The Quote Farm

The Quote Farm

This page is a repository of potentially useful quotes.

Bookmarks (To This Page)

Attractiveness, Female

"She's got what I call bobsled looks: going downhill fast."—Craig Nova

Aviation And Space

"A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again."—Rules of the Air, #8 (This quote appeared in the signature of an e-mail by Chris Bensend. Chris was careful to point out in subsequent correspondence that he was not the originator of the quote, and is not sure where it comes from.)
"A complex system has complex failure modes."—John J. Nance, ABC aviation correspondent, commenting on February 1, 2003 on the loss of the space shuttle Columbia.

Beer

"He was a wise man who invented beer."—Plato
"Work is the curse of the drinking class."—Oscar Wilde
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."—Benjamin Franklin
"If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose."—Deep Thought, Jack Handy
"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."—Dave Barry
"People who drink light 'beer' don't like the taste of beer; they just like to pee a lot."—Capital Brewery, Middleton, WI
"Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world."—Kaiser Wilhelm
"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."—Dave Barry
"I drink to make other people interesting."—George Jean Nathan
"They who drink beer will think beer."—Washington Irving
"All right, brain, I don't like you and you don't like me so let's just do this and I'll get back to killing you with beer."—Homer Simpson
"A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her."—W.C. Fields

Capitalism

"Companies come and go. It's ... part of the genius of capitalism."—U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, in January of 2002, in response to the bankruptcy filing by Enron
"I've watched lots of corporations come and go. ... There are very few companies that have been around for 40 or 50 years. ... Companies come and go. It's part of the genius of capitalism. People get to make good decisions or bad decisions, and they get to pay the consequences or to enjoy the fruits of their decisions. That's the way the system works."—U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, in January of 2002, in response to the bankruptcy filing by Enron
"I didn't think this was worthy of me running across the street and telling the president. I don't go across the street and tell the president every time somebody calls me."—U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, in January of 2002, defending his decision not to advise President Bush of Enron's financial difficulties
"... unless there's an issue related to the company that reaches to public responsibility ... in the American capitalist system, companies are responsible for their actions ... The company had a duty to inform its shareholders and its employees about things that were going on inside the company. That's not a federal government responsibility."—U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, in January of 2002, defending his decision not to take any federal action to help Enron as its stock price collapsed and it was forced into bankruptcy

Celebrities, Beauty Pageant Contestants

Question: "If you could live forever, would you and why?" Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever"—Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest

Celebrities, Brooke Shields

"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."—Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for a federal anti-smoking campaign.

Celebrities, Mariah Carey

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that but not with all those flies and death and stuff."—Mariah Carey

Censorship

"Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind."—General William Westmoreland

Computers And Computing

"A computer lets you make mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exception of handguns and Tequila."—Mitch Ratcliffe, as quoted by Bryan Packer
"Programming, an artform that fights back."—Anuerin G. Diaz
"A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable."—Les Lamport, s quoted in newsgroup post by Richard Heylen
"Every program has at least one bug and can be reduced by at least one line. By induction, then, every program can be reduced to a single instruction, and that will be wrong."—From a newsgroup post by Dave Hansen in April 2003
"I invented the term 'Object Oriented' and I can tell you that I did not have C++ in mind."— Alan Kay
"Claiming Java is easier than C++ is like saying K2 is shorter than Everest."— Larry O'Brien, editor Software Development
"A lot of people 'think' they understand C, but it is not only stranger than they imagine, it is stranger than they 'can' imagine."— Richard A. O'Keefe
"C is its own virus."— Miguel Gallo
"C gives you all the power of assembler ... along with the portability of assembler!"—Unknown
"Java is a very popular language— surprisingly popular considering it doesn't seem to have learnt the lessons of Simula 67."— Malcolm Atkinson
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from."— Andrew S. Tanenbaum
"The debate over computer-assisted proofs is the high-end version of arguments over using calculators in math classes—whether technology spurs greater achievements by speeding rote calculations or deprives people of fundamentals."—From an April 6, 2004 article in the New York Times (Web Edition) entitled, "In Math, Computers Don't Lie. Or Do They", by Kenneth Chang

Courage

"Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities ... because it is the quality which guarantees all others."—Winston Churchill
"The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise."—Tacitus, Roman historian
"One man with courage makes a majority."—Andrew Jackson
"What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate."—Donald Trump
"No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy."—Admiral Horatio Nelson
"[Admiral Nelson's counsel] guided me time and again. On the eve of the critical battle of Santa Cruz, in which the Japanese ships outnumbered ours more than two to one, I sent my task force commanders this dispatch: ATTACK REPEAT ATTACK. They did attack, heroically, and when the battle was done, the enemy turned away. All problems, personal, national, or combat, become smaller if you don't dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble. Carry the battle to the enemy! Lay your ship alongside his!"—Admiral William 'Bull' Halsey
"Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity."—Karl von Clausewitz

Freedom And Civil Liberties

"First they came for the political activists, and I didn't defend them, because I wasn't an activist. Then they came for the gun owners, and I didn't defend them, because I wasn't a gun owner. Then they came for the writers and philosophers, and I didn't defend them, because I wasn't a writer or philosopher. Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to defend me."—Unknown
"Those who would trade personal liberties in the name of security shall have neither."—Ben Franklin
"We've been singing the same song in this country for more than 200 years. It's a very good song, and I want to keep singing it. I'm very leery of changing the lyrics."—Art Babbott, Flagstaff, Arizona City Council member, who sponsored the December, 2002 resolution in Flagstaff urging federal authorities to respect citizens' civil rights when fighting terrorism

General Humor

"I hope I don't sound like an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud, but when I hear about people making vast fortunes without doing any productive work or contributing anything to society, my reaction is: 'How can I get in on that?'"—Dave Barry
"I may seem more arrogant, but I think that's just because you didn't realize how arrogant I was before."—Jeffrey Hobbs, Tcl Ambassador, Ajuba Solutions
"Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can't remember what they are."—Matt Lauer on NBC's Today show
"Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry."—Gloria Steinem.
"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."—John Wayne
"Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."—Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina
"We apologize for the error in last week's paper in which we stated that Mr. Arnold Dogbody was a defective in the police force. We meant, of course, that Mr. Dogbody is a detective in the police farce."—Correction Notice in the Ely Standard, a British newspaper
"If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record."—Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman
"Although small, silky sharks are bad news. They're nervous, they're aggressive, and there's lots of them."—Sharks In The Golden Triangle, CBC.
"People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harrass rich women than motorcycle gangs."—from a rubber stamp purchased at Chestnut Creek, Inc. in Dearborn, Michigan, USA.
"Theory may inform, but Practice convinces."—George Bain.
"I used to be disgusted, now I find I'm just amused."—Elvis Costello.
"Heroic people have heroic flaws."—Unknown
"The reason I rob banks is 'cause that's where the money is."—Willie Sutton
"A lot of you are making security products that are an attractive nuisance. Shame on you. I want you to grow up. I want functions and assurances in security devices. We do not beta test on customers. If my product fails, someone might die."—Brian Snow, of the National Security Agency's Information Systems Security Organization, speaking at the Black Hat Briefings security conference
"There are three kinds of people: the ones that learn by reading, the few who learn by observation, and the rest of them who have to touch the fire to see for themselves if it's really hot."—Unknown
"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems."—Paul Erdos
"A person needs only two tools: WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use the WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use the tape."—Unknown
"Fame is vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character."—Horace Greeley
"My mother is such an alarmist, always worried! One little cough, and she thinks I have pneumonia. One little headache, and she is sure that I have a brain tumor. One little lie, and she thinks I am destined to be president ... ."—Unknown
"Stupidity is a renewable resource."—Unknown
"Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about."—Unknown
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul."—G. B. Shaw
"All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why."—James Thurber
"It is with rivers as it is with people: the greatest are not the most agreeable nor the best to live with."—Henry van Dyke
"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads."—Erica Jong
"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."—Barry Goldwater
"If a hole is in the wrong place, then no amount of digging is going to put it in the right place."—Edward de Bono
"Misers aren't fun to live with, but they make wonderful ancestors."—David Brenner
"One way to prevent progress is by arguing that any first step is unfair to somebody."—Unknown
"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."—Calvin (& Hobbes)
"Montreal winters are an intelligence test, and we who are here have failed it."—Doug Camilli
"Growing up, my mom always claimed to feel bad when a bird would slam head-first into our living room window. If she really felt bad, though, she'd have moved the bird feeder outside."—Rich Johnson
"I realize that there are certain hardships that only females must endure, such as childbirth, waiting in lines for public-restroom stalls, and a crippling, psychotic obsession with shoe color. Also, females tend to reach emotional maturity very quickly, so that by age 7 they are no longer capable of seeing the humor in loud inadvertent public blasts of flatulence, whereas males can continue to derive vast enjoyment from this well into their 80s."—Dave Barry
"Disease generally begins that equality which death completes; the distinctions which set one man so much above another are very little perceived in the gloom of a sick chamber, where it will be vain to expect entertainment from the gay, or instruction from the wise; where all human glory is obliterated, the wit is clouded, the reasoner perplexed, and the hero subdued; where the highest and brightest of mortal beings finds nothing left him but the consciousness of innocence."—Samuel Johnson
"More and more, our relationship with the industrial food industry begins to resemble the one it has with its chickens, pigs and cows. In exchange for zero responsibility, we get zero control."—Kalle Lasn, Culture Jam
"Es ist ein Bluff. Sie k�nnen Autos und K�hlschr�nke bauen, aber keine Flugzeuge!"—Hermann G�ring im Jahre 1941 �ber die industriellen F�higkeiten der U.S.A
"There's no such thing as a pretty good alligator wrestler."—Original source unknown: reprinted in February 2001 Scientific American, Steve Mirsky's column
"I'd rather work with someone who's good at their job but doesn't like me, than someone who likes me but is a ninny."—Sam Donaldson, as reproduced in the July 2001 Reader's Digest
"Pain is candy for the focused mind."—Agent Bobby Hobbes (actor Paul Ben-Victor) in The Invisible Man, air date July 27, 2001 on the Sci-Fi Channel
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion. However valuable—even necessary—that may have been in enforcing good behavior on primitive peoples, their association is now counterproductive. Yet at the very moment when they should be decoupled, sanctimonious nitwits are calling for a return to morals based on superstition."—Arthur C. Clarke
"The closest I ever got to a 4.0 in college was my blood alcohol content."—Unknown
"I live in my own little world. But it's ok...they know me here. "—Unknown
"I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt with 'Guess' on it. I said, 'Implants?"'—Unknown
"I don't do drugs anymore 'cause I find I get the same effect just standing up really fast."—Unknown
"Sign In Pet Store: 'Buy one dog, get one flea ..."—Unknown
"Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with."—Unknown
"I got a sweater for Christmas ... I wanted a screamer or a moaner."—Unknown
"I don't approve of political jokes ... I've seen too many of them get elected."—Unknown
"There are two sides to every divorce: yours and shithead's."—Unknown
"If life deals you lemons, make lemonade; if it deals you tomatoes, make Bloody Marys. But if it deals you a truckload of hand grenades ... now THAT'S a message!!"—Unknown
"I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life."—Unknown
"Shopping tip: You can get shoes for 85 cents at the bowling alley."—Unknown
"I am a nobody, and nobody is perfect; therefore I am perfect."—Unknown
"I married my wife for her looks ... but not the ones she's been giving me lately!"—Unknown
"Everyday I beat my own previous record for number of consecutive days I've stayed alive."—Unknown
"Two peanuts were walking down the street. One was a salted."—Unknown
"Isn't it funny how the mood can be ruined so quickly by just one busted condom?"—Unknown
"If carrots are so good for the eyes, how come I see so many dead rabbits on the highway?"—Unknown
"Welcome To Shit Creek—Sorry, We're Out of Paddles!"—Unknown
"How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?"—Unknown
"Isn't having a smoking section in a restaurant like having a peeing section in a swimming pool?"—Unknown
"Marriage changes passion ... suddenly you're in bed with a relative."—Unknown
"Why is it that most nudists are people you don't want to see naked?"—Unknown
"The next time you feel like complaining remember: Your garbage disposal probably eats better than thirty percent of the people in this world."—Unknown
"Snowmen fall from Heaven unassembled."—Unknown
"Every time I walk into a singles bar I can hear Mom's wise words: 'Don't pick that up, you don't know where it's been.'"—Unknown
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."—Hunter S. Thompson
"I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my dog."—Emporer Charles V
"It is unfortunate that the HP board has seemingly missed what the company's stockholders have clearly recognized: that dissent is not disloyalty, that healthy boards need not agree on every issue and that while the management and board may run the company, the stockholders are the true owners of the company."—Walter Hewlett, in a statement after not being reappointed to the Hewlett-Packard board of directors in March of 2002 due to an adversarial relationship with the company
"Be true to your teeth or they will be false to you."—Unknown
"An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke."—F. Scott Fitzgerald
"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."—Gore Vidal
"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be."—Unknown
"They call television a medium because nothing's well done."—Goodman Ace.
"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' 'till you can find a rock."—Wynn Catlin
"I'm worried that just as clothes dryers have the knack of making socks disappear, the federal government has discovered a core competency of losing computers."—Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) in an August 2002 letter to Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., director of the Office of Management and Budget, in response to a report that thousands of personal computers were lost within the IRS
"You can't outrun Death forever. But you can make the Bastard work for it."—Major Korgo Korgar, "Last of The Lancers", AFC 32 (This quote appeared as a slide starting the episode Lava and Rockets, Episode \#213 of the TV series Andromeda in 2002. It is not clear to me if this is a real quote by a fictitious person (is Korgo Korgar real?) or whether it is based on a real-life quote by another person, or whether it was created by the show's writers. This needs to be researched.)
"Will someone please explain to me the logic that says we can trust someone with a Boeing 747 in bad weather, but not with a Glock 9 millimeter?"—Senator Zell Miller, in 9/2002 in support of a measure allowing the arming of airline pilots
"The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!"—Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, 1945
"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the Swiss hold the Americas Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, and Germany doesn't want to go to war."—Unknown Author (Received via e-mail during operation Iraqi Freedom on March 25, 2003.)
"Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine."—Author unknown, in the footer of a newsgroup post by Dave Hansen in April 2003.
"Every great scientific truth goes through three states: first, people say it conflicts with the Bible; next, they say it has been discovered before; lastly, they say they always believed it."—-Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), Swiss-born American naturalist.
"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your girlfriends."—Laurie Kuslansky
"My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being, hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint."—Erma Bombeck
"A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't."—Rhonda Hansome
"The phrase 'working mother' is redundant."—Jane Sellman
"Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows."—Jennifer Unlimited
"Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult."—Charlotte Whitton
"I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once."—Jennifer Unlimited
"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."—Catherine
"When I was young, I was put in a school for retarded kids for two years before they realized I actually had a hearing loss. And they called ME slow!"—Kathy Buckley
"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb ... and I'm also not blonde."—Dolly Parton
"If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them."—Sue Grafton
"I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on."—Roseanne Barr
"When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country."—Elayne Boosler
"Behind every successful man is a surprised woman."—Maryon Pearson
"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man- if you want anything done, ask a woman."—Margaret Thatcher
"I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career."—Gloria Steinem
"I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house."—Zsa Zsa Gabor
"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission."—Eleanor Roosevelt
"In this world there are only two tragedies; one is not getting what one wants, the other is getting it."— Oscar Wilde
"It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem."—Malcolm Forbes (1919 - 1990)
"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone."—Bjarne Stroustrup, computer science professor, designer of C++ programming language (1950- )
"In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office."—Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with backup tapes."—Jim Gray, ACM Turing Award winner
"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government."—Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."—Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
"The hardest person to awaken is the one already awake."—Tagalog saying
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."—Hanlon's Razor
"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers."—James Thurber (1894 - 1961)
"Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest."—Isaac Asimov, author (1920 - 1992)
"Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status."—Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)
"Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses."—Unknown
"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."—Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)
"'My country, right or wrong,' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.'" - G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)
"When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion."—Abraham Lincoln, US President (1809 - 1865) (attributed)
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."—Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."—Pablo Picasso, artist (1881 - 1973)
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."—H. L. Mencken, author (1880 - 1956)
"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage."—Lucius Annaeus Seneca, writer and philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)
"Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears."—Robert W. Sarnoff, RCA executive (1918-1997)
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped."—Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)
"There are 10¹¹ stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."—Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988)
"The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way."—Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)
"Never express yourself more clearly than you think."—Niels Bohr
"A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't."—Unknown
"Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering."—Arthur C Clarke, science fiction writer (1917- )
"Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature."—Kin Hubbard (1868 - 1930)
"Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship."—Harry S Truman (1884 - 1972)
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh."—George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."—Carl Sagan, astronomer, author (1934-1996)
"The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent."—John Haynes
"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled."—Sir Barnett Cocks
"Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment."—R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)
"Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both."—John Andrew Holmes, 20th-century American author, physician
"Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due."—William R. Inge, clergyman, scholar, and author (1860-1954)
"Assassination: The extreme form of censorship."—George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."—Abba Eban, Israeli diplomat (1915-)
"Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get."—Anonymous
"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out."—Thomas Babington Macaulay, author and statesman (1800-1859)
"Life is one long process of getting tired."—Samuel Butler, British author (1835-1902)
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."—Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)
"Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry."—Spanish Proverb
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."—Philip K. Dick, author (1928-1982)
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."—William Pitt, British prime-minister (1759-1806)
"The believer is happy; the doubter is wise."—Hungarian proverb
"Skeptics laugh in order not to weep."—Anatole France, French author, critic and poet (1844-1924)
"I take a simple view of living. It is keep your eyes open and get on with it."—Laurence Olivier, British actor (1907-1989)
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."—Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
"There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts."—Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
"I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."— Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet and artist (1883-1931)
"Human beings are the only creatures who are able to behave irrationally in the name of reason."—Ashley Montagu, English anthropologist (1905-1999)
"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."—Groucho Marx, comedian (1890-1977)
"Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else."—Unattributed
"Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time."—Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
"There's this thing called being so open-minded your brains drop out."—Richard Dawkins, biologist, author, philosopher (1941-)
"All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed."—Sean O'Casey, playwright (1880-1964)
"Every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit."—Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."—Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914)
"Never confuse motion with action."—Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
"Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them."—Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."—Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
"Make haste slowly."—Caesar Augustus, Roman emperor (63 BCE-14 CE)
"It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.'"—Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
"Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of the billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things within that enormous immensity."—Wernher von Braun, rocket engineer (1912-1977)
"Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."—Louis Dembitz Brandeis, lawyer, judge, and writer (1856-1941)
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong."—Eugene V. Debs, American Socialist (1855-1926)
"I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence."—Brendan Francis Behan, playwright (1923-1964)
"It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good."—Margaret Mead, American anthropologist (1901-1978)
"Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out—it's the grain of sand in your shoe."—Robert Service, writer (1874-1958)
"Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved."—Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
"Money often costs too much."—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882)
"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest."—Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551- 478 BCE)
"Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter."—African proverb
"Life is a long lesson in humility."—James M. Barrie, writer (1860-1937)
"The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little."—Mark Twain, author (1835-1910)
"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."—George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
"A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs—jolted by every pebble in the road."—Henry Ward Beecher, preacher and writer (1813-1887)
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."—Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
"Sometimes to remain silent is to lie."—Miguel de Unamuno, philosopher and writer (1864-1936)
"Excuse my dust."—Dorothy Parker's own epitaph - poet, short-story writer, theater critic and screenwriter (1893-1967)
"Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses."—Dorothy Parker - poet, short-story writer, theater critic and screenwriter (1893-1967)
"If all the girls in attendance were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised."—Dorothy Parker responding to "Wasn't the Yale prom wonderful?" Poet, short-story writer, theater critic and screenwriter (1893-1967)
"You know, that woman speaks 18 languages, and she can't say 'no' in any of them."—Dorothy Parker - poet, short-story writer, theater critic and screenwriter (1893-1967)
"Brevity is the soul of lingerie."—Dorothy Parker - poet, short-story writer, theater critic and screenwriter (1893-1967)
"It's a small apartment, I've barely enough room to lay my hat and a few friends."—Dorothy Parker - poet, short-story writer, theater critic and screenwriter (1893-1967)
"One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory."—Rita Mae Brown, author (1944- )
"When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity."—George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
"Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved."—Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."—George Washington (1732-1799)
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."—Samuel Johnson, English author, lexicographer (1709-1784)
"To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured; but when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him."—Oscar Wilde, Anglo-Irish playwright, author (1854-1900)
"To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man."—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)
"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants."—Isaac Newton, mathematician, physicist (1642-1727)
"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."—Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)
"Every woman is a 10; it just depends on what base you're counting in."—Unknown
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."—Abraham Lincoln, statesman, US President (1809-1865)
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."—Mignon McLaughlin, author
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke
"When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken."—David Hume, philosopher, historian (1711-1776)
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."—Dante Alighieri, poet (1265 -1321)
"I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."—Helen Keller, deaf and blind lecturer (1880-1968)
"I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money."—Arthur Godfrey
"Walking is also an ambulation of mind."—Gretel Ehrlich, novelist, poet, and essayist (1946- )
"Every saint has a past and every sinner a future."—Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
"Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment."—Rita Mae Brown, American writer and playwright
"People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within."—Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and author (1926- )
"Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity."—Albert Camus (1913-1960)
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity."—Frank Leahy
"When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it."—Clarence Darrow, lawyer, author (1857-1938)
"Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake."—Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
"Choosing the lesser of two evils, is still choosing evil"—Christopher Hampton, British playwright
"When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before."—Mae West
"Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves."—Abraham Lincoln, statesman, US President (1809-1865)
"Never mistake motion for action."—Ernest Hemingway, writer, journalist (1899-1961)
"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."—Groucho Marx
"Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults."—Benjamin Franklin, statesman, philosopher, journalist (1706-1790)
"Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes."—Antisthenes, Greek philosopher (ca 445- ca 365 BCE)
"Cannibals prefer those who have no spines."—Stanislaw Lem
"I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything."—Steven Wright, comedian (1955- ?)
"When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear."—Mark Twain, writer, philosopher (1835-1910)
"The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand-fold."—Aristotle, philosopher (ca 384- ca 322 BCE)
"I didn't know he was one of the first lawyers! The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization."—Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
"Trust in Allah, but tie your camel."—Arabic saying
"In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of great anger, do not answer anyone's letter."—Chinese proverb
"It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."—Moliere, playwright (1622-1673)
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."—Mark Twain, author, philosopher (1835-1910)
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it."—Mark Twain, author, philosopher (1835-1910)
"Familiarity breeds contempt—and children."—Mark Twain, author, philosopher (1835-1910)
"Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable."—Mark Twain, author, philosopher (1835-1910)
"The past may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme."—Mark Twain, author, philosopher (1835-1910)
"I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse."—Mark Twain, author, philosopher (1835-1910)
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."—Mark Twain, author, philosopher (1835-1910)
"Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together ..."—Carl Zwanzig
"Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint."—Mark Twain, author, philosopher (1835-1910)
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."—Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take."—Adlai Stevenson, statesman (1900-1965)
"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."—Frank Zappa
"Black holes are where God divided by zero."—Steven Wright, comedian (1955- ?)
"If you believe everything you read, better not read."—Japanese proverb
"A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."—Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
"So you're the man who can't spell fuck."—Dorothy Parker to Norman Mailer (he had been convinced by his publisher to use "fug" instead) Poet, short-story writer, theater critic and screenwriter (1893-1967)
"You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think"—Dorothy Parker - poet, short-story writer, theater critic and screenwriter (1893-1967)
"Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion."—Mark Twain, author, philosopher (1835-1910)
"We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech."—Kathleen Dixon, Director of women's studies department, Bowling Green State Univ. on disallowing the teaching of a course on Political Correctness
"Give me ambiguity or give me something else."—Unattributed
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."—Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher, theologian (1813-1855)
"We are not retreating—we are advancing in another direction."—General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)
"Adults are obsolete children."—Dr. Seuss (1904-1991)
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true."—James Branch Cabell
"It should be done with the same degree of alacrity and nonchalance that you would display in authorizing a highly intelligent trained bear to remove your appendix."—Dan Greenberg
"To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up."—Ogden Nash, poet (1902-1971)
"Having served on various committees, I have drawn up a list of rules: � Never arrive on time; this stamps you as a beginner. � Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise. � Be as vague as possible; this avoids irritating the others. � When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed. � Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular; it's what everyone is waiting for."—Harry Chapman
"Take care of those who work for you and you'll float to greatness on their achievements."—H.S.M. Burns
"A remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good in spite of all the people who say he is very good."—Robert Graves
"Television has done much for psychiatry, by spreading information about it as well as contributing to the need for it."—Alfred Hitchcock
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool."—Richard Feynman, physicist (1918-1988)
"What if this weren't a hypothetical question?"—Unattributed
"Everywhere is walking distance ... if you have the time."—Steven Wright, comedian (1955- ?)
"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever."—Chinese proverb
"It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well."—Rene Descartes, mathematician, philosopher (1596-1650) in "Le Discours de la Methode," 1637
"Experience is the comb life gives you after you lose your hair."—Judith Stearn
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."—Isaac Asimov, science-fiction writer (1920-1992)
"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare."—Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
"It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases."—Johan Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, poet and dramatist (1759-1805)
"There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it."—Mary Little
"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."—Mae West
"I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry."—Rita Rudner, comedian
"I know I am among civilized men because they are fighting so savagely."—Voltaire, write (1694-1778)
"If it's fact, it ain't brag."—Dizzy Dean
"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."—Socrates, philosopher, teacher (ca 470- ca 399 BCE)
"I think ... I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check."—M.C. Escher, artist (1898-1972)
"Children aren't happy without something to ignore. And that's what parents were created for."—Ogden Nash, poet (1902-1971)
"I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed."—Mark Twain, author, humorist (1835-1910)
"Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth."—Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
"A leader who keeps his ear to the ground allows his rear end to become a target."—Angie Papadakis
"Science is built with facts as a house is with stones—but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house."—Jules Henry Poincare (1854-1912)
"Wit is educated insolence."—Aristotle, philosopher (ca 384- ca 322 BCE)
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."—Josh Billings
"A practical man is a man who practices the errors of his forefathers."—Lord Beaconsfield
"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself."—Chinese Proverb
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear."— Mark Twain, author, humorist (1835-1910)
"Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both."— Oscar Wilde, writer, playwright (1854-1900)
"There is a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'."—Dave Barry
"There is far more opportunity than there is ability."—Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."—Saul Belloe
"I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management."—E.B. White
"They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me."—Nathaniel Lee (on being consigned to a mental institution, circa 17th c.)
"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking."—Theodore Rubin
"When you want to test the depths of a stream, don't use both feet."—Chinese Proverb
"A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint."—Albert Schweitzer, theologian, philosopher, missionary, physician (1875-1965)
"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."—Pablo Picasso, artist (1881-1973)
"There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust."—Sophocles, slave, philosopher, teacher (ca 495? - ca 406 BCE)
"Television is an invention whereby you can be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn't have in your house."—David Frost
"A child on the farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse and thinks of home."—Carl Burns
"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are gone, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing."—Benjamin Franklin, author, statesman (1706-1790)
"Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages 20 years."—Changing Times magazine
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."—Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't."—Anatole France
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."—Aristotle, philosopher (ca 384- ca 322 BCE)
"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."—Mark Twain, author, humorist (1835-1910)
"When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out."—Otto von Bismarck, 1st chancellor of German Empire (1815-1898)
"There are two things that you should never see being made: sausage, and... a political deal."—Otto von Bismarck (paraphrased) , 1st chancellor of German Empire (1815-1898)
"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."—Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist, poet (1803-1882)
"Lottery: a tax on people who are bad at math."—Unattributed
"The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back."—Abigail Van Buren
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."—Abraham Lincoln
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency, a great soul has simply nothing to do."—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 -1882)
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure."—Mark Twain (1835 -1910)
"When you look at Prince Charles, don't you think that someone in the Royal family knew someone in the Royal family?"—Robin Williams
"Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft—and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor."—Werner von Braun, rocket engineer (1912-1977)

Hard Work

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."—Vidal Sassoon

Human Nature And Social Interactions

"Anyone can be a barbarian; it requires a terrible effort to remain a civilized man."—Leonard Sidney Woolf
"People start to diet when their stomachs stick out further than their dickiedoos."—Andy Sipowicz, \emph{NYPD Blue}.
"Feeling guilty is one thing; looking guilty is something entirely different."—Dylan McCabe, \emph{Beverly Hills 90210}, airdate 04/00.
"Unconfronted behavior will continue."—Unknown
"It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission."—Unknown
"How far you go in life, depends on your being Tender with the young, Compassionate with the Aged, Sympathetic with the Striving and Tolerant of the Weak and the Strong. Because, someday in life you will have been all of these."—George Washington Carver.
"Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought."—From A Chinese Restaurant Fortune Cookie, 01/26/01
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Historical Figures, Napoleon

"[A]ny commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, insist on the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army's downfall."—Napoleon

Marriage (Favorable, From The Man's Point Of View)

"A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your wife will give you for free."—Anonymous

Marriage (Unfavorable, Genderless)

"Marriage is a three ring circus: engagement-ring, wedding-ring, suffer-ing."—Unknown
"When a newly married couple smiles, everyone knows why. When a ten-year married couple smiles, everyone wonders why."—Unknown
"Love is blind but marriage is an eye-opener."—Unknown
"When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one thing: either the car or the wife is new."—Unknown

Marriage (Unfavorable, From The Man's Point Of View)

"Every man should get married some time; after all, happiness is not the only thing in life!"—Anonymous
"An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have; the older she gets the more interested he is in her."—Agatha Christie
"Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others."—Oscar Wilde
"Don't marry for money; you can borrow it cheaper."—Scottish Proverb
"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."—Sam Kinison
"Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't, they'd be married too."—H. L. Mencken
"Men have a better time than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier."—H. L. Mencken
"A man without a woman is like a fish without a bicycle."—U2
"I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back."—Anonymous
"I asked my wife, 'Where do you want to go for our anniversary?' She said, 'Somewhere I have never been!' I told her, 'How about the kitchen?'"—Unknown
"We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops."—Unknown
"My wife was in beauty saloon for two hours. That was only for the estimate."—Unknown
"She got a mudpack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off."—Unknown
"She ran after the garbage truck, yelling, 'Am I too late for the garbage?' Following her down the street I yelled, 'No, jump in!'"—Unknown
"Badd Teddy recently explained to me why he refuses to ever get married. He said, 'the wedding rings look too much like minature handcuffs ...'"—Unknown
"If your dog is barking at the back door and your wife is yelling at the front door, who do you let in first? The dog of course...!!! At least he'll shut up after you let him in!"—Unknown
"A man placed some flowers on the grave of his dearly departed mother and started back toward his car when his attention was diverted to another man kneeling at a grave. The man seemed to be praying with profound intensity and kept repeating, 'Why did you have to die? Why did you have to die?' The first man approached him and said, 'Sir, I don't wish to interfere with your private grief, but this demonstration of pain is more than I've ever seen before. For whom do you mourn so deeply? A child? A parent?' The mourner took a moment to collect himself then replied, 'My wife's first husband.'"—Unknown
"A couple came upon a wishing well. The husband leaned over, made a wish and threw in a penny. The wife decided to make a wish, too. But she leaned over too much; fell into the well and drowned. The husband was stunned for a while but smiled 'It really works!'"—Unknown
"Before marriage, a man yearns for the woman he loves. After marriage, the 'y' becomes silent."—Unknown

Microsoft

"Not using Microsoft products is like being a non-smoker 40 or 50 years ago: you can choose not to smoke, yourself, but it's hard to avoid second-hand smoke."—M. Tiemann (from an e-mail footer belonging to Rick Moen—I do not know who M. Tiemann is)
"I sense much NT in you. NT leads to Bluescreen. Bluescreen leads to downtime. Downtime leads to suffering. NT is the path to the darkside. Powerful Unix is."—From an SSH mailing list post by Loren Lang in 12/2001.
"The best way to accelerate a computer running Windows is at 9.8 m/sec²."—From an e-mail footer used by Thomas Laane in 02/2002.
"Mr. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, once referred to Linux's licensing as 'a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.'"—From a New York Times article by Thomas Fuller entitled How Microsoft Warded Off Rival on May 15, 2003
"Failure is not an option, it comes bundled with your Microsoft product."—From an e-mail footer used by Henry Phillips in May, 2003
" Who needs horror movies when we have Microsoft?"— Christine Comaford, PC Week, 27 Sep 1995
" Where do you want to go today? It doesn't matter, you're coming with us."— Microsoft

Old Age

"Inside every older person is a younger person—wondering what the hell happened.—Cora Harvey Armstrong.
"The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy."—Helen Hayes (at 73)
"I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows."—Janette Barber
"Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse."—Lily Tomlin
"A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car."—Carrie Snow
"Old age ain't no place for sissies."—Bette Davis
"Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart."—Caryn Leschen

Pets, Cats

"There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast."—Unknown
"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this."—Unknown
"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow."—Jeff Valdez
"As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat."—Ellen Perry Berkeley
"Dogs come when they are called; cats take a message and get back to you later."—Mary Bly
"Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia."—Joseph Wood Krutch
"There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats."—Unknown
"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior."—Hippolyte Taine
"Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God."—Unknown
"You can train a cat to do anything it wants to do."—Unknown

Philosophers, Aristotle

"It is best that laws should be so constructed as to leave as little as possible to the decision of those who judge."—Aristotle, Rhetoric
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit."—Aristotle
"Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts."—Aristotle
"Happiness is the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope."—Aristotle

Philosophers, Henry David Thoreau

"There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect."—Henry David Thoreau

Police And Law Enforcement

"The handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch out after you wear them awhile."—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"If you run, you'll only go to jail tired."—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"So, you don't know how fast you were going. I guess that means I can write anything I want on the ticket, huh?"—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"Yes sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh, did I mention that I am the shift supervisor?"—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"Warning! You want a warning? O.K., I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket."—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or dog?"—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven."—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"Life's tough, it's tougher if you're stupid."—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"No sir, we don't have quotas anymore. We used to have quotas, but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we want."—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"Just how big were those two beers?"—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.
"In God we trust, all others are suspects."—From a humorous e-mail entitled Funny Police Quotes received around 04/08/00.

Political Figures, Winston Churchill

"True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information."—Winston Churchill

Political Figures, Bill And Hilary Clinton

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."—Hillary Clinton (commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents)

Political Figures, Al Gore

"Y'all know how I feel about Al Gore—he's as dull as sober missionary sex with someone you know."—Saturday Night Live comedian impersonating President Bill Clinton, broadcast date 04/01/00.
"A zebra does not change its spots."—Al Gore

Political Figures, Henry Kissinger

"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full."—Henry Kissinger
"Even paranoid people have enemies."—Henry Kissinger

Political Figures, Colin Powell

"Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer.
"Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off. Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions. It's inevitable, if you're honorable. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity: you'll avoid the tough decisions, you'll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted, and you'll avoid offering differential rewards based on differential performance because some people might get upset. Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by trying not to get anyone mad, and by treating everyone equally 'nicely' regardless of their contributions, you'll simply ensure that the only people you'll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. If this were a litmus test, the majority of CEOs would fail. One, they build so many barriers to upward communication that the very idea of someone lower in the hierarchy looking up to the leader for help is ludicrous. Two, the corporate culture they foster often defines asking for help as weakness or failure, so people cover up their gaps, and the organization suffers accordingly. Real leaders make themselves accessible and available. They show concern for the efforts and challenges faced by underlings, even as they demand high standards. Accordingly, they are more likely to create an environment where problem analysis replaces blame."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Don't be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Don't be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world. Small companies and start-ups don't have the time for analytically detached experts. They don't have the money to subsidize lofty elites, either. The president answers the phone and drives the truck when necessary; everyone on the payroll visibly produces and contributes to bottom-line results or they're history. But as companies get bigger, they often forget who 'brought them to the dance': things like all-hands involvement, egalitarianism, informality, market intimacy, daring, risk, speed, agility. Policies that emanate from ivory towers often have an adverse impact on the people out in the field who are fighting the wars or bringing in the revenues. Real leaders are vigilant, and combative, in the face of these trends."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard. Learn from the pros, observe them, seek them out as mentors and partners. But remember that even the pros may have leveled out in terms of their learning and skills. Sometimes even the pros can become complacent and lazy. Leadership does not emerge from blind obedience to anyone. Xerox's Barry Rand was right on target when he warned his people that if you have a yes-man working for you, one of you is redundant. Good leadership encourages everyone's evolution."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Strategy equals execution. All the great ideas and visions in the world are worthless if they can't be implemented rapidly and efficiently. Good leaders delegate and empower others liberally, but they pay attention to details, every day. (Think about supreme athletic coaches like Jimmy Johnson, Pat Riley and Tony La Russa). Bad ones, even those who fancy themselves as progressive 'visionaries', think they're somehow `above' operational details. Paradoxically, good leaders understand something else: an obsessive routine in carrying out the details begets conformity and complacency, which in turn dulls everyone's mind. That is why even as they pay attention to details, they continually encourage people to challenge the process. They implicitly understand the sentiment of CEO leaders like Quad Graphic's Harry Quadracchi, Oticon's Lars Kolind and the late Bill McGowan of MCI, who all independently asserted that the job of a leader is not to be the chief organizer, but the chief dis-organizer."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"You don't know what you can get away with until you try."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"You don't know what you can get away with until you try. You know the expression, 'it's easier to get forgiveness than permission'. Well, it's true. Good leaders don't wait for official blessing to try things out. They're prudent, not reckless. But they also realize a fact of life in most organizations: if you ask enough people for permission, you'll inevitably come up against someone who believes his job is to say 'no'. So the moral is, don't ask. Less effective middle managers endorsed the sentiment, 'If I haven't explicitly been told yes, I can't do it', whereas the good ones believed, `If I haven't explicitly been told no, I can.' There's a world of difference between these two points of view."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Keep looking below surface appearances. Don't shrink from doing so (just) because you might not like what you find."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Keep looking below surface appearances. Don't shrink from doing so (just) because you might not like what you find. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared. It's an excuse for inaction, a call to non-arms. It's a mind-set that assumes (or hopes) that today's realities will continue tomorrow in a tidy, linear and predictable fashion. Pure fantasy. In this sort of culture, you won't find people who pro-actively take steps to solve problems as they emerge. Here's a little tip: don't invest in these companies."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Organization doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Organization doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds. In a brain-based economy, your best assets are people. We've heard this expression so often that it's become trite. But how many leaders really 'walk the talk' with this stuff? Too often, people are assumed to be empty chess pieces to be moved around by grand viziers, which may explain why so many top managers immerse their calendar time in deal making, restructuring and the latest management fad. How many immerse themselves in the goal of creating an environment where the best, the brightest, the most creative are attracted, retained and, most importantly, unleashed?"—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing. Organization charts are frozen, anachronistic photos in a work place that ought to be as dynamic as the external environment around you. If people really followed organization charts, companies would collapse. In well-run organizations, titles are also pretty meaningless. At best, they advertise some authority, an official status conferring the ability to give orders and induce obedience. But titles mean little in terms of real power, which is the capacity to influence and inspire. Have you ever noticed that people will personally commit to certain individuals who on paper (or on the organization chart) possess little authority, but instead possess pizzazz, drive, expertise, and genuine caring for teammates and products? On the flip side, non-leaders in management may be formally anointed with all the perks and frills associated with high positions, but they have little influence on others, apart from their ability to extract minimal compliance to minimal standards."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it. Too often, change is stifled by people who cling to familiar turfs and job descriptions. One reason that even large organizations wither is that managers won't challenge old, comfortable ways of doing things. But real leaders understand that, nowadays, every one of our jobs is becoming obsolete. The proper response is to obsolete our activities before someone else does. Effective leaders create a climate where people's worth is determined by their willingness to learn new skills and grab new responsibilities, thus perpetually reinventing their jobs. The most important question in performance evaluation becomes not, 'How well did you perform your job since the last time we met?' but, 'How much did you change it?'—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission. Flitting from fad to fad creates team confusion, reduces the leader's credibility, and drains organizational coffers. Blindly following a particular fad generates rigidity in thought and action. Sometimes speed to market is more important than total quality. Sometimes an unapologetic directive is more appropriate than participatory discussion. Some situations require the leader to hover closely; others require long, loose leashes. Leaders honor their core values, but they are flexible in how they execute them. They understand that management techniques are not magic mantras but simply tools to be reached for at the right times."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. The ripple effect of a leader's enthusiasm and optimism is awesome. So is the impact of cynicism and pessimism. Leaders who whine and blame engender those same behaviors among their colleagues. I am not talking about stoically accepting organizational stupidity and performance incompetence with a 'what, me worry?' smile. I am talking about a gung-ho attitude that says 'we can change things here, we can achieve awesome goals, we can be the best.' Spare me the grim litany of the 'realist', give me the unrealistic aspirations of the optimist any day."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Powell's Rules for Picking People: Look for intelligence and judgment, and most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego, and the drive to get things done."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Powell's Rules for Picking People: Look for intelligence and judgment, and most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego, and the drive to get things done. How often do our recruitment and hiring processes tap into these attributes? More often than not, we ignore them in favor of length of resume, degrees and prior titles. A string of job descriptions a recruit held yesterday seem to be more important than who one is today, what they can contribute tomorrow, or how well their values mesh with those of the organization. You can train a bright, willing novice in the fundamentals of your business fairly readily, but it's a lot harder to train someone to have integrity, judgment, energy, balance, and the drive to get things done. Good leaders stack the deck in their favor right in the recruitment phase."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand. Effective leaders understand the KISS principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid. They articulate vivid, over-arching goals and values, which they use to drive daily behaviors and choices among competing alternatives. Their visions and priorities are lean and compelling, not cluttered and buzzword-laden. Their decisions are crisp and clear, not tentative and ambiguous. They convey an unwavering firmness and consistency in their actions, aligned with the picture of the future they paint. The result: clarity of purpose, credibility of leadership, and integrity in organization."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Part I: 'Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired.' Part II: 'Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut'."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Part I: 'Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired.' Part II: 'Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.' Don't take action if you have only enough information to give you less than a 40 percent chance of being right, but don't wait until you have enough facts to be 100 percent sure, because by then it is almost always too late. Today, excessive delays in the name of information-gathering breeds 'analysis paralysis.' Procrastination in the name of reducing risk actually increases risk."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise. Too often, the reverse defines corporate culture. This is one of the main reasons why leaders like Ken Iverson of Nucor Steel, Percy Barnevik of Asea Brown Boveri, and Richard Branson of Virgin have kept their corporate staffs to a bare-bones minimum—how about fewer than 100 central corporate staffers for global $30 billion-plus ABB? Or around 25 and 3 for multi-billion Nucor and Virgin, respectively? Shift the power and the financial accountability to the folks who are bringing in the beans, not the ones who are counting or analyzing them."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Have fun in your command. Don't always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you've earned it: Spend time with your families. Corollary: surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Have fun in your command. Don't always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you've earned it: Spend time with your families. Corollary: surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard. Herb Kelleher of Southwest Air and Anita Roddick of The Body Shop would agree: seek people who have some balance in their lives, who are fun to hang out with, who like to laugh (at themselves, too) and who have some non-job priorities which they approach with the same passion that they do their work. Spare me the grim workaholic or the pompous pretentious 'professional'; I'll help them find jobs with my competitor."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Command is lonely."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer (quote probably from Truman)
"Command is lonely. Harry Truman was right. Whether you're a CEO or the temporary head of a project team, the buck stops here. You can encourage participative management and bottom-up employee involvement, but ultimately the essence of leadership is the willingness to make the tough, unambiguous choices that will have an impact on the fate of the organization. I've seen too many non-leaders flinch from this responsibility. Even as you create an informal, open, collaborative corporate culture, prepare to be lonely."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer
"Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible."—Colin Powell, from a PowerPoint presentation, A Leadership Primer

Note: Colin Powell's presentation, A Leadership Primer, is available as a .ZIP'd PowerPoint presentation here.

Political Figures, Dan Quayle

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."—Former U.S. Vice-president Dan Quayle
"I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix."—Former U.S. Vice-president Dan Quayle
"The loss of life will be irreplaceable."—Former U.S. Vice-president Dan Quayle
"I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have is that I didn't study my Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people."—Former U.S. Vice-president Dan Quayle
"Hawaii is a unique state. It is a small state. It is a state that is by itself. It is different from the other 49 states. Well, all states are different, but it's got a particularly unique situation."—Former U.S. Vice-president Dan Quayle

Political Figures, Ronald Reagan

"I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress."—Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan

Politics, Political Doubletalk, Doubletalk

"We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people."—Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor
"Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas."—Keppel Enderbery
"If you let that sort of thing go on, your bread and butter will be cut right out from under your feet."—Former British foreign minister, Ernest Bevin
"I have opinions of my own ... strong opinions ... but I don't always agree with them."—George Bush, former U.S President
"We have to pause and ask ourselves how much clean air do we need?"—Lee Iacocca, former CEO, Chrysler Corp
"I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version."—Colonel Oliver North, from his Iran-Contra testimony
"I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."—David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, (answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes)
"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country."—Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC
"China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese."—Former French President Charles De Gaulle
"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it."—A congressional candidate in Texas

Religion

"Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power."—Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."— Stephen F. Roberts
"It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us."—Peter De Vries, novelist (1910-1993)
"There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners; and the sinners who believe themselves righteous.—Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
"Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I am not too sure.'"— H.L.Mencken, author (1880 - 1956)
"Conceit is God's gift to little men."—Bruce Barton
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today."— Isaac Asimov, author (1920 - 1992)
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."— Steven Weinberg (1933 - ), quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999
"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes."—James Feibleman
"A superstition is a premature explanation that overstays its time."—George Iles
"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."—John Adams (1735 -1826)
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."—Thomas Jefferson (1743 -1826)
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."—Thomas Jefferson (1743 -1826)
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his Father, in the womb of a virgin will be classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors."—Thomas Jefferson (1743 -1826)
"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."—Abraham Lincoln (1809 -1865)
"As to Jesus of Nazareth ... I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity."—Benjamin Franklin (1706 -1790)
"The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion."—Thomas Paine (1737 -1809)
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."—Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages."—Ruth Hermence Green
"We are taught to believe that there's an invisible man who lives in the sky, who has a list of 10 things he doesn't want you to do, who watches you every minute of every day, and if you do something he doesn't like, he's going to send you to a burning lake of fire ... forever. But He loves you.—George Carlin
"To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing."—Hypatia
"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."—Dorothy Parker - poet, short-story writer, theater critic and screenwriter (1893-1967)
"I read the whole of the Bible, and apply common sense to it. Sorry to be so boring. Something which is said several thousand times (e.g. God is worried about the poor) I regard as more important than something which is said once (e.g. God thinks being gay incurs ritual pollution) or never (e.g. God doesn't approve of abortion). If I understand them correctly, the fundamentalists take the opposite approach: abortion is the most important issue, homosexuality the second most important, and feeding the poor doesn't matter at all."—Andrew Rilstone (Andrew@aslan.demon.co.uk)
"Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe."—Alphonso the Wise (1221-1284)
"What religion are you afflicted with?"—Unknown
"Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose."—Frederick Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."—Blaise Pascal, philosopher, mathematician (1623-1662)
"I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian God may exist; so may the Gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them."—Lord Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."—William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."—Steven Weinberg, physicist, Nobel Laureate (1933-)
"Man is a marvelous curiosity ... he thinks he is the Creator's pet; he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea."—Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
"One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed in it. They have also believed the world was flat."—Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
"I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious - unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force."—Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
"Irreverence is another person's disrespect to your god; there isn't any word that tells what your disrespect to his god is."—Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."—Frank Lloyd Wright, architect (1867-1959)
"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."—Richard Dawkins, biologist, author, philosopher (1941-)
"My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed."-Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)
"So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs."—Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (1850-1919)
"No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition that Paul boldly set it on it's legs again in the name of Jesus."—George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
"If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated."—Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
"If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another."—Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)
"Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion."—John Adams (1797-1801)
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."—Richard Dawkins, biologist, author, philosopher (1941-)
"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."—H. L. Mencken, author (1880 - 1956)
"Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits."—Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith", 1992
"If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?"—Unattributed

Scientists And Mathematicians, Marie Curie

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."—Marie Curie

Scientists And Mathematicians, Edsger Dijkstra

"The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of whether submarines can swim."—Edsger W. Dijkstra

Scientists And Mathematicians, Albert Einstein

"We are all very ignorant, but not all ignorant of the same things."—Albert Einstein
"Thus I came — despite the fact that I was the son of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents — to a deep religiosity, which, however, found an abrupt ending at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude towards the convictions which were alive in any specific social environment .... I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals ..."— Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955) - August, 1927 — Einstein Archive 48-380
"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."-Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955) at Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium, 1941
" Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."— Albert Einstein, physicist (1879 - 1955)
"There are only two truly infinite things, the universe and stupidity. And I am unsure about the universe."—Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)
"What terrifies us is not the explosive force of the atomic bomb, but the power of the wickedness of the human heart."—Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."—Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)
"The more I study physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics."—Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)
"Definition of Insanity: Endlessly repeating the same process, hoping for a different result."—Albert Einstein
"Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler."—Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."—Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)

Scientists And Mathematicians, G.H. Hardy

"It is never worth a first class man's time to express a majority opinion. By definition, there are plenty of others to do that."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"For any serious purpose, intelligence is a very minor gift."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"Young men ought to be conceited: but they oughtn't to be imbecile."—G.H. Hardy (according to C.P. Snow in the foreword of A Mathematician's Apology, said after someone had tried to convince Hardy that Finnegans Wake was the final literary masterpiece.)
"Sometimes one has to say difficult things, but one ought to say them as simply as one knows how."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings; there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"... There is no one so stupid as to use this sort of language about mathematics. The mass of mathematical truth is obvious and imposing; its practical applications, the bridges and the steam engines and dynamos, obtrude themselves on the dullest imagination."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"... Some egotism of this sort is inevitable, and I do not feel that it really needs justification. Good work is not done by 'humble' men. It is one of the first duties of a professor, for example, in any subject, to exaggerate a little both the importance of his subject and his own importance in it. A man who is always asking 'Is what I do worth while?' and 'Am I the right person to do it?' will always be ineffective himself and a discouragement to others."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"... I am not suggesting that this is a defence which can be made by most people, since most people can do nothing at all well."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"... If a man has any genuine talent, he should be ready to make almost any sacrifice in order to cultivate it to the full."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"I do not know an instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. If a man of mature age loses interest in and abandons mathematics, the loss is not likely to be very serious either for mathematics or for himself."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"It is quite true that most people can do nothing well. If so, it matters very little what career they choose, and there is really nothing more to say about it. It is a conclusive reply, but hardly one likely to be made by a man with any pride; and I may assume that none of us would be content with it."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"(Speaking with respect to mathematical achievement) ... What we do may be small, but it has a certain character of permanence; and to have produced anything of the slightest permanent interest, whether it be a copy of verses or a geometrical theorem, is to have done something utterly beyond the powers of the vast majority of men."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"(Speaking with respect to mathematical achievement) ... In these days of conflict between ancient and modern studies, there must surely be something to be said for a study which did not begin with Pythagoras, and will not end with Einstein, but is the oldest and the youngest of all."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"A man's first duty, a young man's at any rate, is to be ambitious."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"... We must guard against a fallacy common apologists of science, the fallacy of supposing that the men whose work benefits humanity are thinking much of that while they do it ... There are many highly respectable motives that may lead men to prosecute research, but there are three which are much more important than the rest. The first (without which the rest must come to nothing) is intellectual curiosity, desire to know the truth. Then, professional pride, anxiety to be satisfied with one's performance, the shame that overcomes any self-respecting craftsman when his work is unworthy of his talent. Finally, ambition, desire for reputation, and the position, even the power or the money, which it brings."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"If intellectual curiosity, professional pride, and ambition are the dominant incentives to research, then assuredly no one has a fairer chance of gratifying them then a mathematician. His subject is the most curious of all—there is none in which truth plays such odd pranks. It has the most elaborate and the most fascinating technique, and gives unrivalled openings for the display of sheer professional skill. Finally, as history proves abundantly, mathematical achievement, whatever its intrinsic worth, is the most enduring of all."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"Immortality may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"... Farey is immortal because he failed to understand a theorem which Haros had proved perfectly fourteen years before ... But on the whole the history of science is fair, and this is particularly true in mathematics ... and the men who are remembered are almost always the men who merit it."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, pp. 81-82, citing instances where mathematical history was inaccurate
"It is sometimes suggested, by lawyers or politicians or business men, that an academic career is one sought mainly by cautious and unambitious persons who care primarily for comfort and security."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p.82
"A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p.84
"... Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p.85
"It may be very hard to define mathematical beauty, but that is just as true of beauty of any kind—we may not know quite what we mean by a beautiful poem, but that does not prevent us from recognizing one when we read it."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"There are, to be sure, individuals for whom mathematics exercises a coldly impersonal attraction ... The aesthetic appeal of mathematics may be very real for a chosen few."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, quoting Hogben, p. 86
"The seriousness of a theorem, of course, does not lie in its consequences, which are merely the evidence for its seriousness. Shakespeare had an enormous influence on the development of the English language, Otway next to none, but that is not why Shakespeare was the better poet. He was the better poet because he wrote much better poetry."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p.90
"The number of primes less than 1,000,000,000 is 50,847,478: that is enough for an engineer, and he can be perfectly happy without the rest."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p.102
"Some measure of generality must be present in any high-class theorem, but too much tends inevitably towards insipidity. 'Everything is what it is, and not another thing', and the differences between things are quite as interesting as their resemblances. We do not choose our friends because they embody all the pleasant qualities of humanity, but because they are the people that they are."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 109
"It seems that mathematical ideas are arranged somehow in strata, the ideas in each stratum being linked by a complex of relations both among themselves and with those above and below. The lower the stratum, the deeper (and in general the more difficult) the idea. Thus the idea of an 'irrational' is deeper than that of an integer ... Let us concentrate our attention on the relations between the integers, or some other group of objects lying in some particular stratum. Then it may happen that one of these relations can be comprehended completely, that we can recognize and prove, for example, some property of the integers, without any knowledge of the contents of lower strata ... But there are also many theorems about integers which we cannot appreciate properly, and still less prove, without digging deeper and considering what happens below."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, pp. 110-111
"We do not want many 'variations' in the proof of a mathematical theorem: 'enumeration of cases', indeed, is one of the duller forms of mathematical argument. A mathematical proof should resemble a simple and clear-cut constellation, not a scattered cluster in the Milky Way."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 113
"It is sometimes suggested that pure mathematicians glory in the uselessness of their work, and make it a boast that it has no practical applications. The imputation is usually based on an incautious saying attributed to Gauss, to the effect that, if mathematics is the queen of the sciences, the the theory of numbers is, because of its supreme uselessness, the queen of mathematics—I have never been able to find an exact quotation. I am sure that Gauss's saying (if indeed it be his) has been rather crudely misinterpreted. If the theory of numbers could be employed for any practical and obviously honourable purpose, if it could be turned directly to the furtherance of human happiness of the relief of human suffering, as physiology and even chemistry can, the surely neither Gauss nor any other mathematician would have been so foolish as to decry or regret such applications. But science works for evil as well as for good (and particularly, of course in time of war); and both Gauss and lesser mathematicians may be justified in rejoicing that there is one science at any rate, and that their own, whose very remoteness from ordinary human activities should keep it gentle and clean."G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, pp. 120-121
"I began by saying that there is probably less difference between the positions of a mathematician and of a physicist than is generally supposed, and that the most important seems to me to be this, that the mathematician is in much more direct contact with reality ... mathematical objects are so much more what they seem. A chair or a star is not in the least like what it seems to be; the more we think of it, the fuzzier its outlines become in the haze of sensation which surround it; but '2' or '317' has nothing to do with sensation, and its properties stand out the more clearly the more closely we scrutinize it."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, pp. 128-130
"It is the dull and elementary parts of applied mathematics, as it is the dull and elementary parts of pure mathematics, that work for good or ill. Time may change all this. No one foresaw the applications of matrices and groups and other purely mathematical theories to modern physics, and it may be that some of the 'highbrow' applied mathematics will become 'useful' in as unexpected a way; but the evidence so far points to the conclusion that, in one subject as in the other, it is what is commonplace and dull that counts for practical life."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p.132. (Written around 1940, this was an uncanny precursor to nuclear weaponry.)
"There is one comforting conclusion which is easy for a real mathematician. Real mathematics has no effects on war. No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will do so for many years. It is true that there are branches of applied mathematics, such as ballistics and aerodynamics, which have been developed deliberately for war and demand a quite elaborate technique: it is perhaps hard to call them 'trivial', but none of them has any claim to rank as 'real'. They are indeed repulsively ugly and intolerably dull; even Littlewood could not make ballistics respectable, and if he could not who can?"—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 140. (Written around 1940, this was an uncanny precursor to nuclear weaponry. Also, Snow writes in the foreword, pp. 39-40, "Hardy's close friends were away at the war. Littlewood was doing ballistics as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. Owing to his cheerful indifference he had the distinction of remaining a Second Lieutenant through the four years of the war.")
"... there are two sharply contrasted views about modern scientific war. The first and the most obvious is that the effect of science on war is merely to magnify its horror, both by increasing the sufferings of the minority who have to fight and by extending them to other classes. This is the most natural and the orthodox view. But there is a very different view which seems also quite tenable, and which has been stated with great force by Haldane in Callinicus. It can be maintained that modern warfare is less horrible than the warfare of pre-scientific times; the bombs are probably more merciful than bayonets; that lachrymatory gas and mustard gas are perhaps the most humane weapons yet devised by military science; and that the orthodox view rests solely on loose-thinking sentimentalism. It may also be urged (although this was not one of Haldane's theses) that the equalization of risks which science was expected to bring would be in the long run salutary; that a civilian's wife is not worth more than a soldier's, nor a woman's more than a man's; that anything is better than the concentration of savagery on one particular class; and that, in short, the sooner the war comes 'all out' the better."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 142
"When the world is mad, a mathematician may find in mathematics an incomparable anodyne. For mathematics is, of all the arts and sciences, the most austere and the most remote, and a mathematician should be for all men the one who can most easily take refuge where, as Bertrand Russell says, 'one at least of our nobler impulese can best escape from the dreary exile of the actual world'. It is a pity that is should be necessary to make one very serious reservation—he must not be too old. Mathematics is not a contemplative but a creative subject; no one can draw much consolation from it when he has lost the power or the desire to create; and that is apt to happen to a mathematician rather soon."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 143
"I cannot remember ever having wanted to be anything but a mathematician. I suppose that it was always clear that my specific abilities lay that way, and it never occurred to me to question the verdict of my elders. I do not remember having felt, as a boy, any passion for mathematics, and such notions as I may have had of the career of a mathematician were far from noble. I thought of mathematics in terms of examinations and scholarships: I wanted to beat other boys, and this seemed to be the way in which I could do so most decisively."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 144
"I had of course found at school, as every future mathematician does, that I could often do things much better than my teachers; and even at Cambridge I found, though naturally much less frequently, that I could sometimes do things better than the College lecturers."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 146-147
"It is plain now that my life, for what it is worth, is finished, and that nothing I can do can perceptibly increase or diminish its value. It is very difficult to be dispassionate, but I count it as a 'success'; I have had more reward and not less than was due to a man of my particular grade of ability. I have held a series of comfortable and 'dignified' positions. I have had very little trouble with the duller routine of universities. I hate 'teaching', and have had to do very little, such teaching as I have done having been almost entirely supervision of research; I love lecturing, and have lectured a great deal to extremely able classes; and I have always had plenty of leisure for the researches which have been the one great permanent happiness of my life. I have found it easy to work with others, and have collaborated on a large scale with two exceptional mathematicians; and this has enabled me to add to mathematics a good deal more than I could reasonably have expected. I have had my disappointments, like any other mathematician, but none of them has been too serious or has made me particularly unhappy. If I had been offered a life neither better nor worse when I was twenty, I would have accepted without hesitation."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 149
"My choice was right, then, if what I wanted was a reasonably comfortable and happy life. But solicitors and stockbrokers and bookmakers often lead comfortable and happy lives, and it is very difficult to see how the world is richer for their existence. Is there any sense in which I can claim that my life has been less futile than theirs? It seems to me again that there is only one possible answer: yes, perhaps, but, if so, for one reason only. I have never done anything 'useful'. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world. I have helped to train other mathematicians, but mathematicians of the same kind as myself, and their work has been, so far at any rate as I have helped them to it, as useless as my own. Judged by all practical standards, the value of my mathematical life is nil; and outside mathematics it is trivial anyhow. I have just one chance of escaping a verdict of complete triviality, that I may be judged to have created something worth creating. And that I have created something is undeniable: the question is about its value. The case for my life, then, or for that of any one else who has been a mathematician in the same sense in which I have been one, is this: that I have added something to knowledge, and helped others to add more; and that these somethings have a value which differs in degree only, and not in kind, from that of the creations of the great mathematicians, or of any of the other artists, great or small, who have left some kind of memorial behind them."—G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, pp. 150-151

Note: As of May 11, 2003, Hardy's book, A Mathematician's Apology, is available new from Amazon for $11.90. Also as of May 11, 2003, there are 5 copies available at Half.com for as low as $6.12.

Scientists And Mathematicians, James S. Harris

"My peers are Gauss and Euler, not ANY of you."—James S. Harris, as the SUBJ field in a sci.math newsgroup post dated July 4, 2002

Scientists And Mathematicians, Bertrand Russell

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

Scientists And Mathematicians, Carl Sagan

"One of the great commandments of science is: 'Mistrust arguments from authority.'"—Carl Sagan
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar', every 'supreme leader', every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived here—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."—Carl Sagan, precise source unknown
"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds."—Carl Sagan, precise source unknown
"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."—Carl Sagan, precise source unknown
"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least not in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand."—Carl Sagan, precise source unknown
"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."—Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, publication details unknown
" If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe."— Carl Sagan, astronomer, author (1934-1996)

Software, Software Engineering, Etc.

"Can someone give a hint on how many lines of code a programmer can produce a day? I know that this depends on the language, etc., but I'm most interested in C/C++. On my most productive single day, the program I was working on had 3000 fewer lines than it did when I started."—quote which Dan Parks got from a newsgroup, source unknown
"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked ... A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system."—Grady Booch
"The trouble with many Software Engineering principles and methodologies is they don't concentrate on doing the time-consuming, difficult and error-prone process of getting the system requirements straightened out—instead relying on 'well defined procedures' which are easy to specify, but don't help much when trying to understand what a system needs to accomplish—or more importantly, coaxing a non-technical project lead to devote his/her resources to spending time with the users."—Unknown
"I've been developing systems of varying complexity since 1990 and have yet to hear of a software engineering methodology which improves significantly on the basic principle of studying what the user needs, organizing it, adapting to change and implementing—usually in combination. UML isn't much more than a notational change to the entity/relationship/"flowcharting"/whatever we did a decade ago. The CASE tools have marginally improved since, but not markedly. But thats only my take on it ... no doubt I'm part of the problem.—Unknown
"Frankly, I figure the SEI rating stuff has a half-life of about 4 years, its got 5 or 6 more before it falls into the dustbin of antiquity. But, its in good company with TQM and all the other philosophies which aren't dealing with the hard problems.—Possibly from a book by Steve McConnell entitled After The Gold Rush, but probably from a review of the book. This quote forwarded to me by Dan Parks in November 2000.
"You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing viability of FORTRAN."—Alan Perlis
"The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of meeting the schedule has been forgotten."—Anonymous
"Requirements are like water. They're easier to build on when they're frozen."—Anonymous
"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."—Michael Sinz
"Bugs lurk in corners and congregate at boundaries."—Boris Beizer, Software Testing Techniques
"In programming, it's often the 'buts' in the specification that kill you."—Boris Beizer, Software Testing Techniques
"Poor management can increase software costs more rapidly than any other factor."—Barry Boehm
"It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a 'DestroyBaghdad' procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a 'DestroyCity' procedure, to which 'Baghdad' could be given as a parameter."—Nathaniel S. Borenstein
"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."—Nathaniel S. Borenstein
"Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature."—Bruce Brown
"The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it's too late."—Seymour Cray
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."—C. A. R. Hoare
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil in programming."—C. A. R. Hoare
"Programming can be fun, so can cryptography; however they should not be combined."—Kreitzberg and Shneiderman
"The only thing more frightening than a programmer with a screwdriver or a hardware engineer with a program is a user with a pair of wire cutters and the root password."—Elizabeth Zwicky
"Programming without an overall architecture or design in mind is like exploring a cave with only a flashlight: you don't know where you've been, you don't know where you're going, and you don't know quite where you are."—Danny Thorpe
"Act in haste and repent at leisure; code too soon and debug forever."—Raymond Kennington
"At some point you have to decide whether you're going to be a politician or an engineer. You cannot be both. To be a politician is to champion perception over reality. To be an engineer is to make perception subservient to reality. They are opposites. You can't do both simultaneously."—H. W. Kenton
"'Don't fix it if it ain't broke' presupposed that you can't improve something that works reasonably well already. If the world's inventors had believed this, we'd still be driving Model A Fords and using outhouses."—H. W. Kenton
"There has never been an unexpectedly short debugging period in the history of computers."—Steven Levy
"An interactive debugger is an outstanding example of what is not needed—it encourages trial-and-error hacking rather than systematic design, and also hides marginal people barely qualified for precision programming."—Harald Mills
"We try to solve the problem by rushing through the design process so that enough time is left at the end of the project to uncover the errors that were made because we rushed through the design process."—Glenford J. Myers
" Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later."— Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. [The Mythical Man-Month]
" Hofstadter's Law: The time and effort required to complete a project are always more than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."

Sports And Sports Figures

"Big names don't make me weak in the knees."—Taylor Dent
"The word genius isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."—Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback and sports analyst
"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."—Winston Bennett, Univ. of Kentucky basketball forward
"We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees."—Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks
"... the genes almost always accurately reproduce. If they don't, you get one of the following results: One, monsters—that is, grossly malformed babies resulting from genetic mistakes. Years ago most monsters died, but now many can be saved. That has made possible the National Football League."—Cecil Adams
"Half this game is ninety percent mental."—Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark

Unpleasant Work Situations, Bad Bosses, Etc.

"If you're unfortunate enough to have co-workers, you must learn how to manage them. Otherwise, like so many wildebeests on the plains of the Serengeti, they will be bumping into you, drinking from your water hole, and generally kicking up a lot of dust. That will cut into your happiness."—Scott Adams, The Joy Of Work.
"If you can decrease the unpleasantness that you experience at work, it's almost the same as giving yourself a raise."—Scott Adams, The Joy Of Work.
"I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism."—Charles M. Schwab

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Pinar Kondu, Lou Miller, Daniel R. Parks, Jim Weinfurther and Marilyn A. Ashley for quotes.

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