchill
"Cyanide is a scare word."
— Director of the Texas Water Quality Board
"It just makes good sense to put all your eggs in one basket."
— Texas Rep. Joe Salem speaking on an amendment requiring all revenues to go into the state treasury
"Ain't nothin' in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos."
— Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower
"And now, will y'all stand and be recognized?"
— Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis to a group of handicapped people in wheelchairs
"No thanks, once was enough."
— Texas Governor Bill Clements, asked if he had been born again
"I am filled with humidity."
— Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis
"You can teach 'em to type, but you can't teach 'em to grow tits."
— Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson, speaking on secretaries
"Spending on the military doesn't increase the deficit."
— Ronald Reagan
"If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drillin' rights on that man's head."
— Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower discussing President George Bush's policies
"There's a lot of uncertainty that's not clear in my mind."
— Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis
"This bill, if passed, will derail the ship of state."
— Speaker of the New York Assembly Stanley Steingut
"What is scattered to the wind here is just a drop in the bucket."
— member of New York City Council
"As we debate this bill, the sword of Damocles is hanging over Pandora's box."
— member of New York City Council
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."
— Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
"You can't change things by force, only by making the things you want to change seem obsolete."
— Buckminster Fuller
"Laws... so widely disobeyed and which cannot be enforced only promote disrespect for the law in general."
— New Jersey Assemblyman Mikulak, regarding the 55 MPH limit
"The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly,' meaning 'many,' and the word 'ticks,' meaning 'blood sucking parasites.'"
— Dave Barry
"Power which can be abused, will be abused."
— Jim Warner, National Rifle Association - speaking against continued funding of public broadcasting - 1/19/95
"Look how selfish you are... If each Chechen would have a woman, there would be no war.  That's why you're the source of war on the planet."
— Russian untranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, in a taped interview with Playboy magazine's Jennifer Gould, who repeatedly declined his requests to have group sex with his bodyguards.
"The Pen is mightier than the Sword.
The Court is mightier than the Pen.
The Sword is mightier than the Court."
— Rey Barry
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
— Benjamin Franklin, 1759
"The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves."
— Plato (427-347 BCE)
"He's suffering from Politicians' Logic. Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it."
— Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay, "Yes, Prime Minister"
Outlawing drugs in order to solve drug problems is much like outlawing sex... to win the war against AIDS."
— Ronald Siegel, "Intoxication"
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."
— Derek Bok, president of Harvard
"What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?"
— Marion Barry
"Go fuck yourself."
— Vice President Dick Cheney to Sen. Patrick Leahy, during an angry exchange on the Senate floor about profiteering by Halliburton
"You cannot solve current problems with current thinking. Current problems are the RESULT of current thinking"
— Albert Einstein
"A billion dollars here and a billion dollars there soon added up to real money."
— Senator Everett Dirksen
"Columbus saved the Indians from themselves."
— Rush Limbaugh
"Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion."
— Jon Stewart
"Homosexuals do not have an 'agenda' that involves brainwashing or converting children to their ways. That's religion you're thinking of."
— @AtheistMel [Not me]
"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
— Dwight Eisenhower
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did..
You deserved it.
— Chris Shepherd: A Narcissist's Prayer
"When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision."
— Lord Falkland (1610 - 1643)
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."
— David Frum
"There are more importnat things than living."
— Texas Leutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R)
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
— George Orwell, 1984

Math, Science, and Technology

"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
— Edsger W. Dijkstra
"Never mistake a clear view for a short distance"
— Paul Saffo, Institute for the Future
"We cannot predict where, ultimately, the Computer Revolution will take us. All we know for certain is that, when we finally get there, we won't have enough RAM."
— Dave Barry
"Computers are useless. All they can do is give you answers."
— Pablo Picasso
"Do not go gentle into that long, dark night but rage, rage against the dying of the light."
— Dylan Thomas
"Zero defects: The result of shutting down a production line."
— Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary"
"A Consultant is a guy who knows 125 different ways to make love, but who doesn't know any women."
— Mark Russell
"We're going to have tentacles into the PC-buying community that are going to get us closer and closer to the right answers,"
— Andrew Grove, Intel's CEO speaking on the Pentium math errors
"Each time you toss out a "singing" greeting card, you are disposing of more computing power than existed in the entire world before 1950."
— Paul Saffo, futurist
"We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance."
— John Wheeler
"'Offence' is the last straw the faith-heads clutch when they run out of rational arguments."
— Sir Richard Dawkins

Programming

"Beware of bugs in the above code. I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
— Donald Knuth
"I admit that when I was in school I wrote COBOL. But I didn't compile."
— Bill Davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
— Bill Gates 1981
"A month in the laboratory can often save an hour in the library."
— F. H. Westheimer
"There are bugs and then there are bugs. And then there are bugs."
— Karl Lehenbauer
"When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb."
— Steve Haflich (smh@Franz.COM)
"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], `Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?'  I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
— Charles Babbage
"The difference between theory and practice is always greater in practice than in theory."
— Unknown
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."
— Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut
Someone else's wonderful programming quotes here.

Humor

"A witty saying proves nothing."
— Voltaire
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve immortality through not dying."
— Woody Allen
"As sensitive and broad-minded humans, we must never allow ourselves to be in any way judgmental of the religious practices of other people, even when these people clearly are raving space loons."
— Dave Barry
"When you're swimming in the creek
And an eel bites your cheek,
That's a moray!"
— Fabulous Furry Freak Bros.
"A day without sunshine is like night."
— Unknown
"Fruitcake is like semen, there's a lot of it about but no one wants to swallow it".
— Oscar Wilde
"NASA should not be allowed to operate in a vacuum".
— Editorial, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 2/2/87
"I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you."
— Unknown.
"There are still places where people think that the function of the media is to provide information."
— Don Rottenberg
"Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it.  Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased."
— Samuel Johnson
"Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of social intercourse."
— Unknown
"Definition of a hermaphrodite: a bisexual built for two."
— Jeff Daiell
"All I ask of my body is that it carry around my head."
— Thomas Alva Edison
"It is up to us to produce better-quality movies."
— Lloyd Kaufman, producer of _Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator_
"Gosh, math is hard!"
— Talking Barbie
"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."
— Unknown
"Style distinguishes excellence from accomplishment"
— J. Coplien
"You may buy from me in your own language, but sell to me in mine."
— Willy Brandt
"Never let your schooling interfere with your education"
— Mark Twain
"Fornicate and take drugs against the terrible strain of idiots who govern the world."
— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology
"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving a baby's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base."
— Dave Barry
"You can fool too many people too much of the time."
— James Thurber
"Anarchy may not be the best form of government but it's better than no government at all."
— Unknown
"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either."
— Dick Cavett
"Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.""
— Jules Renard
"If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting."
— Wally "Famous" Amos [Also paraphrased as "If we don't change where we're headed, we'll eventually wind up where we're going..." as found here.]
"Adventure is a sign of incompetence."
— Vilhjalmar Stefansson.
"Life is a disease, sexually transmitted and fatal."
— Neil Gaiman